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.
Continue ReadingMarking 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.
Continue ReadingIn spite of how touching the story might be, the photograph also achieves something all together more troubling.
Continue ReadingThe question here is how to evaluate the informational value of the story against its propaganda value.
Continue ReadingThe 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.
Continue ReadingIt 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.
Continue ReadingThe 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.
Continue ReadingMen 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.
Continue ReadingI worry that newswire photographs during humanitarian crises have a way of exposing their subjects to a not-so-subtle mode of international brow-beating.
Continue ReadingRed carpet as metaphor.
Continue ReadingIt's as if this photograph catches humanity admiring its own awesome powers of creation.
Continue ReadingThe 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.
Continue ReadingPeople 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.
Continue ReadingRituals 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.
Continue ReadingIsn'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.
Continue ReadingTypically, news pictures prompt us to visualize the continuous action in our own mind.
Continue ReadingThis photo was submitted by one of our readers, Don Fitzsimons, responding to a comment about the picture in the Jakarta Post.
Continue ReadingWhatever 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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