Seamus Murphy - East of the Sun / from the Dispatches issue On Russia.

Just got a facebook message from Dispatches about the newest photos and slideshow on the magazine’s site. “East of the Sun,” part of the issue On Russia, is beautiful and strange. I’m not convinced of some of the close-up crops in the video, but the music and editing made me chuckle (in a good way) more than a few times. Beautiful and strange work from Russia by Seamus Murphy.

Unfortunately, it’s a little difficult to find Seamus Murphy’s other work online. There was a little blurb about him over at Rob Haggart’s A Photo Editor blog that started out:

One of my all time favorite photographers has no agent, no website, doesn’t send out promo mailers, no logo, isn’t in any of the sourcebooks, not listed in the free workbook phonebook, has never called to see if I’ve got anything for him and if I hadn’t scoured the web and made a few phone calls years ago I would have no clue how to contact him….”

There’s a little feature at Outside magazine about being in the field with Seamus Murphy in Syria. Granta has some of his work online focusing on soldiers getting ready for deployment. There’s also a small interview at Culture 24. And definitely don’t miss his POYi 62 World Understanding Award portfolio of work from Afghanistan, which is also the subject of what looks to be a great book, “Afghanistan: A Darkness Visible.”

Bryan Derballa - President Hugo Chavez caravans his way through the slums of Catia as a last attempt to rally support for his constitutional amendment.

Mother Jones has just published a gallery of friend Bryan Derballa’s coverage of the referendum vote in Venezuela. Some great shots in there, especially the one I pulled for the top of this post. So much excitement, distilled, isolated, and composed in its own setting.

Continuing our roundup of “Photos of the Year” lists (previous Parts 1 and 2):

• The Sydney Morning Herald’s Photos of the Year (warning: there’s music)
• The LA Times’ Best Photography of 2008, including World Photography, National Photography, California Photography, Sports, and more.
• Vanity Fair’s Year in Pictures, Parts 1 and 2
• The Big Picture’s Year in Photographs, part 3
• UNICEF’s Photos of the Year (including an honorable mention for Melissa Lyttle)
• The possibly soon-to-be-closed Rocky Mountain News’ Year in Photos
• The Independent on Sunday’s World News Pictures of the Year
• Wired.com’s Best (Reader) Contest Photos You Never Saw
• SportsShooter’s Top 5 Cool Things for 2008 by the Click’s Trent Nelson (dvafoto was listed for November! Thanks, Trent!)
• Huffington Post’s 10 Worst Media Moments in 2008

(Thanks again to Filmoculous’ huge and growing 2008 List of Lists for some of these; there are a couple I didn’t list, CollegeHumor.com and the Village Voice’s NSFW New York Photos of the Year, because they seemed so out of place here…)

Part of dvafoto’s continued roundup of the Year in Pictures lists (Part 1), here are a few more:

• Time’s Pictures of the Year (including one by previous dva interview subject Matt Slaby and Alixandra Fazzina’s excellent picture mentioned here previously)
• The Boston Globe’s Big Picture Year in Photos, part 1 and part 2. Part 3 will be published soon.
• Reuter’s 2008 Pictures of the Year.
• Agence France Presse’s Photos of the Year (possibly not official).
• The Telegraph’s various pictures of the year categories: Violent Conflicts, Natural Disasters, Spectacular Images, Royal News, and, um, Pets, among others.
• The Smoking Gun’s Mugshots of the Year.
• Discover Magazine’s Top 10 Astronomy Pictures of 2008.
• National Geographic’s Top 10 Photo Galleries of the Year.
• National Geographic’s Best Animal Wildlife Photos of 2008.
• And, for completeness’ sake, the Flickr group 2008: A Year in Pictures.

The Year in Photos packages are trickling out. Thanks to Filmoculous’ great annual List of Lists, here are a few of the collections released so far.

• MSNBC’s Year in News Pictures (watch out for the way over the top music…)
• MSNBC’s Year in Sports Pictures
• Time’s Top 10 photos
• Time’s Top 10 election photos
• National Geographic’s Best Science Images
• Pitchfork Media’s Year in Concert Photos

Visitors to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, step on a hand-made Japanese military flag on the 71st anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre.

I had an hour or two spare this morning before another shoot and decided to check out the annual commemoration of the start of the Nanjing Massacre at the huge and breathtaking Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum. Not nearly as big a news event this year as last (a small edit of my previous photos), the event today was well-attended and somber.

Today was the 71st anniversary of the beginning of the Rape of Nanking (or the Nanjing Massacre), in which Japanese troops took over the then-capital and went on a 6 week rampage. Japan and China present different histories of the time. Tensions run high on the day and there’s a strong anti-Japanese sentiment in China. I’ve read some reports saying that anti-Japanese sentiment, especially among the youth, has been stronger recently than say 5, 10, or 20 years ago. The Chinese government has been trying to quell public displays of the sentiment and not fan the flames too much themselves; everybody wants peace and everybody wants the valuable economic ties between the two countries. I believe Japan hasn’t apologized for the deaths–the Chinese claim 300,000 dead many of whom were women and children–and China keeps trotting out more evidence and emotionally charged reminders of the event (the Nanjing Massacre Museum itself is pretty over the top in displaying how brutal the Japanese troops were); just this week the Chinese government unveiled another 800 pieces of what it calls evidence of war crimes committed by the Japanese troops. A few months ago it was a Japanese diplomat saying that the Massacre Museum lays the blame and hate on too thickly, officially asking the government to tone down the museum.

A girl holds a memorial banner outside the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, on the 71st anniversary of the start the Nanjing Massacre.

Visitors to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, enter the museum grounds on the 71st anniversary of the start of the Nanjing Massacre.

Actors perform in a theatrical re-enactment of the Nanjing Massacre at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, on the 71st anniversary of the start of the Nanjing Massacre.

Members of the Chinese People's Army gather outside the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, after a ceremony commemorating the 71st anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre.

Visitors to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, wait for the museum to open on the 71st anniversary of the start of the Nanjing Massacre.

Actors perform in a theatrical re-enactment of the Nanjing Massacre at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, on the 71st anniversary of the start of the Nanjing Massacre.

Excavated human remains lay on display in the Memorial Hall of the Grave of 10,000 Corpses at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.

It’d been a while since I’d looked through Mother Jones magazine’s online photo archive, but I’m glad I did. There’s a lot to look at from the past few years of the magazine. For instance, check out Lana Šlezić’s photo essay on women in Afghanistan, Richard Ross‘ essay on endangered animals on display in natural history museums, James Whitlow Delano’s beautiful work on China’s recent development, or Scott Strazzante’s work on a Chicagoland farm before it became part of a tremendous diptych series (Mediastorm multimedia piece).

Danish Photojournalist Christian Als

"Yet another child become a grim statistic in Kibera; diarrhea, typhoid and dysentery are rampant, with child death rates running at almost four times the average for Nairobi." from Als' story "Africa's Largest Slum"

I’m trying to come up with a better tagline, trust me, for these ‘quick hits’ on things I think you should check out. Something along the lines of “Shit We’re Diggin’” (from the Wooster Collective). Ideas?

A little bit more about Als … I first saw his name pop up at the Greek agency Invision Images and then again at Grazia Neri. (not coincidentally, these are two agencies I myself just started working with). Nice stuff.