Christmas Back With a Vengeance: Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Cages
The nativity protest photo hit a nerve: Imagining what might happen if the most well-known refugee family in the world tried to seek asylum in today’s USA.
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“Beautiful” Violence in Climate Change Photography
Abstract geometries and pleasing color palettes make it hard to understand the experience of harm.
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Our Visual Appeal: Help Support Reading the Pictures
This holiday season, Reading the Pictures is asking for your support. In these divided times, bringing clarity to media imagery is as important as ever.
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Trump’s Thanksgiving Wingman: Pence in Iraq
Pence can be counted on to deliver a steady diet of visual comfort food, indulging those who hunger for a return to the political style of Ronald and Nancy.
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Turkey’s Syria Invasion and Visual Media Bias
Media bias usually has to do with what's in the frame--not whether there is one. Turkey's Syria invasion is an example of bias for only showing one side.
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Memes Against Impeachment: Trump’s Shitposted Truth
With impeachment coming, far-right meme-makers and propagandists are helping to prop Trump up. We analyze PowerTie’s POTUS-retweeted line drawing animation.
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Climate Crisis: Are the Animals Mad at Us?
Between the heat and the photography, it’s hard not to process this as a portrait of six scorched and very pissed off water buffalo.
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The Visual Politics of AOC’s Green New Deal Posters
Mindful of the political environment, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal posters are fortified as much to counter anxiety as to elicit optimism.
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The Trump Vs. Obama Situation Room Photos
As soon as the White House announced the death of Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Trump and Obama Situation Room photos became historical twins.
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Creature from the Fossil Fuel Lagoon
Chavez's photo draws on fantasy and imagination and then combines those qualities with "human industry," in both senses of the term.
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The Larger Reason China Wants to Strip Hong Kong Protesters of their Masks
By banning Hong Kong protesters from wearing face masks, China is also hoping to undermine the visual and the moral power of these disguises.
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Apocalypse (Then and) Now: Climate Crisis Channels the Bomb
On one level, the poster is just another creative climate change warning. On another, though, it’s a memory jolt to the boomers.
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Apartheid’s Legacy From Here: The Photo That Struck Me Most At Photoville
I'm sure this scene is more nuanced in South Africa. But to see a photo in America of black kids eyeballing a white kid is exceedingly rare.
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Toxic Nationalism: The Tomb of the Unborn Soldier
The point was to rally the base. But by wrapping the American flag around an “unborn soldier,” the photo infuriated the right and the left.
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Capturing the Audacity of Climate Youth
Most climate strike photos capture the passion and urgency of young activists. This shot speaks to their audacity.
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Salt Chimneys
These Dead Sea formations called "salt chimneys" crystalize around freshwater streams. They appeared with the drop in water levels, but nobody knows why.
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Remarkably Everyday Photos of a Gender Creative 9-Year-Old with a Passion for Drag
A gender creative 9-year-old who loves drag: photos that portray gender fluidity as its own norm.
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Trump Hospital Photo Ops after El Paso, Dayton Mass Shootings
We discuss photos made during the Trump's El Paso and Dayton hospital visits following mass shootings there, including a portrait with a baby survivor.
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