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A Photo's Reach: Barbara Davidson Revisits the Navajo, Eddie Adams and Capa, Too
If this picture is familiar to you, it’s from Barbara Davidson’s eloquent story, “Frozen Land, Forgotten People,” a photo project that earned her a Picture of the Year, International award in 2010. It...
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I Wanted to Like that NYT Photo Essay About Growing up with Gay Parents
I wanted to like the photo essay “What Could Gay Marriage Mean for the Kids?” in the recent New York Times Sunday Review. I really did. For one thing, I have a personal investment in the question: my...
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Beyond Matt Black’s Poverty Percentages
We, and his growing legion of followers beyond the photo community, may love Matt’s work for its conscience and for how visually arresting it is. More often than not, though, Black (ever the...
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On Light, God, Photography … and That Moment Just Before the Bad Thing Happens
Because it speaks through the medium of light, photography invites us to think allegorically. Light is both particle and wave, physics and metaphysics, so under the right conditions it moves in...
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Geekfest, and the Blurry Lines Between Commercial, Documentary and News...
This past weekend, I attended an event called Geekfest, which is a yearly meetup of photographers that has been taking place over the past decade or so. Quite a few of the participants had been news...
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From D.C., and The Atlantic / Echosight Project: Mashing the American Dream
Inspired by the charged but ambiguous term, “the American Dream,” this post is based on a photo project between Echosight and The Atlantic to create complex visual statements by merging submitted...
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Hippie Bashing: New Photos at TIME Keep New Age on the Fringe
I can say flat out – because I’ve had my share of engagement with “the New Age movement”— these recent photos at TIME really brought me down. If you haven’t seen them, the distinguished photographer,...
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Illustrating vs Storytelling: Jacquelyn Martin’s Photo of Biden in the Rose...
Yesterday’s Rose Garden announcement by Joe Biden gives us the opportunity to see the difference between a photo that illustrates and one that tells a story. The photo below was the subject of a post...
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We Can Now Safely Say it’s the Weirdest Presidential Campaign Ever
If the media has been beating around (or else, on) the bush about it, Jeff Jacobson’s photograph comes out and says it: most people are just not into this presidential campaign. Our quick takes: •...
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Police Ride-Along Photography and Natalie Keyssar’s New Turn
Note: this post is an extended version of a panel presentation given at the Image Truth/Story Truth conference on Oct 16th 2015 at the Columbia Journalism School. We offer it now as part of our running...
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On Warren Richardson’s 2016 World Press Photo of the Year
To be honest, I had my own criteria for this year’s World Press Photo contest winner. I was hoping for an image that put as much weight on story as did on artistry. Said another way, I was looking for...
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Photography as Language. Or, What’s Wet, Purple & Falls from the Sky?
“The definition of photography is changing … and becoming more of a language,” the Brooklyn-based artist and professional photographer Joshua Allen Harris told me…. It’s enhancing our communication in...
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How A Confederate Flag Can Be Meaningless
How is it that the Confederate flag symbol could leave people … feeling nothing? To understand, you have to read the caption photographer Mario Tama supplied with the photo on Instagram: People in...
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Kim Jong Trump: A Good Fit?
News photography is pretty good at putting political symbolism on display, but sometimes politics gets so otherworldly that it needs help from an illustrator first. This update on patriotic kitsch was...
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Steve McCurry’s Rickshaw
By now, many voices have weighed in about Steve McCurry and the evidence that he has consistently and substantially altered details in his photos. A fresh set of examples appeared just last week. The...
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Trump/Putin Kiss: Favs from our Twitter and Instagram
What with Memorial Day and the gap until the California primary, the presidential campaign has been in a slight lull. In our round up this week, we mostly circle back to show you images that either...
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When Gag News Photos Are No Joke
As a matter of course, we just don’t do gag photos at this blog. After all, we’re providing serious public commentary, right? And we feature many outstanding photographs. As the gag photo often is...
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All in the Family: Democratic Convention Day One
Unless you’re following us on three platforms (here, Twitter and Instagram), we think you’ll appreciate these roundups choosing out our social media favorites delivered to the sphere each day of the...
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The Art and Technology of this Year’s Olympic Photographs
Looking at this year’s Olympic photos, it’s impossible not to take awe at the creativity and imagination of the news photography. Of course, there is no replacement for the skillful shooter. At the...
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It’s Not Just a Photo, it’s a Story — The Italian Earthquake, and What News...
(click for full size) The landscape of news photography is constantly changing. One of the ways that’s happening is that more single-frame news photos are actually telling stories. Just like a good...
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