This group of pictures from Saturday’s New York Times showed Zimbabweans on their election day where they were forced to vote for the only candidate, President Robert Mugabe, for fear of punishment unless they could produce a finger colored by red ink as evidence they had cast their ballot.
According to the newspaper, the subjects agreed to be photographed and interviewed on the condition that their faces not be fully visible while the pictures ran uncredited for fear of reprisal against the photographer.
If we don’t take action now, my daughters Kimmy and Jenna may not be able to blow-dry their hair for 45 minutes to an hour each morning, nor may my future sons-in-law cut their grass atop enormous, diesel-powered riding mowers. In fact, they may not even have lawns—at least not the lush, verdant kind that requires constant watering and pesticide treatment. It’s conceivable that one day my five children’s spacious yards may be entirely composed of synthetic Astroturf, or—God forbid—those tacky wood chips my sister in Arizona uses.
The photograph was a stunner. Displayed across four columns at the top of Page One of Thursdays New York Times, the image showed a baby boy with casts on both legs, the apparent victim of the violence marking the presidential election in Zimbabwe.
In these times of mass video delivery and saturation of visual messages, this still image offered cause to pause. It demanded attention, insisting that readers and viewers not look away.
I had an opportunity to spend a week working with the new Phase One 645 camera and a P45+ back on a shoot in Newfoundland. The camera I used was the first off the assembly line with final production firmware, and was provided for testing by Kevin Raber, Phase One’s Marketing VP for North America.
Evil Dead: The Musical last Thursday proved the show has legs. And fangs. And lots of blood left. After 300 shows and 140 gallons of fake blood, the Toronto production is still going strong, building a loyal cult following.
Watch the London community support officers (they’re not real cops, but deputied volunteers who fancy themselves real ones) as they confront a videographer who has the temerity to take footage of a public street.
Zimbabweans soon faced a stark choice: attend midnight indoctrination sessions, where ruling party supporters chanted slogans and opposition activists were whipped and clubbed, or face similar treatment themselves.
A poster captured the tenor of the runoff campaign. Beside a smiling Mugabe, sporting his trademark tailored suit and a strip of facial hair stretching from his nose to upper lip, a block of boldface letters carried the slogan: “The Final Battle for Total Control.”
Ask Conrad Lant – whose working name is Cronos – if he sees any parallels between the absurd events chronicled in This Is Spinal Tap, and the experiences enjoyed by Venom, the legendary heavy metal group he has fronted, on and off, for almost 30 years, and he is instantly dismissive. “That movie was never pointed at us,” says the singer/bassist, evenly but firmly. “It was aimed at bands like Saxon, and Samson, and Iron Maiden. They all lived that ludicrous lifestyle; we never did. We were always down to earth, we always had friends who’d give us a slap if we got too full of ourselves.”
Vincent Laforet was born in Switzerland in 1975. He is one of the true young lions of photography. His photographs are characterized by great inventiveness, technical sophistication, and a sure compositional eye. He was a staff photographer for The New York Times from 2000 until 2006, when he modified his contract to became the newspaper’s first national contract photographer. He has been sent on assignment by Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Time, Stern, Paris-Match, Newsweek and Life Magazine. His work has been published in most major magazines around the world, and exhibited at The International Center of Photography in New York and Visa Pour L’Image in Perpignan, France
It’s one thing to write about soaring food prices. It’s another thing entirely to photograph the story in a visually compelling way. But Washington Post Michael Williamson, who has documented America’s economic struggles for more than two decades, was up for the challenge.
This month we focus on Robert “Bert” Hanashiro, 53, a staff photographer with USA Today since 1989. Known worldwide for his online sports photography community, SportsShooter.com, Hanashiro will join thousands of other journalists in Beijing this August for what will be his sixth Summer Olympics. In anticipation of the 2008 Olympic games, Hanashiro talked with American Photo about the Olympic experience, which can often include 15- to 18-hour workdays and covering four events in a day.
I’ve heard Allison V. Smith’s name in the blogosphere here or there, and I finally spent some time on her blog and ordered her zine, and I am officially a huge fan. She’s seriously good. I had some questions for her, and she was kind enough to let me post our conversation here.
In his notebooks Camus excoriates “the newly achieved revolutionary spirit, nouveau riche, and Pharisees of justice.” He names Sartre and his followers, “who seem to make the taste for servitude a sort of ingredient of virtue.”
He mocks their conformism: cowardly, besides, he implies, citing the story of a child who announced her plan to join “the cruelest party.” Because: “If my party is in power, I’ll have nothing to fear, and if it is the other, I’ll suffer less since the party which will persecute me will be the less cruel one.”
