This is a fun book of photography projects for children (although they would also be good for any adult aspiring photographer). I like the way it has varied practical projects which get you thinking about the process of making photographs based around a theme or idea.

It poses interesting questions to think about when taking a photograph, and as Susan Meilsellas says “whether or not a photograph can change the world, photography can change you. Just open your eyes!”

This is a shining example of how our stories begin before we are born. Cerotti’s fascination with her grandmother’s unusual wartime story became her sort of full-time job, and I loved getting to come along for the ride. Through these pages, I got to learn about a part of the Holocaust that’s not talked about much: what happened to Jews in Scandinavia.

Like all excellent 3G (grandchildren of Holocaust survivors) memoirs, Cerotti doesn’t just tell the story of her family’s past; the reader sees how that past is not really past at all. Cerotti meets characters in her grandmother’s story and changes her present in the process.

The photographs compiled in this book were all captured by Enrique Metinides, my favorite Mexican photographer.

Enrique worked as a crime photographer for over 50 years, capturing murders, crashes, and all kinds of catastrophes for Mexico’s infamous tabloids. This photo book is a great testament of Mexico’s palpable surrealism, where death is just one more component of the chaotic landscape.

Even though Metinides worked for the sensationalist press, none of the images in this book could be called that. His photos emanate an enormous respect for the victims and for tragedy itself.

The beauty of his shots do not romanticize the “real-life horror” that we are looking at. Rather, they remind us that sometimes, when in the presence of the devastating forces of life, there’s nothing else to do but be a humble spectator. 

Prior to her death in 2015, photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark had published over 20 collections of her work spanning her storied career, but few hit the reader in the gut like her debut Falkland Road. Taken during visits to Mumbai (Bombay) in the 1970s, Mary was able to gain the trust of sex workers being pimped out in the Indian city’s notorious red-light district. The images are dark, disturbing, and bleak, but their intimacy and tenderness are what separates Mary from her peers.

After the gradual normalisation of relations between China and the US and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, a small number of western journalists were allowed to open bureaus in Beijing. Access was limited and travel difficult but one talented Chinese American photojournalist really pushed the boundaries in showing the rest of the world what the long inaccessible country was like. His tenacity and eye for the telling detail were an inspiration for me to take up the challenge to devote my career to covering the historic era of change in due course. Such was Liu’s ability to cover more than his hosts were quite ready to show ethnic Chinese foreign journalists found it near impossible to gain accreditation for many years afterwards.

My husband is a native Bostonian, so when I discovered this novel takes place in the historic Back Bay neighborhood of the city, I was immediately intrigued.

The story follows Meena Dave, an orphan who has inherited an apartment from a woman she has never met. As she attempts to figure out their connection, she forms an unexpected friendship with a trio of meddling aunties who also live in the building and have been in each other’s lives since birth.

Through these women, Meena learns not just of her past, but of the importance of community, culture, and the sacrifices of sisterhood. 

Technically about World War II, this work covers Chim’s work depicting culture, politics, and life before and after the war, so the circumstances leading to conflict and its aftermath. Chim was the co-founder of Magnum Photos, so his contribution to photojournalism is immense, and his photos are beautifully lit and composed even as they capture fleeting moments: Polish school children waiting for a bus in the rain, a baby reaching for bread at a displaced person’s camp or a boy playing in the ruins of a bombed building. The book also includes later photos of celebrities and movie stars, which, when seen alongside his earlier work creates an interesting narrative of a world putting itself back together and once again seeking out joy and beauty.

This book is not about death on its own but images of death, and the roles to which they are put by the press and politicians.

Focusing on iconic photographs of death from events such as the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, the Vietnam War, and the September 11th attacks, among many others, Zelizer charts a growing discomfort over time with images of death in the news. As technology improved, such photos became more graphic and intimate, and norms around the increasingly professionalized field of journalism came to render them mostly off limits.

Despite the general squeamishness of Western journalists and readers towards such images today, however, we do still see them during major world events and important breaking stories. It’s also true, Zelizer points out, that images of death in far away places are often shown in American newspapers with less concern.

There are important lessons here for all of… show more.

Robert Capa is the photographer I admire most. He died young, but he is forever remembered for his early work in the Spanish Civil War and later during the D-Day landings of WW2. His images and his character were, of course, much more nuanced, and I think he, of all the Magnum photographers, gets closest to capturing the human element of both war and its aftermath.

Whenever I begin to doubt why I continue in the thankless task of photojournalism, I read Capa’s Slightly Out of Focus again. Yes, the Hungarian emigre tells a tall tale, and his friend Ernest Hemingway helped him brush up the text—which was originally intended as a screenplay—but, my God, what a humorous and inspiring autobiographical record of Capa’s adventures in World War 2 this is! 

This vast book in 500 pages broke new ground in publishing and photojournalism circles in China. Edited by the visionary curator Wang Huangsheng this extraordinary collection of colour and black and white material from hundreds of photographers both professional and amateur remains unmatched in scope. With unflinching courage to show both the brightest and darkest sides of life in the People’s Republic Wang selected many previously unpublished images along a range of themes from ‘desire’ to ‘time’, existence’ to ’relationships’. Crime and punishment, rural schools, and worker demonstrations - all sorts of subjects that were rarely seen in the state media, even the anal inspection of army recruits. Never before and rarely since, particularly in the last few years, has such a daring serving of so many slices of life been served. This important book is a reminder that despite the limitations of China’s state media and the much denigrated… show more.