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The photographer Simon Norfolk finds moments of beauty and wonder in the world's most forlorn landscapes. From Afghanistan to Auschwitz, Norfolk documents the imprints of war-sometimes physical, sometimes physic-on its surroundings. His book Bosnia: Bleed is an impressionistic testimony to the mass slaughter that accompanied the war in the former Yugoslavia. In particular, he focuses on the sites of "secondary mass graves," where the perpetrators tried to hide the evidence of their crimes. He writes, "They thought that, by intimidation and subterfuge, their dirty secrets could be preserved, held, trapped. Frozen."

As photographer Simon Norfolk claims in the following interview, his work documents an international "military sublime." His photos reveal half-collapsed buildings, destroyed cinemas, and unpopulated urban ruins in diagonal shafts of morning sunlight - from Iraq to Rwanda, Bosnia to Afghanistan - before venturing further afield into more distant, and surprising, landscapes of modern warfare. These include the sterile, climate-controlled rooms of military command centers, and the gargantuan supercomputers that design and simulate nuclear warheads.

If done properly, crime scene photography greatly assists the profiler in developing a psychological and behavioral profile of the offender.

The Admissibility of Digital Photographs in Criminal Cases By David P. Nagosky

Authenticity, in the broad sense of the word, is fundamental to litigation. It acts as a dynamic -- as the conceptual glue holding together the pieces of a case. As part of its most basic function, therefore, a jury constantly assesses authenticity. Once falsehood is detected, or truth perceived as misrepresented, a party's case unravels. Indeed, tribunals could not serve their function without an ability to assess whether proffered assertions are what they "purport to be." Each type and piece of evidence must therefore be subject to a test for authenticity. The testimony of witnesses is a familiar example. Such evidence is examined for bias, for interest and for the human capacity to exaggerate or mislead, among other things. Cross-examination, including the comparison of testimony with records of various types, is the chief tool by which we probe witnesses, whose genuineness or authenticity is usually called "credibility."

Much has been written about the questionable research, writing, and presentation of indigenous people in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in Jared Diamond's New Yorker article, "Vengeance Is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?"  I would like to place the article and discussion of it in a more general context of media ethics and media coverage of indigenous people. Moreover, I would like to consider it in the context of the important work that indigenous people around the world are doing, to tell more accurate stories - in their own voices - and to create their own media outlets and networks.

One surefire way to irritate blind people is to think that you can put a blindfold on for an hour or two and understand what it is to be blind. It sounds like a good idea until you really start to think about it. I should know. I once set out to make a radio documentary for the BBC about the contrasting ways in which the visually impaired and the sighted experience the countryside.

In the vanguard of the Marines, the press corps had already stormed Somailia. Now we will see more of the famailiar pictures of grotesque human degradation, with foreign angels of mercy ministering to starving children, juxtaposed with images of trigger-happy teen-age looters. Such pictures prompted President Bush's military adventure-now they will justify it. The camera can't lie, we are told. But anyone who has watched a Western film crew in an African famine will know just how much effort it takes to compose the "right" image. Photogenic starving children are hard to find, even in Somalia. Somali doctors and nurses have expressed shock at the conduct of film crews in hospitals. They rush through crowded corridors, leaping over stretchers, dashing to film the agony before it passes. They hold bedside vigils to record the moment of death. When the Italian actress Sophia Loren visited Somalia, the paparazzi trampled on children as they scrambled to film her feeding a little girl-three times. This is disaster pornography.

In 2007, Dóchas members adopted a Code of Conduct on Images and Messages. The purpose of this Code is to provide a framework which organisations can refer to when designing and implementing their public communication strategy. The Dóchas Code offers a set of guiding principles that can assist organisations in their decision-making about which images and messages to choose in their communication while maintaining full respect for human dignity. By signing the Code, Development NGOs commit to a set of principles, ensuring that they will avoid stereotypical or sensational images. The adoption of the Code means that aid agencies will choose images and messages that represent the full complexity of the situations in which they work, and that they will seek the permission of the people portrayed in the photos they use.

At PixelPress our intent is to encourage documentary photographers, writers, filmmakers, artists, human rights workers and students to explore the world in ways that take advantage of the new possibilities provided by digital media. We seek a new paradigm of journalism, one that encourages an active dialogue between the author and reader and, also, the subject. Our online magazine features projects that use a variety of linear and non-linear strategies, attempting to articulate visions of human possibility even while confirming human frailty. For us the digital revolution is a revolution in consciousness, not in commerce. We work with organizations such as Crimes of War, Human Rights Watch, World Health Organization and UNICEF to create Web sites that deal directly with contemporary issues in complex and innovative ways that circumvent media sensationalism and simplification. We also try to factor in ways that the viewer can help remedy social problems, rather than remain a spectator. Recently we completed a site focusing on how to end polio worldwide; another trying to aid an orphanage in Rwanda; one trying to reclaim the Brazilian forest; and a site featuring the images of photographers from the Vietnam War. And we also create books with photographers such as Machiel Botman, Kent Klich and Sebastião Salgado on social themes, as well as traveling exhibitions using both digital and conventional processes.

Black Star Rising is a blogzine designed to educate professional photographers, amateur photographers and photography buyers alike. Black Star has a long history of mentoring our photographers and clients, and Black Star Rising is an attempt to extend this ethos of teaching -- and caring -- to a broader audience. We hope you find it of value, and that you'll come back often.

World is Witness, a new "geoblog" from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiatives, in partnership with Google Earth, documents and maps genocide and related crimes against humanity. The initial entries are from a Museum visit to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to learn about the legacies of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, and the most recent entries are from a Museum visit to South Sudan and a return visit to the Congo. Visit us again soon for more posts from the field.

As almost everyone knows by now, various major daily newspaper published, on July 10, a photograph of four Iranian missiles streaking heavenward; then Little Green Footballs (significantly, a blog and not a daily newspaper) provided evidence that the photograph had been faked. Later, many of those same papers published a Whitman's sampler of retractions and apologies. For me it raised a series of questions about images.[1] Do they provide illustration of a text or an idea of evidence of some underlying reality or both? And if they are evidence, don't we have to know that the evidence is reliable, that it can be trusted?

Aims & Scope Third Text is an international scholarly journal dedicated to providing critical perspectives on art and visual culture. The journal examines the theoretical and historical ground by which the West legitimises its position as the ultimate arbiter of what is significant within this field. Established in 1987, the journal provides a forum for the discussion and (re)appraisal of theory and practice of art, art history and criticism, and the work of artists hitherto marginalised through racial, gender, religious and cultural differences. Dealing with diversity of art practices - visual arts, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, video and film - Third Text addresses the complex cultural realities that emerge when different worldviews meet, and the challenge this poses to Eurocentrism and ethnocentric aesthetic criteria. The journal aims to develop new discourses and radical interdisciplinary scholarships that go beyond the confines of eurocentricity.

An ASMP white paper by Richard Weisgrau Publishers control the day rate that they pay to photographers. In 25 years they have failed to increase the day rate to a level that would allow photographers to maintain the standard of living of 1973. In spite of this failure, many publishers seek more and more rights from photographers for the same low and continuously eroding fees. The situation is out of control. Photographers feel that they cannot control the day rate. They perceive that they have little individual clout in a negotiation with a major magazine. They cannot collectively bargain, since they are independent contractors and not entitled to the collective bargaining power of a union. The simple fact is that the publisher has all the advantages, EXCEPT FOR ONE. If the situation does not improve, good and reliable photographers will eventually be forced to refuse editorial assignments, since these will not support the photographers' costs and commitments to their businesses.

THEORY - "The Treacherous Medium: Why Photography Critics Hate Photographs " The Treacherous Medium: Why photography critics hate photographs Boston Review, by Susie Linfield In 1846, Charles Baudelaire wrote a little essay called "What is the Good of Criticism?" This is a question that virtually every critic asks herself at some point, and that some have answered with hopelessness, despair, even self-loathing. Baudelaire didn't think that criticism would save the world, but he didn't think it was a worthless pursuit, either. For Baudelaire, criticism was the synthesis of thought and feeling: in criticism, Baudelaire wrote, "passion … raises reason to new heights." A few years later, he would explain that through criticism he sought "to transform my pleasure into knowledge"-a pithy, excellent description of critical practice. Baudelaire's American contemporary Margaret Fuller held a similar view; as she put it, the critic teaches us "to love wisely what we before loved well."

INTERVIEW - "Interview with Gilles Peress: Images, Reality and the Curse of History"

About Welcome to my site. Here you will find summaries of my work, videos to watch, papers to download, images to study and links to pursue. I have three areas of interest - photography, multimedia and politics. I am particularly concerned with (1) how documentary photography, photojournalism and satellite imaging visually enact our world; (2) how multimedia technologies are transforming the capacity of photography to tell stories about our hybrid world; and (3) how issues of identity and representation help structure international politics. A full CV/resume is available here. As professor of cultural and political geography at Durham University in the UK, I am associated with the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies. In 2009 I have a fellowship at Durham's Institute for Advanced Study to work on photographs from the Sudan archive for my 'Geopolitics and Visuality' project.

The IFJ Launches Website for Ethical Journalism Campaign Welcome to the Ethical Journalism Initiative website - a new campaign to rekindle old values in media worldwide launched by the International Federation of Journalists. The future of media is the hot topic everywhere, particularly as journalists and others wrestle with the rapid changes in the way journalism works. In troubled times of political tension, social conflict and economic turbulence people yearn for reliable and quality information. Journalism provides the analysis, context and commentary that keep citizens informed and allows them to play their part in the life of society. The role of media in helping to build democracy has never been more important, but how will journalism in future deliver the service people need? [..]