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Notes Photo August 5, 2015

From His Own Perspective: The Seductive Power of the Instagram Migrant

Of course, we would hope that the migrant diaspora in our media diet would reflect the greatest realism, but that’s a whole different thing than the migrant telling his or her own story, taking his or her own pictures, and controlling his or her own narrative.

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Notes Photo July 15, 2015

That All-Too-Dark Iran Nuke Disarmament Photo

Marking the concluding instant of the negotiation ritual, the end of the beginning and the beginning of the future and its consequences, the photo is eerie indeed.

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Notes Photo July 12, 2015

Myth Of The Self-Inflicted Wound: A Deeper Look At That Photo Of The Crying Greek Pensioner

In spite of how touching the story might be, the photograph also achieves something all together more troubling.

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Notes Photo June 18, 2015

Suddenly, Assad Not Such a Bad Guy?: On TIME’s Exclusive Photos of ISIS – Syrian Battle

The question here is how to evaluate the informational value of the story against its propaganda value.

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Notes Photo June 3, 2015

Behind the Niqab: The (Male) Photographer's Perspective of Life Through the Veil – Part 2

The ability to frame a shot and have that image published in and discussed by major outlets is a privilege. Unfortunately, that privilege is too often reserved for men.

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Notes Photo May 31, 2015

When Those Endearing Photos of Kids and Riot Cops Really Aren't

It cautions us not to take pictures at face value or to assume that what's in a frame is necessarily that consistent with what's happening just outside of it.

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Notes Photo May 28, 2015

The Palestinians and the Indians: One Pic from Israel’s Burning Man

The parallel of the American West and the eradication of the “Native Americans” with the Israeli desert and the trials of the Palestinians is mind bending.

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Notes Photo May 26, 2015

Behind the Niqab: The (Male) Photographer’s Perspective of Life Through the Veil – Part 1

Men would do well to consider women’s perspectives more often—not just when there is a physical reminder that your literal view on the world is affected by your gender.

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Notes Photo May 21, 2015

Migrant Other: The Rohingya Crisis and the Tendency of News Photos to Confuse Compassion with Patronization

I worry that newswire photographs during humanitarian crises have a way of exposing their subjects to a not-so-subtle mode of international brow-beating.

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Notes Photo May 15, 2015

Human Jetpacks Over Dubai’s Artificial Islands

It's as if this photograph catches humanity admiring its own awesome powers of creation.

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Notes Photo May 13, 2015

Boy in the Suitcase: The First Photo of the New Century

The photo captures the bare life of the human subject in migration; the emblematic equipment of global transportation and a powerful but harsh global economy that permeates everyday life.

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Notes Photo April 28, 2015

Volcanic Exceptionalism: Why America Treats Every Disturbance Abroad Like it’s Looking in a Mirror

People from the United States have been looking at South American volcanoes and seeing them as metaphors for what’s happening at home for at least one hundred and fifty years.

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Notes Photo April 25, 2015

Armenian Association

Rituals of public memory have always been about forming the community through public display—using cultural materials to fashion and shape how "we" want to remember ourselves.

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Notes Photo April 21, 2015

Mediterranean Crisis: Ecology is About People, Too

Isn't it curious how people tend to think about "ecology" as it relates to plants and air and water and less in terms of humanity and how much we look out for each other.

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Notes Photo April 19, 2015

From Johannesburg: A Photo That Makes Us Stop

Typically, news pictures prompt us to visualize the continuous action in our own mind.

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Notes Photo April 14, 2015

Maternal Instinct

This photo was submitted by one of our readers, Don Fitzsimons, responding to a comment about the picture in the Jakarta Post.

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Notes Photo April 11, 2015

Waiting for Peace to Arrive at the Syrian Bus Stop

Whatever the back story, the moral is the same: warfare demands exceptional resilience and inventiveness to survive, and people respond in kind. ...Which is why the scene is heartbreaking.

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