We have often wondered what led so many Germans to just sat by or appeared to ‘collaborate’ during the Jewish genocide, or the Rwandans to engage in mass slaughter of each other, or the Serbians to look away as Sarajevo burned, or the Pakistanis to celebrate the slaughter of the Bengali. And many more such situations that leave so many ‘civilized’ and ‘decent’ people asking themselves that old question: how can a people do this to another? Details »
The Spinning Head
A Photographer Confronts His World
Who Was That Strange Man I Met In Gaza And Why Was He Drawing Cartoons As People Died?
It is a world that I have lost touch with, but while I was in it, however marginally, it was filled with an incredible array of intelligent, passionate, engaged and generous people. Post-war Sarajevo bought me in touch with writer Stacy Sullivan, photographer Paul Lowe, photographer and editor Leslie Fratkin and last and definitely not the least, the graphic artist Joe Sacco. Details »
An Inifinite Influence: Robert Frank & The Creation Of Photography
Robert Frank’s The Americans may actually be the only book that can safely claim to have influenced the work and inspirations of most any photographer, documentarian and photojournalist born and working since the 1950s. There isn’t a Most Influential Photographers Of The Century list that will not list Frank’s name. This is truly one of the great documentary works of our time, and worth seeing again and again. Details »
Photographers I Like: Balazs Gardi & Facing Water Crisis
Magazines were once the principal and perhaps most sought after outlet for working photographers and photojournalists. Even today, most photographer resumes feature a large (and sometimes ridiculously extensive) list of ‘client’ publications that have featured the their work.
Ramkadar, left, takes rest in front of a public well in Mumbai, India. He pulls a 500 liter water tank for 12 hours a day in downtown Mumbai, selling drinkable water to local residents and earning about $5 a day. Although Mumbai, India's financial capital, has a fairly good water distribution infrastructure, many residents rely on hundreds of workers like Ramkadar. Copyright Balazs Gardi
‘Going Muslim’ At Fort Hood Or How Rabid Simplicities Masquerading As Insight Just Sell More Magazines
It did not take long for overtly racist explanations to be offered. Before facts come fantasy, and before truth comes tabloid opinions masquerading as insight. And it arrived not in some radical, fringe magazine but in the pages of the international magazine Forbes by one of their regular contributors. (I of course ignore the determined Islamophobia of outlets like Fox News.) Details »
Fate Always Conspires To Embarrass Or The Leica M9 Digital Rangefinder Reviewed By An Avowed Film Shooter
Just a couple weeks after I wrote a post highlighting my preference for shooting film and the personal reasons why I always return to it when I am not shooting ‘time-to-delivery’ client assignments, I was invited by a local Swedish magazine to test out the new Leica M9. The post titled Why I Shoot With Film & Why You Should Give A Damn generated a number of not-so-pleasant responses. Regardless, my original sentiments remain. Details »
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