October 2006 - Reading The Pictures

Bush Focus Photo October 31, 2006

Three For The Road

President Bush arrives at Andrews Air Force Base Saturday for a short campaign trip. In the way photographs paint pictures, this one makes Bush look like a small boy in the back of an SUV, although it's only the usual armored limo.

Bush Focus Photo October 30, 2006

The Partial George Allen

If on the abstract side, I found the portrait of Allen and his wife, Susan, representative of both the Senator's, and the Republican's dilemma. It's not just that heads and legs have been cut off (which is what this election portends for the GOP majority, as well as many...

Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo October 29, 2006

Your Turn: Turning A Phrase

One thing that's tricky about news images is that the ground is always shifting under your feet.

Campaign '06 Photo October 28, 2006

Potemkin Village

These photographs recently ran in the Los Angeles Times with an article on the department's training academy in New Mexico. Enrollment this year has climbed to 3600. Seen from a distance, they offer a small Potemkin village. Up close, it looks like an attempt to convince every concerned American...

Campaign '06 Photo October 27, 2006

Playing With The Code

I was taking a closer look at the RNC's racist anti-Harold Ford commercial. Because the ad is so blatant -- associating Ford with ugly stereotypes regarding the black man's sexual appetite and hankering for white women -- one tends to overlook the more subtle touches.

Campaign '06 Photo October 26, 2006

Michael J. Fox

The NYT describes it as one of the most powerful political ads ever made. But then, The Times (link) wipes its feet on it by pigeonholing the spot as primarily an attack ad. To frame Michael J. Fox side-by-side with Willie Horton is not only disgusting, it misses the whole...

Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo October 24, 2006

911

How incredibly sad that, three-and-a-half years after what was supposed to be a quick-and-easy Iraq invasion, an U.S. Stryker armored vehicle is what passes for a Baghdad squad car; the peace (if you dare call it that) is best managed through a gunner's site; and the only dependable patrolman...

Campaign '06 Photo

The Gloves Come Off

A hat tip to Rolling Stone for bypassing the election handicapping, "will-they-or-won't-they" punditry over majorities and minorities, and just flat-out laying into this Congress. Given The BAG's visual eye (and the fact an election is barreling down), I took a particular interest in the accompanying feature, The "10 Worst...

Campaign '06 Photo

Just Prey

In these days of high tech gadgets and gizmos, sometimes an old-fashioned telephoto lens makes a great stand-in for a polygraph machine. There are no electrodes to hook up, and most politicians willingly submit to the test. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, demonstrates its simplicity, not to mention...

Bush Focus Photo October 22, 2006

Down To Business

What about this shot on the White House web site yesterday? You know the Administration wants to drive home a point when they offer a single pic on the photo gallery. And what a clear message it is: 'We are going to solve this mess even if we have...

Media Focus Photo

Your Turn: The Tension Of Clichy-sous-Bois

Yesterday, the NYT featured this image with an article on the upcoming one year anniversary of suburban rioting in France. The picture, in fact, led the on-line edition. These faces viscerally convey how much these young men perceive themselves (and sense themselves, through the gaze of society) as animals,...

Culture Focus Photo October 21, 2006

Vewy Vewy Quiet

On a recent weekend in the Nevada desert, amateur rocket scientists, mostly male of course, gathered to show off, then shoot off, their latest work. Scenes like this are the modern version of a Norman Rockwell painting; it's the grand and intensely American vision of of space exploration scaled to...

Photo October 20, 2006

See Ya, Karl! (Or, Turning The Table On Conservative Symbolism)

Breaking Up The Right-Wing Cultural Monopoly.

Bush Focus Photo October 19, 2006

Burning Bush — Congress Edition

(click for full size) Is Bush poison? The NYT published a striking photo yesterday of the ceremony in which the President signed his highly touted (and much defended) terror interrogation legislation. (Story.) If you can find a more bitter image of legislative triumph, I’d love to see it. The...

Faith Focus Photo October 17, 2006

Buddy Jesus

Just like the long running SNL News gag announcing that Franco, the former dictator, was "still dead," I imagine a modern equivalent tracking the moribund condition of irony. In a humorless reality where Popes hurl daggers and cultures do battle over cartoons, news comes that a sophomoric Hollywood creation, designed...

Uncategorized Photo October 16, 2006

Straight Party Line

This U.S. State Department press release photo is mentioned in Frank Rich's column in yesterday's NYT, showing Laura Bush watching as Secretary of State Condi Rice swears in Mark Dybul as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. Mr. Dybul's partner, Jason Claire, holds the Bible.

Scandal Focus Photo October 15, 2006

Saying Ney

Why is it that news publishers continue to enjoy a virtual free ride when it comes to image selection? Given the incredible oversight and critique the 'sphere dedicates to political writing and reporting, isn't it time the media was held to similar account for its day-to-day visual production? Take this...

Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo October 13, 2006

The Toll

The blood stains and the child's sandal convey the profound cruelty of Iraq's odyssey.