The photo below was on the front page of the NYTimes yesterday. It accompanied an article about how many Muslims feel that they are being snubbed by Obama as he tries to get the rest of America to understand that he isn’t Muslim.

The caption read:

“Muslim women at an Obama rally in February. Last week, two Muslim women were not allowed to appear behind the candidate.”

The photo seems to finish the thought:

Yesterday, the campaign revised it’s position, instituting a “rafters” policy under which Muslims may only sit in the very last row of any arena lest they surreptitiously sneak into the frame of any photographs of the candidate.

What a cheap shot.

With all of the options he had, the photographer trolled the nose-bleeds looking for the Jim Crow photo, like Obama made them step to the back of the bus. I don’t condone the Obama campaign’s decision to remove the two Muslim women from behind the candidate, but let’s not insinuate the he then deposited them in the hinterlands of the arena for good measure.

The article in today’s New York Times about a reverend that ministers to truckers, primarily out of his own rig in Breezewood, PA, is well worth a read. (Side Note: Have you ever seen Breezewood, PA? It is something to behold.)

But what I really want to talk about are the photos that accompanied the article. Each of the photographs were published with their negative borders around them. I can’t remember ever having seen that in a newspaper before. I know it’s code for “my framing is gangster and I don’t crop my images.” I guess I am just surprised that the photo editor even entertained the idea.

“…separate, perfect immovable
Images can break the solitude
Of lovely, satisfied, indifferent eyes.”

- William Butler Yeats

And here’s a photograph from the book.

If you like this, go here.

Slightly related: What do you call those quotes that often are found after the title page of the book but before the substance?

Update: Epigraph. Thx Alex.

Vogue went all old-timey with its most recent cover which, to my eyes, hearkens back to the imagery of Jim Crow-era propaganda.

King James won’t be happy with a ring, he wants your women (all of them) too!

23/6 makes the apt comparison below:

Check out the New York Times profile on JeongMee Yoon’s Pink and Blue Projects and the accompanying multi-media slide show.

via (the group blog for the 2007-2008 Photojournalism and Documentary Class at ICP… and special props to the author for using the word “dipped”.)

Congrats to Sheila for her four photo spread in the pulp version of today’s New York Times.

The article is here and the nine photo multimedia slide show is here. This after her first hit in the New Yorker. Looks like someone forgot to tell her she is still in school.

© 2007. Sheila Griffin.

I am not usually into fantastical images. I tend to be drawn to portraits and documentary(ish) photography. It’s not that such work is any less valuable, I just don’t like it.

That all went out the window this weekend when I was introduced to the work of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison.

Behold.

Reclaimation

Low Tide

Garden of Selves

More at the ParkHarrison website and at Masters of Fine Art Photography.

This collection of photographs by Jan Von Hollenben is magical. Also makes me realize I don’t have a creative bone in my body.

Congrats to Sheila who got one of her photos published today! Not to shabby She, getting a full page in the New Yorker as one of your first photo credits…

Photograph: Sheila Griffin (2005)

My friends’ baby (her father is a lawyer).