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322 Posts
Salon Photo January 21, 2014

The Debate Over White House Photo Access: The BagNews Salon (with Video Highlights)

Watch video highlights of the salon as an esteemed panel, mostly current or former White House photojournalists, discuss the ins-and-outs of presidential photo coverage.

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Notes Photo January 20, 2014

Martin Luther King: The Happy Negro

On this MLK day, I'm thinking about how much America likes to airbrush its historic figures.

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Notes Photo January 16, 2014

That Pussy Riot – Yuri Kozyrev Shoot: Fashion as Defiance

The Kremlin must regret letting go of those prison jackets.

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Notes Photo December 2, 2013

Those "Upside Down" Pictures from Kiev: Citizens Cracking the Whip in Ukraine?

With mass protest and iron fisted crackdowns sadly common newswire fare, there was something curiously different about the images from Kiev's Independence Square.

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Notes Photo November 22, 2013

Your Turn: Riot Cop Fantasies

How odd is it that these two pics, one from Bulgaria, the other from Italy, surfaced within the same week. More significantly, what are we to make of them? For thoughts, we're turning things over to you.

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Notes 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.

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Notes 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.

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Notes Photo October 14, 2013

Is the Backlash Finally Underway?

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

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Notes Photo September 23, 2013

Photo Requests from Solitary: S. Martin Luther King Drive and E. 63rd Street

First pass, I was not just struck by the emptiness – or, the quiet here, but I was concerned by it.

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Notes Photo September 11, 2013

Is USPS 50th Anniversary March on Washington Stamp Based on Steve Schapiro's Jackie Robinson Photo? and What Would That Mean?

In this day and age in which events are so thoroughly produced and packaged, how strange to consider that the iconic figure wouldn't be identified and co-branded with that event, that a person's celebrity wouldn't be utilized to transfer their personal shine to the event in question.

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Notes Photo September 1, 2013

Anti-War Protests and the Media Stage. (Or: Assad Gets Around)

These discs might be accessible at the click of a button, but the uniformity and the geography makes me appreciate how much al-Assad gets around.

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Notes Photo August 30, 2013

Fast Food Strike: Can We Please Speak to the Clown in Charge?

One thing evident from the gallery is how nameless and faceless these corporations really are.

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Notes Photo August 26, 2013

In the Reflecting Pool: The March on Washington and the Diminishing Space for Public Protest

Looking at the photos from this weekend's 2013 anniversary, the visual and physical shift in the civic and expressive relationship to democratic space is shocking to me.

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Notes Photo August 25, 2013

The Civil Rights Movement and the Stamp of '63

A major narrative surrounding the story involves the challenge, for the civil rights movement and the media, to make this week more than just a commemoration and an exercise in nostalgia. Considering this widely-circulated image of an event at the Newseum on Friday, that might be a tall order.

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Notes Photo August 20, 2013

How About "Nyet": Explaining the Russian Gold Medal Sprinter's "Gay Protest" Podium Kiss

I thought Obama supposedly ogling a G-8 intern, or a couple supposedly making out in the middle of a riot presented classic case studies of news photos taken wildly out context. Those are merely silver medals, however, compared to the golden misread made by countless prominent national and international...

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Notes Photo August 19, 2013

Where Things are Pointed in Egypt (and Have Been Since the Coup)

To the extent photographs can foreshadow, these series of hands -- displayed as symbol of the martyr, as evidential stain, and as steadfast defiance -- constitute a deadly arc.

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Notes Photo August 17, 2013

The Machine and the Martyrs: The Quintessential Photo from the Maniacal Crackdown in Cairo Last Week

Though the week was filled with horrific and telling imagery, no photo struck me more than this.

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Notes Photo August 4, 2013

Defacing the Lincoln Memorial, How Quaint

In contrast to the near-daily stream of ingenious protest messaging, the primary audience for this green scrawl was primarily the National Park Service or DC police. ...

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