Videos

Reading the Pictures produces two video programs. Chatting the Pictures is a biweekly, highly-edited 10-minute webcast featuring publisher Michael Shaw and visual academic Cara Finnegan analyzing 3 key news photographs. The Reading the Pictures Salon is a panel discussion concerned with how the media and social media visually frame key social and cultural issues.

Previous Videos
Environment Video December 22, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: Personal Meets Political in Undersea Climate Change Portraits

We survey the powerful blending of portraiture and landscape and the brilliant tension between domesticity and disaster in this photo project.

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Middle East Watch Video December 3, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: Mourning Embrace in a Gaza Hospital

We discuss the photo's anonymity and intimacy, as well as other images of the woman and child to personalize the interconnection of grief and loss.

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Middle East Watch Video November 3, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: On a Gaza Playground, Seized by the Peril of Fighter Jets

The photo, timeless as it is specific, embodies the instinctual reactions, sustained fear, and psychic harm to children lacking true refuge.

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Middle East Watch Video October 29, 2023

Chatting the Pictures: The Israeli Hostage Poster

Analyzing the posters of abducted Israelis, we examine their format, 9/11 parallels, wide circulation, and how they inform Israeli unity.

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Chatting the Pictures: Libya’s Climate-Fueled Flood at Epic Scale

With an expert perspective, this photo vividly conveys the immense scale of the climate-supercharged flooding in Libya.

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Videos, explained by Michael Shaw
More about Chatting the Pictures and the Salon.

Chatting the Pictures is a lively, highly edited look at key news photographs. Co-hosts Michael Shaw, publisher of Reading the Pictures, and writer and historian, Cara Finnegan, meet to discuss three prominent photos in the recent news. You can find all the Chatting the Pictures replays here.

The Reading the Pictures Salon analyzes 8-9 carefully researched photos chosen for theme and depth of content. Each 90-minute panel is made up of leading photographers, photo editors, visual academics and other experts experienced in the subject.

Since 2008, we have produced 29 Salons working with sponsors such as Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Open Society Foundation. We have covered topics from social justice to political campaigns to foreign policy. For examples, take a look at: The Visual Representation of the US/Mexico Border Wall in the Media; How Science is Pictured in the Media and Public Culture; The Visual Framing of the Migrant Crisis; The Visual Framing of Surveillance; The Debate Over White House Photo Access; The Picture from Syria; or The War on Women. Each post contains a full replay of the broadcast, along with 2-3 minute highlight videos from each photo discussed. You can find all the full salons here.