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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?

In 2002, Alec Soth traveled with his wife to Bogotá, Colombia to adopt a baby girl. The baby's birth mother gave the new parents a book filled with letters, pictures and poems for their new daughter. 'I hope that the hardness of the world will not hurt your sensitivity,' she wrote. 'When I think about you I hope that your life is full of beautiful things.' During the two months that the Colombian courts processed their adoption paperwork, Soth set about making his own book for his daughter. Soth recently completed this book, Dog Days Bogotá. On November 9th, an exhibition of this work will debut at Weinstein Gallery in Soth's hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Soth discusses Dog Days Bogotá with his intern, Carrie Thompson, a photography student at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota.

On the eve of the election, a number of Magnum photographers have been venturing into American to capture what they can of this historic moment in time. The project is called InSight America. But rather than publish this work as a book a year after the fact, Magnum is posting the work online and on the fly. I caught up with Alex Webb after his recent journey to Ohio:

Joe McNally is an internationally acclaimed American photographer and long-time photojournalist. McNally is known worldwide for his ability to produce technically and logistically complex assignments with expert use of color and light.

We live in a world where we can watch disasters and suffering unfold around the world. New technologies mean that every war, every famine, every hurricane can be covered live and direct. But do we actually notice what is happening to those involved? Polis Summer School student Andrea Abril has been thinking through the moral dilemmas. This is her report: Hannah Arendt, the German political theorist, wrote about the "Politics of Pity". Firstly , she made the distinction between those who suffer and those who do not. She also wrote that 'seeing' and 'looking' are considered as different concepts because sufferer and observer are physically distant - despite the closeness that modern media brings. This creates the "spectacle of suffering", unfortunate people are observed by those who do not share their suffering, who do not experience it directly and who, as such, may be regarded as fortunate people. This theory can be applied to sufferings representation in media. Audiences are observers of the misery of the unfortunate but within a distance, which is not just geographical, but also emotional.

1854 brings you a daily dose of photographic news, from the latest gear to the best exhibitions to the best insights on ongoing and upcoming trends in the industry. 1854 is written by the editors of the British Journal of Photography, the world's oldest photography magazine

The Raw File was created to produce and distribute socially reflective media that will provoke discussion. It is our hope that these conversations will intersect the lines of race and class, private and professional. Our content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License so that anyone may download, copy, exhibit, and distribute it for non-profit, educational purposes. We simply ask you to attribute this work to "www.therawfile.org". The Raw File has no agenda other than to provide a neutral and approachable environment for the documentation and dissemination of information by and about individuals and their communities, an outlet for stories that would otherwise go unheard into history. The Raw File is self-funded and in the process of being registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit . The Raw File… Founded by Brenda Ann Kenneally.

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.

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.

PhotoPlus Seminar: Boosting Your Web Site's Search Engine Rankings\n\nBlake Discher says the second thing he does when he gets up in the morning is a Google search on "Detroit photographer" to make sure his site comes up first in the search results. If it doesn't, he tweaks the site to re-establish his king-of-the-hill status. His seminar, "Is Your Web Site Doing All It Can to Make You Money?" was all about how to put your own site at the top of search engine rankings. The technical term for it, by the way, is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).