Global Lens Reflections on life, the universe, and everything
Picture of the Week
Photos in use
Here's another example of how an image was used. (Remember I promised in January that every once in a while I'll show how and where my images get used?) I picked this because when capturing images of people, I try hard to get their face, especially their eyes. That's usually what makes us interesting. But […]
South Sudan cook
Let’s talk today about dynamic range, the ratio between the maximum and minimum intensities of measurable light. Huh? It’s the continuum from light to dark that we can distinguish with our eyes. Our cameras are not as sensitive as our eyes when it comes to capturing dynamic range, so photographers spend a lot of time […]
Cairo family
Today is the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, the day we remember the massacre of the children of Bethlehem by the army of an empire that was threatened by the birth of a child. To escape the violence, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Egypt, where they lived until Herod died. Despite all the […]
Ethiopian mother and child
In these final days of Advent, when we practice waiting, I remember this woman. In April 2000 I was in Gubalaftu, a poor village in the stark northern highlands of Ethiopia. I was covering the effect that a periodic drought had on families there. Some had received food from the Mekane Yesus Ethiopian Evangelical Church, […]
Palestinian pictures
Newt Gingrich paints himselfs as a "historian," but it's obvious that his recent reference to the Palestinians as an "invented" people, just as his claim that they are all "terrorists," is a lie so big that only the most ardent Fox News devotee, who knows less about the world than someone who doesn't watch any […]
Port au Prince posture
I'm a little late posting this week as I wandered off to New York City for three days, where among other things I signed copies of Rubble Nation, a new book on Haiti that I coauthored, at a reception in Manhattan. So I was thinking a bit about the images in the book and what […]
Enough stigma
In the last few years I’ve shot a lot of images related to HIV and AIDS. Because today is World AIDS Day, I wanted to pick just one. Would it be a care giver in Malawi, one of those unsung heroes on the front line of the war against suffering? Would it be an angry […]
Brave girl
I met Luong Hoai Thuong in 2007 when I was photographing in Vietnam. I was particularly interested in landmine survivors, and after a couple of days of capturing images of amazing adults who had lost their arms but could still manipulate a hoe in their fields or had lost legs but could still fish for […]
Pelecanus occidentalis
I’m not a nature photographer, but I do at times mistakenly drag a camera along when I go on vacation. I was thinking of this while lying around because I just had knee surgery. Rather than remaining in cold and snowy Yakima I’ve been fantasizing about healing instead on a tropical island such as Sandy […]
Spied in Havana
Digital technology has definite advantages over film. I learned about one of them while shooting in Cuba a few years ago. I was interested in capturing images of the iconic old cars that populate the island’s streets, and shot a variety of daytime photos. I thought I’d also try shooting them at night, using a […]
Playing dead
In a rural village in northern India, students from Isabella Thoburn College perform street theater against dowry violence. Dowry is a practice where the bride's family transfers money and objects of value to the groom's family, and it has grown even more prevalent in India in recent years, contributing to horrible violence against many women […]
Olive woman
In this November 2006 image, a Palestinian woman cleans olives during the yearly olive harvest in the West Bank town of Turmus'ayya. She throws the olives in the air and the wind blows the leaves away. Olives play a central role in the traditional Palestinian diet and economy; about 45 percent of agricultural land in […]
Rush to idiocy
Late last Friday night I returned from the Dominican Republic, flying into Seattle. I then had to drive to Portland in the middle of the night, so I sought out some rightwing radio stations to listen to. These usually keep me awake, and this time was no exception. One station I found was a call-in […]
Seaside morning
Some images remain with me not so much for what happened in the moment of capture, but what transpired afterward. Here's a photo I took on December 19, 2004. A Sunday morning in the quiet Indian seaside village of Ennore, north of Chennai. I had gone there a few days earlier to document some Methodist […]
Carlos’ body
I am in Honduras currently, and on Sunday morning I was visiting the La Lempira cooperative near Tocoa, in the Aguan Valley of northern Honduras. It’s a region I’ve written about in the past. It boasts very fertile land which has been systematically stolen over the years by the rich. When the poor organize to […]
Daddy’s picture
There's nothing particularly dramatic about this image, but it was an emotional moment for me as a photographer. I was in Beirut in 2008, as part of an assignment in Lebanon and Syria documenting the lives of Iraqi refugees. I was with a translator from the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center, visiting some refugee families in […]
Dying of thirst
No More Deaths is a humanitarian group that organizes volunteers to place water in the desert along the U.S.-Mexico border, water that frequently keeps migrants traversing the desert from dying. They place gallon jugs of water along migrant paths, carefully monitoring what gets used and what doesn't so they can shift water to where it's […]
Himalayan helicopter
In delivering emergency aid, helicopters can be useful, such as getting tents to the remote village of Gantar, high in the Himalayas of northern Pakistan. In the wake of the October 2005 earthquake, when homes in this village had collapsed, and with winter quickly closing in, getting shelter material on the ground was urgent. Yet […]
Sunshine woes
Seems like it would be simple. If farmers are working in a field, you just point the ol’ camera and “click.” Then on to the next task. But it seldom works out that way. Why? Farmers tend to put things in the ground, and thus spend a lot of time looking at the ground. The […]
Handy translator
I've been on assignment in Haiti, and haven't posted for two weeks. I hope you survived in the absence of the PotW. . . Haiti is one of those places where I need a translator most of the time, as my crappy French isn't good enough to understand most Kreyol. Translators are critical players in […]
Casting a big shadow
I love this photo. The technique was simple: I stood on my toes. I often look for a different angle, and love getting high. (yea, yea…) But "high" can often mean just a couple more inches. In this case, it allowed me to isolate the boy against the dirt, without any distractions from people or […]
Tortilla fingers
The rule of thumb in photography is that light is your friend if it's behind you or to the side, but if it's shining at you from behind the subject you want to photograph, then you've got issues. But sometimes it works to your advantage. In 2009, I was photographing Petronila Escalante as she prepared […]
Beauty comes to those who wait
This image is a testament to hanging on til the last minute. I was in Zalingei, in the Darfur region of Sudan in 2005. I was sitting with some Sudanese men, and these women came by carrying pots on their heads. (So far there's nothing unusual here: men sitting around talking while women work.) The […]
Water works
I'm just wrapping up a long week at the world's largest refugee camp in northeastern Kenya. The Dadaab refugee complex – it's really three separate camps – has somewhere around 400,000 people, and the numbers are growing daily as new refugees arrive from drought-stricken Somalia. It's a place full of pain and lost dreams, but […]