Your Turn: Something That Isn't There
In the extended quote from his blog, David Burnett refers to his photo spread in the August edition of National Geographic. Using his cherished large format Speed Graphic, the shallow depth of field created a particularly unusual effect. With Katrina's impact already other-worldly, Burnett's images add the impression that...
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Katrina Anniversary: From Tragedy To Farce
The White House images from Bush's second day in the Gulf reveal a shallowness, a self-centeredness and a lack of connection that has characterized "W" all along, but is now painfully visible the surface. The Bush's day in New Orleans is represented by fifteen photos on the White House photo...
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Katrina Anniversary: The New Paparazzi
Obviously, Bush is in an incredibly weak position on Katrina, but I have yet to see Rove -- characteristically defiant when the chips are down -- pull back or get this defensive with the visuals.... Last week, the It's understandable Bush would seek out the credibility by tying himself...
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Katrina Anniversary: Dirty Pool
This shot from New Orleans on Monday's newswire does a superior job previewing the thematic pixel war between Bush and the Democrats over the next few days. Here's the caption, which works wonderfully as metaphor...
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Katrina Anniversary: The Art Of Misery
As dedicated as I am to political imagery, I hope the stream of Katrina photo-documentation is having some tanglible impact on the reconstruction of the Gulf. However, I'm under no illusion about this week's anniversary visuals. With summer at its exhaustion point, its hard not to see the more...
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Karl's Handiwork Of The Week
BAGnewsNotes Revised caption (with suggested links): White House photographer highlights press coverage of a snickering President George W. Bush and former parish council GOP candidate (but supposed God-fearing nobody), Rockey Vaccarella, after delivering a joint statement to the press on the South Lawn Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006.
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Print Nostalgia
In other words, it's not the newspaper that has expired so much as the old concept and term "newspaper." Already in its place is some new information entity which has permanently bifurcated into the "physical" and "electronic" body.
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Your Turn: Pregnant Pause
In this image, according to VF: "architect and amateur pilot Isabel Daser, eight months pregnant, asked a co-worker to take her portrait as a record of the day." Incredibly, Daser was not aware of the World Trade Center smouldering in the distance. I am interested in your impressions of this...
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Full Of Macaca
At first, you might not see much connection between the NYT George Allen "macaca" story, and a piece that appeared later that week about facial profiling at airports. The link is that ultimately, both stories have to do with reading faces. Thank goodness for You Tube. What The Times article...
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Killed With Their Own Megaphone
Adnan Hajj not withstanding, why would Hezbollah -- along with other Islamist political factions in the Middle East and Asia -- need to stage photo ops when they (and their PR operatives) are using conventional savvy to run circles around the MSM? When the history of spin is recorded, I...
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Cruising
Beyond the question whether the visual coverage from Lebanon has been politically one-dimensional the past three weeks, there is also the question of whether it has been culturally stratified During the intense coverage of the "Cedar Revolution" one year ago, the Western press gave Lebanon a somewhat monolithic caste...
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Going For A Ride?
Did you notice this shot on the front of Thursday's NYT? The accompanying article (Overcoming Adoption’s Racial Barriers) examined the increasing tendency for white families to adopt black children. Where I had a hang up, however, was with this image. I found it misleading, and exploitive of those sensitivities the...
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Return To Haifa Street
One day it's AP, the next it's Reuters. It's not often I am the defender of the wire services, but I am when the Rathergate crowd rises up in an attempt to corner the market on the practice of photo analysis.
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Qana Was Not Staged
With the firestorm coming from the Rathergate crowd, and doubts now spreading from the left wing about images from Lebanon, it can start to feel like all reason is being subsumed by political hysteria. At the same time, the field of war photojournalism seems at risk of being tarred...
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Lost?
I invite your analysis and interpretation of the latest Economist cover. Still, I couldn't help jumping the gun with my own Middle East A, B, C's. (Yes, letters courtesy of The BAG.) Primarily, I question the assertion that Uncle Sam is lost at all.
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A Day To Celebrate
As the perfect corollary to yesterday's disgusting, yet completely unsurprising news that Bush has been milking the London airline terror plot for days, here's the shot the White House featured on it's photo gallery as the news (finally) broke.
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