The Folded Map Project’s Tonika Johnson Confronts Alec Soth & the NYT

In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss the controversy and complexities surrounding the NYT’s article, plus John Divola criticizes MFA student William Carmargo, and Jeff Mermelstein photographs your texts for #nyc.

Podcast: Beirut in Photos, Instagram Censors a Black Model, Is Getty Selling Images of Child Exploitation?

In this jam-packed episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah and Allen discuss how citizen journalism and professional photojournalism gave us an incredible point of view of the tragic explosion in Beirut, Andy Day and Benjamin Chesterton uncover Magnum Photo images of child sexual exploitation, Instagram censors (then allows) images of plus-size Black model Nyome Nicholas-Williams, CJR interviews Art Greenspon, Robert Hodierne, David Burnett and David Hume Kennerly on covering COVID, the #ReeseChallenge, and photos of a wild boar stealing a man’s laptop!?!?!?!

Podcast: Martin Parr Apologizes, Male Doctors Try to Shame Their Female Peers, the Hippest Octogenarians

After 18 months, a campaign started by then 18-year old Mercedes Baptiste Halliday, a Black photo student in London, to stop the sales of a republication of Gian Butturini’s “London” by Martin Parr has come to and end. An official apology plus Parr’s request to destroy the remaining inventory (although publisher Damiani has apparently put the books on sale rather than destroyed them) has given Halliday a well-earned victory against racism and an entrenched “generation of white, middle-aged men who do what they want without any consequences.”

Podcast: Dario Calmese Photographs Viola Davis for Vanity Fair and References a Slave Photo

After the controversy surrounding Annie Leibovitz’s Vogue cover of Simone Biles, Vanity Fair published a beautiful photo spread of Viola Davis taken by Dario Calmese. The images were spectacular, but Calmese used an old photo as a reference image for the cover, which caused controversy and discussion on Twitter.

Podcast: Annie Leibovitz Photographs Simone Biles for Vogue…and Twitter Loses Its Mind

Annie Leibovitz recently photographed Olympic gold medalist and GOAT gymnast Simone Biles for Vogue, and Twitter wasn’t so happy with the results. Co-hosts Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi concur, and share their thoughts on why the photos, lighting, retouching and styling were so unsuccessful in this week’s episode of the PhotoShelter podcast, Vision Slightly Blurred.

Podcast: Did the Media Get Played by Trump? Magnum Faces Questions About Diversity, and Hot Dogs!

President Trump gave a Fourth of July Speech at Mount Rushmore, which provided a perfect spectacle for Presidential propaganda. Did the media get played by circulating these “patriotic” images, or was the publication more nuanced?  In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi also discuss controversy surrounding diversity at Magnum Photos and of members Martin Parr and Lua Ribeira, and finally some images of hot dogs to round out the holiday weekend.

“I always tried to question what is the difference between what is truly tradition and core, and what is merely habit. A lot of stuff we think are core, are just habits. The way we write newspaper stories, that’s not core, that’s habit. I think that’s the most important part about leading a place that’s going through dramatic change and even generational change. You’ve got to say, here’s what’s not going to change. This is core. This is who we are. Everything else is sort of up for grabs.”

Are There Enough Photos of COVID-19 Death?

Harvard professor Sarah Elizabeth Lewis raised the ire of some photojournalists by suggesting that there weren’t enough photos of COVID-19-related death to create “mental images” of the breadth of the pandemic and the wake of destruction. In this episode of Vision Slightly Blurred, Sarah Jacobs and Allen Murabayashi discuss the reactions by Gary He, Lucas Jackson and Reading the Pictures, plus a visualization of the news by Josh Begley.

The Photographic Phases of Depicting COVID-19

In many parts of the U.S. the reality of social distancing policies have only been in place for about a month. Yet during that time and the few weeks that preceded it, photographers have already churned through a number of phases to document and depict the outbreak.