Michael Shaw, Author at Reading The Pictures

Faith Focus Photo September 28, 2015

The Pope’s US Trip as it Touched on Race

Although the Pope typically addresses injustice in the context of class, his concern over racial strife was implicit in those key quotations from MLK.

Culture Focus Photo September 25, 2015

The Pope’s Congressional Override

What was straight out of a parallel universe was the way our senior legislators, the polarized of the polarized, reacted to the Pope's confrontation in a completely apolitical way.

Faith Focus Photo September 23, 2015

Pope in America: It’s Showtime!

Poverty? Racial tolerance? Social Justice? For the media over the next few days, it’s Hollywood, baby.

Campaign '16 Photo September 17, 2015

The GOP’s Reagan Library Debate With the Sound Off

Our read on the visual highlights of the presidential debate, including the Donald - Jeb, Donald - Carly and just The Donald show.

International Focus Photo September 16, 2015

Migrant Optics: Targeting Hungary (and Conjuring the Dark Evil of WWII)

Has Hungary become the visual fall guy for a crisis with no good humanitarian answer?

Photography/Photojournalism Photo September 15, 2015

Geekfest, and the Blurry Lines Between Commercial, Documentary and News Photography

I have to say that, up until the past year or so, I wasn’t seeing a whole lot of news photos that were this lush.

Culture Focus Photo September 14, 2015

Past the Reminders: The Life-Threatening NFL

We’re way past the point where an image like this simply serves as a reminder of the problem.

9/11 Photo September 11, 2015

On 9/11: A New Ground Zero Photo. Five Kids on Bikes.

This remarkable photo, taken 9/12/01, is even more interesting appearing in a year wracked by racial protest and the emergence of #blacklivesmatter.

International Focus Photo

Great Migration Photo from Hungary: Taking Flight

Seriously, this might be the most surreal photo of the great migration.

International Focus Photo September 10, 2015

Simply Transcendent: Bar Palestine Balances Despair and Dignity in Gaza

The achievement here is how the group can take this mindlessly oppressive rubble world and reduce it to pure geometry.

International Focus Photo September 9, 2015

Migrant Optics: Taking it to Hungary

For its story value, the photo might as well be a movie treatment — the migrant cast as its dramatic hero.

International Focus Photo September 8, 2015

Climb Every Mountain, Ford Every Stream: Beyond the Humanitarian Response to the Great Migration

If humanitarian fervor and photos of the migrant crisis dominated last week like nothing else, this largely invisible image served cleverly, if silently, as a counterpoint.

International Focus Photo September 4, 2015

The Crisis of Leadership

Perhaps what the crisis images ultimately highlight are the abject limits of our governing systems, our leaders and our humanity.

Media Focus Photo September 2, 2015

On Obama in Alaska and the (Visitor) Showers at Auschwitz

My takeaway from the White House photographs of Obama’s trip to Alaska, and the photos of the outdoor misting stations at Auschwitz, is pretty similar

International Focus Photo September 1, 2015

Why We Saw the Photo of the Israeli Solder Giving the Palestinian Boy a Headlock … Not Fighting a Girl

It’s not just man vs. child, especially female child, that exposes the state. It’s also the sense the otherwise omnipotent soldier might actually be over his head.