Search - Reading The Pictures

Culture Focus Photo October 25, 2013

Those Niagara Falls Fear Factory Photos

I have a theory why these have gone viral.

Photography/Photojournalism Photo October 24, 2013

Alex Garcia's "Inner City" Photos from Austin: The Pictures That Cannot Be Seen

Where the "impossibility" lies is in the steep challenge of looking at these photos naïvely enough to consider each individual as distinct from the associations they invariably stimulate.

President Obama Photo October 23, 2013

Son of Shutdown: Those Obama Rose Garden/Affordable Care Roll Out Photos

Conventional media wisdom and some misplaced notion of balance and liberal panic has apparently dictated that the Affordable Care Act's stumble out of the gate equates to the GOP's near-lethal, self-inflicted wound.

International Focus Photo October 22, 2013

The Kidnapped White Girl Photo to Top Kidnapped White Girl Photos?

I wish it was the Onion, but it's not.

Photo October 21, 2013

Visual Evidence Way Back in 2010 of GOP Leadership Bringing Tea Partiers into the Fold

Fast forward to now, can anyone say that McCarthy's open door policy and cajoling talent has led to the mavericks climbing under his wing?

Business Focus Photo October 20, 2013

Sunday Stills #2: Windowless

Do you know what's so brilliant -- and brilliantly rare -- about Chip Somodevilla's Instagram?

Protest Focus Photo October 19, 2013

Sunday Stills #1: Here's What You Can Do With Your Shutdown

With conservatives precluding the ability of the government to pay its bills, raining down benjamins was a way of mocking that leverage -- along with its paternalism.

illustration Photo October 18, 2013

On Banksy's NY Residency: Respect to 9/11

I know the man works quickly so I can't tell how much he intended the petals to appear blackened but it speaks eloquently, both to the horror as well as the re-emergence.

Protest Focus Photo October 17, 2013

Cruz, Palin and The Clown Show -- Courtesy of Photographer Mark Peterson

Only the fizzling end to the insurrection has allowed reality to catch up to Mark Peterson's Cruz, Palin and Paul.

Photo October 15, 2013

Shooting Boehner: Shutdown Visuals Meet GOP Aggression

To the extent he and his caucus are perpetrating violence on the legislative system, yes, the photos do feature photographers targeting Boehner with their lenses.

Originals Photo October 14, 2013

Stacy Kranitz: From the Study on Post-Pubescent Manhood

More than just immersing myself in the daily experience of their lives, I wanted to make something that represented the peculiar power relationship between subject and documenter, by looking at the ways that I provoked, empowered and exploited my ‘subjects’

Sports Focus Photo

On That Viral Red Sox Home Run Photo on the Boston Globe Cover (and What it Has to Do With the Marathon Bombing)

The overcoming of adversity relates not just to Boston but the country, baseball being America's game.

Protest Focus Photo

Is the Backlash Finally Underway?

Finally a full-throated backlash image -- and the strongest expression of liberal assertiveness since the 2012 election.

Photo October 13, 2013

Looking in on White House Photog Charles Dharapak, the Shutdown Watch and Good Cheer to Getty's Alex Wong

it's hard for me to look at those two images without musing how the Shutdown Futility Show might be encouraging many to see some agony in almost any political photo out of Washington these days.

Photo October 11, 2013

The Saddest/Most Viral Shutdown Photos (Or: It's a Zoo Out There)

I can't tell if these sentimentalized BuzzFeed-style photo-posts about the shutdown reflect a larger sympathy or they're just heartstring slingshots.

Visual Practices & Ethics Photo October 10, 2013

Facebook Censorship, Photographer Jacob Aue Sobol and a Birthday

You don't have a good idea, a lovely day, a touching moment, a sense of awareness, a sense of poignancy or connection -- a sense that someone is a part of you or you are a part of someone else -- (in other words, anything that makes Facebook Facebook)...

President Obama Photo October 9, 2013

Shabby Road: Obama on the Cover of the Shutdown Album

Perhaps the president just getting outdoors and foraging for a sandwich is as much coming together as we can expect.

Photo October 8, 2013

Regarding Those Ridiculously Large FOX News Touchscreens

Everybody knows people at FOX don't read.

Iraq and Afghanistan War Photo

On War's 12th Anniversary, Tim Hetherington's Soldiers Still Lusting, Lusty

If Mike's quote is technically true to Tim's intent, it does not account for the homo-eroticism of Bobby's kiss or the aggressive grip on Cortez's hand at the edge of the frame or the exhibitionist intensity of the eye drawing Tim himself into the play.

President Obama Photo October 6, 2013

New Esquire Obama Cover: What's in a Background?

I'm not prepared to say the background has anything to do with the Philippines, or the President's race, somehow, but the Esquire cover might suggest, at least, that the President doesn't let his true nature come through enough.