June 19, 2001
protesting

There's a whole lotta protestin' goin' on. Indonesia, Venezuela, Poland, Terre Haute, Vieques, Argentina, NYC, Paris, New Jersey, Cincinatti, Sweden, Slovenia, South Korea, Chile, Algeria, Israel, Las Vegas, South Africa, Hong Kong... and that's just since June 15.

A large number of those are explicitly anti-US.

The Boston Review on photojournalism:

The photos—such as one showing a baby being passed, over barbed wire, between members of a divided family—were undeniably moving. But in fact they told us little about the Yugoslav wars, and would be useless in ascertaining the moral import or political utility of the NATO bombing. Still, the editor knows his readers, and he is on to something important: in a culture in which history has ended but spectacle is forever, we need not—and perhaps can not—grapple with the thorny quandaries or moral challenges of the "full story." Too often, a photo of a baby will suffice.

...

The stark yet crowded photos—of mass demonstrations and funerals, veiled and wary women, drug addicts, beggars, smoky tea shops, ornate mosques, bleak cemeteries, and guns, guns everywhere—are edgy, nervous, weirdly cropped, both confused and confusing. Rather than assert their own authority, Peress's images invite the viewer to seek insights outside the frame. Though his pictures are striking, dynamic, skillfully composed, and sometimes even beautiful, they contain a striking humility, reminding us of all they can not show.

Maybe some of the points in that article were what I was getting at with my rambling about Paul Ford's photos last week.

posted by dru in good_articles
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