The mighty power of photography

Yesterday's front page of the New York Times is stirring some debate about the power of photography. And it looks like the Times is winning that debate.


Tuesday's front page of the Times ran a photo of a starving, emaciated child from famine-plagued Somalia. The child is so thin that his skin seems to drape on his bones. The haunting and devastating photograph by Tyler Hicks sent shockwaves around the world, especially here in the United States, a country that has largely ignored the suffering of the people of Somalia in favor of a petty squabble by our political elite. We won't be raising our taxes on the rich while children starve in other countries. That's not political commentary; that's fact.

The photo might be remembered alongside Kevin Carter's famous 1993 photo from Sudan that featured a skeletal child doubled over in the dirt while a vulture, menacing and evil, loomed in the background. That vivid photo, which would contribute to Carter's unbearable memories and eventual suicide, brought international attention to the Sudan.  It seems like Hicks' photo might do the same for Somalia. The photographs speak to the horrific conditions on the other side of the lens. The cameras aren't just tools, but witnesses. While the photographs are sickening and sad, they jolt us from our relaxed states. They wake us up and force us to consider the issue, because there it is right in front  of us glaring back in horror.

Read more on the issue here and here.

More Memorial Day shots from Avondale, Palo Verde services

My favorite shots from big events like Memorial Day are always the less obvious ones. The hands with the camera is a good example. The photo is of a woman's hands holding a camera. You can tell by the screen on her camera that she's taking picture of a soldier laying a wreath. You can also see she's holding a lit candle (that's talent, by the way) and and you can see her fingernails are painted in patriotic colors. Nothing in the photo screams Memorial Day, but it somehow conveys the spirit of the holiday. Here is that photo as well as several others from the View's Memorial Day coverage.

When wind transforms your photos for the better

Sometimes Mother Nature is the subject of a photographer's lens — lightning, floods, dust storms — and other times, on fewer occasions, Mother Nature works with the photographer, like a silent partner. Such was the case yesterday.

I was out on the Sun Valley Parkway in Buckeye snapping some pictures of veterans and veteran supporters as they cheered on the arrival of 350 motorcycle riders during the Run for the Wall, a cross-country bike ride to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Nearly all the people on the overpass over Interstate 10 had flags. And a flag without wind looks mighty sad. Luckily the wind was in my favor, blowing quite fast almost directly east, which made the flags flutter directly behind the people watching the riders. The way the wind blew the flags really strengthened the photos, and I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Here is a small preview of some of the shots that will run in tomorrow's West Valley View.

Sometimes the dangerous news can't be photographed

At Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the station that was catastrophically damaged in the March tsunami, reporters have no access to the site and therefore no access to the news. For the most part, journalists are relying entirely on the Japanese government and TEPCO (that's Tokyo Electric Power Company) to provide still and video images of the plant since Japanese officials have prevented reporters from scampering around amid the radioactive debris. Reporters and photographers prefer to gather their own information, but when that's impossible we must rely on others to deliver us the raw information so we can disseminate it and report on it. Of course, with that kind of relationship reporters must be diligent to verify facts since a company like TEPCO has something to gain with optimistic and positive news reports. 


Take a look here, at the TEPCO photo/video site for reporters covering the multiple Fukushima meltdowns. Dig a little further and you can find the sister page with the all the press releases in English and Japanese. This is the page that most of the news outlets are choosing photos from. You'll recognize the better photos because they've run in newspapers and on television when news outlets report on Fukushima.


Seeing these Japanese shots made me recall some photos from Chernobyl in 1986. After the roof blew off Chernobyl's reactor, the workers — called liquidators or biorobots — ran out onto the roof for a minute or two to shovel up radioactive graphite. Their time was limited because radiation could prove lethal with longer exposures. (Most of these liquidators died weeks and months after the disaster.) Several photographers were on the roof taking 35mm pictures. After they developed their film they noticed strange upward-moving blotches on the bottom frames of the photos. They later determined it was the intense radiation that was exposing the film right through the camera casing. Check out the photos samples below, or a short video of the liquidators here.

Officer's funeral brings out hundreds of police from around the state

Following up yesterday's post about how newspapers cover funerals, here are some shots from today's funeral of Buckeye police officer Rolando Tirado, who was killed last weekend while working an off-duty job in Phoenix.

In attendance — as is customary for the funeral of an officer killed in the line of duty — were hundreds of uniformed police officers, including a procession of motorcycle officers that stretched well over the length of a football field. The police in attendance looked like a roll call of the state's emergency personnel: Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, Maricopa, Phoenix, Prescott, military officials, fire departments, DPS, Border Patrol and, of course, all the local police departments. 

Notice specifically the last image, the one with the broadcast towers that seem to stretch higher than the church itself. How do you think the media should cover the funerals of police officers, firefighters and soldiers? Comments are open.