Face Offs Everywhere: Our Visual Roundup of the Week

In one frame, at least, remarkable balance between rage, injustice, defiance & the state, power and protocol in racially-ruptured Sacramento. That, and a different (ie: 2-way) consideration of stand your ground. @AP #StephonClark‘s brother confronts mayor in city council mtg. pic.twitter.com/Ed6oYJq0Sh

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 29, 2018

Call it a week of challenge and accounting, in which power had no rest. And a lot of it happened through telling portraits. The police shooting of another unarmed black man, Stephon Clark, led to an incredible confrontation between citizens, including Clark’s brother, and the Sacramento city counsel. Kim Jong Un’s surprise trip to Beijing was not just a political dance with China’s Xi but a Sino-Korean challenge to Trump. The student-led gun reform effort flexed its muscle last weekend with a more diverse set of faces, a broader agenda, and children speaking for themselves. It was a week in which issues gained weight–or at least, more gravity, and the aggrieved aggressively challenged the status quo.

A deeply ironic photo from #Sacramento. In the name of protest, I’m play-acting the vision that elicits your paranoia—the paranoia that killed #StephonClark. But in making the statement, in promoting the stereotype, I’m actually raising your fear again. 📷 @sullyphoto @Getty pic.twitter.com/wqMxYnupy7

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 29, 2018

Tortured symmetry of two fingers. Never again vs. basketball tickets. #2Americas @GettyImages #StephonClark #Sacramento #SacramentoKings pic.twitter.com/iCtrnvp7nc

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 29, 2018

Marvelous how this, at the same time, is: momentous; enormous Trump-upmanship; as well as two couples that could easily (given directional gazes & eager vs game faces) be in two different photographs. #KCNA via @reuterspictures #XiJinping #KimJongUn pic.twitter.com/lV8Y3bqqJe

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 28, 2018

Kim not quite his usual self, forced to review someone else’s industrial props. From the14-min #China State video. https://t.co/1rOPgQg0vy #XiJinping #KimJongUn pic.twitter.com/veFQp8r6a6

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 28, 2018

The @POTUS says farewell to Hope Hicks. pic.twitter.com/XN5POKZrIz

— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) March 29, 2018

By intentionally stepping outside the Oval and performing this seductive scene, it’s hard not to see it as flaunting Trump’s women baggage. https://t.co/fwPBCgnvV8

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 29, 2018

Buffoonery has been a regular theme in the @WhiteHouse visual coverage. This was taken 3 days ago at Trump’s NH opioid speech. Look for a darker tone in the images though. With the Pompeos and Boltons on the way in, we predict the Magoo days are coming to an end. 📷 @keithbedford pic.twitter.com/Ay4iVBmVCH

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 23, 2018

The 1 symbol from the past week the ancients in Congress should be most afraid of? It’s the bunk bed. (📷@Emma4Change portrait by @gdemczuk @time #neveragain #MarchForOurLives cover story) pic.twitter.com/qaM4STkcdL

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 25, 2018

“It feels like what we are witnessing in these photos is the surest emergence of social and political awareness. You sense the children are the most awake.” Our take on a budding movement and the activism of the youngs: https://t.co/xRFv2Dl46S #gunreform #marchforourlives pic.twitter.com/owgvPvkmIE

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 26, 2018

Juxtaposition of the day: the #Parkland @TIME cover by @PeterHapak & @keithbedford’s Insta portrait of Boston student activists, Jonah Muniz and Victoria Massey, prepping for #MarchForOurLives. Yes, there’s a ready discussion on #race and #media here. #gunviolence #blm pic.twitter.com/awdBI46JXQ

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 23, 2018

It was just on the online NYT’s splash page, but it’s the best shot we’ve seen so far of a darker, more brooding, “somewhere else” #JohnBolton—and echoes constant scenes of Trump-in-a-bubble. The fear over Bolton is palpable. pic.twitter.com/f3nYYT8APu

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 24, 2018

A big thank you to Celia and her big sister Natalie from Clarksburg, MD for traveling to the @WhiteHouse to visit! I had a wonderful time watching you bake cookies! #ChocolateChipCookies pic.twitter.com/UrervLPusm

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) March 23, 2018

Heading into the weekend, the focus on children, girls, and—for the pink-clad #Melania—the uncommon embrace of domesticity (and the chocolate chip cookie) made perfect sense heading into a weekend of angry student protests and an even bigger personal storm. https://t.co/XRaAkKoJQ7

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 26, 2018

Ailing all around. @BW via @coverjunkie pic.twitter.com/PiLjudk8ni

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 22, 2018

It’s now war #photography. 📷 @AP_Images of the day. Raw iron in visor at German steel factory, Salzgitter AG. https://t.co/uU3S1qWobE pic.twitter.com/Q587nniWi1

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) March 23, 2018

Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP Caption: Stevante Clark jumps on the dais and shouts at Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, left, during a city council meeting, Tuesday, March 27, 2018, in Sacramento, Calif. Clark, the brother of Stephon Clark, who was shot and killed by Sacramento Police officers a week earlier, disrupted the meeting and demanded to speak. The city council adjourned for a roughly 15-minute recess as a result of the disruption.