Notes Archives
6,420 Posts
President Obama Photo February 20, 2015

Seven Years into a Presidency, What Lurks Beneath the Laugh Track

What's brilliant is the way the photo, on the surface a textbook example of political celebrity, also taps into America's racial polarization.

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International Focus Photo February 19, 2015

On Those Migrants Up a Pole (POYi Spot News Award)

What is it about this photo of Sub-Saharan migrants high up a pole in Spain’s border town of Melilla that earned a POY award?

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USA(ID)! USA(ID)!: Full Salute to a Military Photo

And when in our lifetimes have we been made aware the military has been deployed to save lives?

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Culture Focus Photo February 18, 2015

Seeing Surveillance Everywhere and Nowhere

In this day and age, when an image could as easily have been pulled off a civil defense drone or a surveillance camera, we also register that.

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World Press, Spot News: Tangled Up in Blue

Sure, the cops got their girl. But for goodness' sake, is a riot police scrum supposed to look so glamorous?

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International Focus Photo February 16, 2015

Human Trafficking Awareness and Photographic Ensnarement: A World Press Winning Portrait

Despite the photo’s potential utility, however, it also raises important questions about the ways in which well-meaning outsiders and journalists depict the problem of human trafficking.

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Beyond FEMEN: That Arresting Photo Outside the Strauss-Kahn Trial

I doubt the group expected a photo this effective, even if Femen protesters are consistently “manhandled” by police.

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World Press Photo: As Much About News as About the Human Condition?

The picture of “Jon and Alex” seems to also be part of an emerging trend among the winning photographs of recent years: a cinematic aesthetics that combines artistic compositions with invitation to storytelling.

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Photography/Photojournalism Photo February 14, 2015

Picture of the Year (Sports Feature): What is it About Men and their Balls?

It could have landed on his shoe. It could have bounced and landed on that other guy's straw hat. But, it didn't.

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Photography/Photojournalism Photo February 13, 2015

LGBT Love and Anxiety: The Ambiguity and Politics of the World Press Photo of the Year

Perhaps the noirish quality serves as a buffer but this photo is at least as tense as it is tender.

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Photo February 10, 2015

More Than Less Than Meets the Eye: The Pope in a (Roman) Shanty Town

I'm wondering when was the last time a head of state ventured into a similar homestead -- and did so with such intimacy.

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Afghanistan Photo

The Masking of Damaged Vets (With an Appearance by Hannibal Lecter). Photo by Lynn Johnson.

While the mask purports to give voice to his inner pain, it also makes it possible for us to observe him (from a distance) without actually seeing him.

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POYi Winning Photos: Is the Freeway the New Protest Battle Ground?

Stopping these throughways provide a way for the movement to demonstrate that business-as-usual has got to stop, and that citizens -- especially those that simply watch on TV -- need feel it, too.

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International Focus Photo February 9, 2015

Priests and Protests: Looking Back on the Photography from Kiev Square

Protestors armed themselves against government forces with whatever was available to them, creating a visual mash of color and symbolism, the clergy ministering throughout.

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Culture Focus Photo February 8, 2015

The Optic of Family Values Just Doesn't Mix Well With the Optic of Gun Rights

An AP photographer doesn't do any favors for the shrewdness of Olympia's arms enthusiasts.

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Middle East Watch Photo February 7, 2015

Too Much Art in a News Photo? West Bank Rhythm and Flow

The infusion of creativity into the news photo is not just an art itself, but is often a slippery slope.

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Culture Focus Photo February 6, 2015

Denial Is a Pool in Bakersfield: An Immigration Picture You've Hardly Seen Before

What Mark’s photo frames and what it also nails are two of the immigration issue's elephants in the room.

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International Focus Photo February 5, 2015

A Preliminary Thought As We Enter Photojournalism Award Season

I appreciate that a news photo deserves to be judged and valued as a professional artifact. It's not nearly so straight forward, however.

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