#photojournalist

[songs-of-the-east]

Mazowsze (Mazovia), Poland - Bruno Barbey

[thepastisalreadywritten]

—

In Byron Smith’s new photography book, Ukrainians are pictured fleeing by any means possible — crammed into cars with pet dogs, waiting to board trains to Poland, or simply taking to suburban streets with infants and backpacks in hand.

As a photojournalist whose work often focuses on the plight of migrants (a mission that has taken him from Greek refugee camps to the battle for ISIS-controlled Mosul, Iraq, in 2016 and 2017), his instinct was quite the opposite: to run toward the danger.

“I feel like if you see these masses of people fleeing, it would be fake for me to really sympathize with them if I didn't go and see what they were fleeing from,” Smith told CNN in a video interview from Istanbul, Turkey.

Documenting Smith’s travels through Ukraine in the year following Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022, “Testament ‘22 – A Visual Road Diary Through a War Zone” is a contemplative portrait of a nation at war.

The 192-page tome juxtaposes color with monochrome, defiance with despair, hope with fear.

—

The title references “My Testament,” an 1845 poem by Taras Shevchenko in which the author asks to be buried among the fields, rivers and steppes of his “beloved Ukraine.”

The photographer recalled reading it as he first ventured to Kyiv.

“It's pretty much (Shevchenko’s) last will and testament... And I'm riding into this war zone, the Russians are invading and I’m like, ‘Wow, I actually don't have a will and testament for myself, for my parents or family, or even anything to really leave behind for anybody.’

That played on me a bit, and it became the backbone for the story.”

The book serves, too, as a testament to the people of Ukraine, whose stories Smith felt compelled to share with the world.

Its publisher, Verlag Kettler, believes the photographer’s body of work can contribute to the “overwhelming evidence” of Russian crimes.

xxx

[higherentity]

[drsonnet]

Palestinian children in front of a mural of a kitten, ...

BEIT HANUN, GAZA, PALESTINE - 2015/02/27: Palestinian children in front of a mural of a kitten, said to have been painted by British street artist Banksy, on the remains of a house that was destroyed during the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the summer of 2014, in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun. (Photo by Ahmed Hjazy/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

[iwoulddie4-poetry]

“The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible.”

- Toni Cade Bambara

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Repost from @ajplus

•

21 years ago, an Israeli sniper shot a British university student in the head as he tried to protect a group of children in Gaza. Two years later, the soldier who shot him said that he was acting under orders that allowed him to shoot unarmed civilians.

This is the story of Tom Hurndall, an aspiring young photojournalist who traveled the world and fought for justice during his short life.

Tom arrived in Gaza to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement shortly after Israeli forces killed American activist Rachel Corrie in 2003. Rachel was a volunteer with the same organization.

[polishwomenartists-sztukakobiet]

Julia Pirotte, Portret dziewczynki (Marsylia), 1941

Julia Pirotte (née Diament; 1908 – 25 July 2000) was a Polish photojournalist known for her work in Marseille during the Second World War when she documented the French Resistance, and for photographs taken in the aftermath of the Kielce Pogrom of 1946. Via Wikipedia

[claraameliapond]

Parent of photojournalist and activist killed by Israel while trying to protect children from sniper fire "I think one of the lessons we learnt from that was that you can't place any reliance on Israeli accounts of events. And I think that's why I feel it's particularly relevant today, when we're hearing Israelis explain their actions in Gaza, so I think that was our concern, that it was happening again. Because it does seem that that's the Idf's approach: to routinely misrepresent what are ordinary civilian targets as, in some way tainted with a military aspect and therefore justify their attacking them" ... "What you must remember is that that barbarity, was incited by the ongoing barbarity of the Israeli policies towards Palestine."

Even supporters of Israel are aware and critical of its horrific apartheid and ethnic cleansing, genocidal approach to Palestine

[postcard-from-the-past]

"The photojournalist", photographed by Andreas Feininger, 1955

French vintage postcard

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

Steve McCurry is 74 today

[songs-of-the-east]

“A grandmother and her grandson in the family home in Sari Bash, a village in the Crimean steppe where Tatars were given virtually worthless land. The village is a former prison camp with very poor infrastructure.”

Photographed by Carolyn Drake in Crimea, Ukraine. 2006.

[gaelic]

La jeunesse emmerde le Front National, les seniors aussi !

2024-06-15 #france #paris #nouveaufrontpopulaire #report #gaelic69 https://gaelic-report.mystrikingly.com

[higherentity]

[the-cricket-chirps]

David Douglas Duncan

Picasso Wearing Cardboard Mask

1958

[drsonnet]

Palestinian citizens bury the bodies of Palestinians killed during the war in a mass grave on December 26, 2023 in #Rafah, #Gaza. Israel handed back 80 bodies of Palestinians during the ongoing war on Gaza (#genocide).

(by Ahmad Hasaballah/#Getty Images)

رفح، #غزة – 26 ديسمبر: مواطنون يدفنون جثث الفلسطينيين الذين قتلوا في مقبرة جماعية في 26 ديسمبر 2023 في #رفح #غزة. أعادت إسرائيل 80 جثة لفلسطينيين خلال حرب الإبادة في غزة.

(تصوير: أحمد حسب الله)

[lestatdelioncoeur]

Lee Miller

Man Ray – Lee Miller, Juan les Pins, Antibes, France, 1930 ©