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Sports Illustrated's Michael Sam "Coming Out" Cover: Gay Alien or Perfectly Macho?
Speaking just for the picture, you're either "a scary, awesome beast" that won't tolerate whining, or you're not SI cover material.
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David Schalliol from Chicago: After the Projects, New (Physical and Emotional) Landscapes
The work is different now: it’s less a need to understand life in a place than to understand how life changes when one leaves a place with so many attachments.
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Looking at Trevor Paglen's NSA Photos for the Greenwald/Intercept Launch
Given Paglen's gifts and his reputation, coupled with the excitement and sky high expectations of this new venture, people were likely expecting the sublime.
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Game Change: POYi Meets NFL Meets Queer Nation
Of course, the idea that the population of American sports fans wouldn't be proportionally populated with gays and lesbians makes no sense at all. Stereotypes and homophobia in professional sports being what it is, however, the subjects coming together in this photo feel surprising and new.
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Why I Disagree with Picture of the Year's First Place Choice of "Final Embrace"
The truth is, this photo doesn't valorize the workers who died in Rana Plaza as much as it sentimentalizes.
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Judging the Photography Awards: Why Not Just Paint It?
Photographs can favor artistry over other values such as documentary witness, hard-boiled realism, formal simplicity, or critical provocation. But should they win awards for it?
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The Pet Goat, Revisited. (Or: The 9/11 Photo I Never Saw Before.)
Given the intense criticism Bush endured for not responding immediately to that cataclysmic event, why is this photo now enshrined in the Bush Library's 9/11 photo gallery?
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Heaping Shit on the Russians: Danger of a Low Bar?
If we're plunging headfirst into a crass visual meme, I think it's instructive.
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Dylan Farrow is Looking at Us
While the “he said/she said” label casts both Allen and Farrow as objects, Farrow’s photo asserts her status as a subject. Someone with agency. Someone with power. An accuser rather than a victim.
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Southern US Hit With Storm of Kindness and Humor
It was a disaster, all right: thousands of vehicles stranded; major highways closed; entire cities shut down in eerie silence. Reminds you of the Congress, doesn’t it?
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2014 Super Bowl Ads: Wisdom of the Puppies?
Could all these puppy ads speak to a desire in the culture for a kinder and and more genial atmosphere?
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Communications from Above
What I'm not able to tell is if Nachtwey is being ironic or he's serious about placing this modern ritual on such a spiritual plane.
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The Face of the Future in Kiev’s Battle for Middle Earth
I’ve argued before that conflict photography is accumulating evidence of a of disturbing change in the political and cultural dimensions of modern violence: that it is becoming less modern.
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Putin & Sochi: Let the FU's Begin
We can break down the lines of attack into three categories: Olympic ring modification; the mocking of Putin's macho preoccupation with his own bod, the typology also setting homo-erotic bells ringing; and finally, Putin's outright gay-ification.
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About Those "Pro-Gay" German Olympic Uniforms
If people are debating whether the new rainbow uniforms are based on the gay flag or not, that's not really the question.
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Obama's State of the Union Goes PowerPoint
Ready as I was to do the usual -- to riff on my own screenshots from the television broadcast, along with published news photos -- something curiously different happened watching the SOTU last night.
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White House Photo Access (Ongoing): Carney Plays Souza, Shoots Press. Plus: the Invisible Lunch.
Call it insult to injury as the White House press secretary takes over the official Instagram site the day before the State of the Union address.
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Aerial Attack at the Vatican
What makes the attack so compelling is how thoroughly ripe it is for symbolization.
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