Michael Shaw Archives
5,648 Posts
Culture Focus Photo October 14, 2014

Mashup of the Day: Hands Up, Don’t Shoot

Maybe it’s relevant for drawing together the two biggest visual stories in the news stream right now — both involving blacks at risk.

Continue Reading

A Simple News Photo from Hong Kong Calls out the Economics

n this age of Citizens United, oligarchy, marauding socialist market economies and free markets aligned with the value of "all-for-one," when do you ever see a protest photo that captures and illustrates the enterprise system itself — as opposed to the crackdown in the streets in defense of that...

Continue Reading
Ferguson MO Photo October 12, 2014

And We'll Get Back to Those Slain Black Youths Right After Baseball

It’s a troubling commentary on our cultural and media priorities that the civil rights story and the playoff hoopla have been so seamlessly grafted.

Continue Reading
Disaster Focus Photo October 11, 2014

Benedicte Kurzen's Complex and Mysterious Photo from Ebola-Stricken Monrovia

This is one of the richest, most curious and most suggestive editorial photos I've seen in a while. I'm interested in your thoughts.

Continue Reading
International Focus Photo October 9, 2014

Media-Wise, Could Everyday Africa Change Everything?

If Everyday Africa and the rest of the "Everyday" sites can maintain their momentum, a revolution is coming to photojournalism and visual news.

Continue Reading
International Focus Photo October 8, 2014

Hong Kong: He Says Umbrella Revolution, She Says Post-it Note

If the umbrella is a more functional item, the Post-It note is more reflective of the word, the voice, a multiplicity of voices -- and social in the old fashioned way.

Continue Reading
Business Focus Photo October 6, 2014

Soul Searching Photos Replace “Shock and Awe” as Defense Industry Leads Us into Next Iraq War

As we roll almost mutely into another war, there is no end of high-priced hardware once more ready to burn.

Continue Reading
Culture Focus Photo October 5, 2014

Hindsight and News Photography: On a Bio-Hazardous Dallas Balcony

Unfortunately, one thing news photography is good at is second-guessing, especially when it comes to homeland security.

Continue Reading
Culture Focus Photo October 3, 2014

Does Up-and-Coming Model With Unusual Skin Condition Take Us Beyond Diversity?

How much is Ms. Brown-Young's condition, as a beauty signature, more singularly about "the other?"

Continue Reading
Disaster Focus Photo October 1, 2014

Sensational Ebola Pictures: Those Aren't Astronauts

Its been too easy in the West to either ignore the Ebola pictures, or pull up a chair for the horror show.

Continue Reading
Eco Watch Photo

Climate Change: Finally Matter-of-Fact?

I wonder if we’re approaching a whole new level of acknowledgment and realism surrounding climate change.

Continue Reading
Campaign '16 Photo September 30, 2014

Tweeting the Baby: In 2 Pix, the Clinton Script for 2016

The picture on Hillary's feed has a complete campaign vibe -- formal down to the pearls.

Continue Reading
International Focus Photo September 28, 2014

"Hands Up, Don't Shoot," Hong Kong Edition

From the photos I've seen, the youth in Hong Kong are deploying the gesture in a less complicated way.

Continue Reading
Culture Focus Photo September 25, 2014

Photoville: War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things

Wars may be easy to get into (and easy to suppose as tactically and emotionally limited) but then the stains just keep spreading.

Continue Reading
Photography/Photojournalism Photo September 23, 2014

Photoville 2014: Matt Black and California's Dust Bowl

Although the disjunction is not usually this surreal, in this image from 2001, Matt seems to almost pay homage to Hitchcock.

Continue Reading

Weaponizing the Burka

In this case, the extreme aggression is completely flipped through the language — repurposing a highly specific portrait as an act of character assassination.

Continue Reading
Eco Watch Photo September 21, 2014

Mother Earth Isn't White … and Other Climate Change Protest Pics That Caught Our Eye

...Or, enough sightseeing, time to do something.

Continue Reading

Photoville 14: In Gezi Park, and in Space

These photos were taken in Gezi Park in Istanbul in 2013. I wanted you to see them for the way the exhibit translates them into space.

Continue Reading