Today, Twitter is much more of a gawking and tabloid territory, the happenstance procurement of a slice of trauma or celebrity functions as much or more like a trophy, the posting and engagement less an act of witnessing than voyeurism.
Continue ReadingSo the photos from Syria the past year or so have been a little weighted toward Aleppo and, recently, the Damascus suburb of Gouta. On that diet, of course, one would only think that apocalypse reigns.
Continue ReadingHere was a perfect opportunity to show us a women or multiple women journalists, for goddsakes, actually covering the war in Syria -- though I understand it might have taken about a minute to find one.
Continue ReadingSeems you can't look over your shoulder, in the rear-view mirror or in the reflection of a puddle without seeing some reminder, allusion, suggestion (thought broadcast?) about the surveillance and security state.
Continue ReadingMy question is, why did this photo stand out so powerfully from the larger edit of 10-year-old Issa working in a Syrian rebel weapons factory?
Continue ReadingI would say that these images represent the inclination, on the part of the West, to paint every faction in Syria with a broad bloody brush.
Continue ReadingIn this day and age in which events are so thoroughly produced and packaged, how strange to consider that the iconic figure wouldn't be identified and co-branded with that event, that a person's celebrity wouldn't be utilized to transfer their personal shine to the event in question.
Continue ReadingThe story of Mr. Coleman and the loss of his home over $134 is a troubling counterpoint to the consuming debate in DC and the press over war with Syria.
Continue ReadingThe galloping anxiety right now surrounding war, dangerous brown people in the Middle East, electronic surveillance, privacy and security agency breaches offers the perfect storm for those Orwellians on Madison Avenue to scare you into, what else, much stronger brand identification.
Continue ReadingGiven the scope of religious and cultural branches spanning the Middle East, this photo actually presents the Western media consumer with an Arab and Islamic world political knowledge quiz.
Continue ReadingWith respect to everything at stake here, the bar for decisive imagery remains much higher.
Continue ReadingIt's such a supreme example of pretending, it's the mutual recognition of the exercise that ultimately makes the contact authentic, even intimate.
Continue ReadingIt seems some variation of that Mike Tyson "best laid plans" quote is on a lot of minds these days.
Continue ReadingLike it or not, the photo story defies the simplistic treatment of the doomsday piece. If surprising for how politically incorrect it is, Greenlanders seem to see more than a silver lining to climate change.
Continue ReadingI'm sure this photo of Kerry and Assad drudged up by Drudge is going to get plenty of attention -- along with the resuscitation of how many Kerry French jokes and Kerry Assad-Hitler citations.
Continue ReadingMaybe this really was a case of getting the photographer in and out that quickly, and Souza grabbed -- and the communications people published -- the best of what he got.
Continue ReadingMy sense of Saturday’s White House Flickr shot is that the President is trying, perhaps a little too hard, to compensate for the perceived foot dragging — as if looking for a literal leg up on the situation.
Continue ReadingThese discs might be accessible at the click of a button, but the uniformity and the geography makes me appreciate how much al-Assad gets around.
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