Life Magazine, Chronicler of 20th-Century America, Rises Again

 

Via The New York Times

October 28, 2029

Nearly two decades after its last reincarnation folded, Life magazine is coming back to life.

"The iconic magazine, known for its red-box logo and devotion to visual storytelling, will start publishing again next month as a quarterly print magazine. It enters a fractured media landscape that is worlds away from the publication’s midcentury heights of acclaim, before the internet, social media and artificial intelligence upended the business model of magazine publishing.

But Karlie Kloss, the model and entrepreneur who is backing the project through her Bedford Media company, says the legacy of the brand deserved to be reinvigorated and brought into the 21st century. In addition to a website and a social media presence, Life plans to expand into short-form video, documentary films and events.

“What made Life extraordinary was its ability to make the world feel closer,” Ms. Kloss said. “And our responsibility is to preserve and to protect that legacy.”

Life magazine was started in 1936 by Henry Luce, the founder of Time and Fortune magazines. Its first issue featured on its cover a black-and-white photograph by Margaret Bourke-White of the concrete Fort Peck Dam in Montana, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It sold out instantly....

....A monument to the power of photojournalism, Life magazine documented mid-20th-century America, including World War II, the space race and the civil rights movement. It showcased the work of photographers like Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Gordon Parks, leading to indelible images like one of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on V-J Day in 1945 and portraits of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. "

--full article here

Photojournalist Ron Haviv Urges Attention to Global Conflicts in Weatherhead Center Lecture

 Via The Harvard Crimson

By Leah Hwang, Evelyn J. Joung, and Abigael T. Sidi, Contributing Writers

Award-winning photojournalist Ron Haviv urged audiences to pay closer attention to conflicts around the world during the Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture on Thursday.

The lecture, titled “Testimony (1989-2026),” featured short films showcasing Haviv’s decades of photography documenting conflicts ranging from the breakup of Yugoslavia to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I often am the one going towards the danger while everybody else is trying to flee,” he said.

The Jodidi Lecture, organized by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, is a recurring series launched in 1955 that has featured prominent figures involved in global affairs and humanitarian work.

Haviv’s film “Starved for Attention,” a documentary on childhood malnutrition spearheaded by Doctors Without Borders, was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award in 2012. He also co-founded the VII Foundation, a nonprofit supporting photojournalism and documentary work in areas of international conflict.

An exhibition of conflict photography featuring Haviv’s work opened in the basement of CGIS South earlier this month and will remain on display until Jan. 4, 2027.

The short films, assembled by independent filmmakers, paired Haviv’s photographs with audios from interviews and speeches. Haviv said he hoped the films would draw attention to international conflicts he believes are too often overlooked.

Haviv also emphasized the importance of intuition in photojournalism, saying his experience has taught him to anticipate geopolitical conflicts. A week before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Haviv flew across the globe to document the impending invasion.

“So many people — diplomats and pundits — said, ‘Oh, there’s no possibility that Russia will actually invade Ukraine,’” he said. “It happened. I was one of the people who believed that it could happen.”

Haviv acknowledged that critics have labeled his photography “war porn” and characterized his work as the “beautification of poverty.” He pushed back on those criticisms, arguing that he deliberately focused on aesthetics to encourage viewers to engage more deeply with his images.

“I want you to be able to see the photograph, because if you’re not going to look at it, what’s the point of me being there?” Haviv said.

Haviv also discussed how the modern media landscape has given photojournalists new ways to reach audiences by combining photography, video, and audio.

“A working democracy cannot exist without a working and educated media,” he said.

But Haviv warned that generative artificial intelligence could undermine audiences’ trust in photography. Asked whether he was concerned about the use of AI to manufacture images, he argued that the technology poses a threat to the credibility of photojournalism.

“If you don’t believe what you’re looking at, then there’s no point in me going off and telling stories,” he said.

Who Decides What Belongs in Public Spaces?

Via Karsh Institute of Democracy

 A new exhibit from the Karsh Institute of Democracy and UVA Library uses photographs of Confederate and other monuments removed across Virginia in recent years to explore questions of history, memory, and democratic decision-making. 

By Erin Tör

September 25, 2026

For generations, Confederate monuments occupied prominent public spaces across Virginia. They stood in parks, along avenues, outside courthouses, and on the grounds of the state Capitol. 

Then, beginning in 2020, that changed. Many monuments came down across the Commonwealth, including along Richmond's Monument Avenue and in downtown Charlottesville. Some were removed through formal government processes; others were removed amid protests and direct action. In Charlottesville, years of public debate and litigation preceded the removal of the city's Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson statues in July 2021. Around the same time, other monuments that had become subjects of public debate were removed as well, including one depicting Revolutionary War military officer George Rogers Clark and another featuring Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Sacagawea. 

Those changes are the focus of “The Monuments: Who Should Shape Public Space?”—a new exhibition on view in Shannon Library. Featuring photographs by Sanjay Suchak, a former Karsh Institute Practitioner Fellow in Democracy (2023–24), the exhibition asks visitors to consider what those changes reveal about a broader question: Who should shape the public spaces we all share? 

Suchak was there as monuments that had defined Virginia's public spaces for decades were removed. His photographs capture the physical process of removal and the people who gathered to watch.

“As a photographer, I think anytime something historical occurs that you've watched go from a community-developed idea to legislative action, you want to document that,” Suchak said. “For me, it was a way to process the events of [the Unite the Right rally on] August 11 and 12, 2017, in Charlottesville—a direct response to these removals being planned—and to feel like I could help contribute to the record of our communities.” 

The work often meant moving quickly and quietly. “To witness it firsthand was surreal,” Suchak said. “Nobody growing up in Virginia probably would have thought these things would come down, and then to be a part of it—meeting in secret locations—there was a lot of adrenaline, and an immediate realization that this is a significant chapter being turned in the history of our Commonwealth.” 

The photographs in the exhibit span Virginia. A timeline running along the floor provides historical context, tracing each monument from its installation, in some cases in the decades after the Civil War or tied to other chapters of Virginia's history, through the debates, protests, government decisions, and legal challenges that preceded removal. 

That longer history shows how communities have decided, and continue to debate, whose history is represented in shared spaces. Those decisions have often been contested, and some removals have since been reversed. The result raises questions not only about what belongs in public space, but also about who has the final say and how competing views should be weighed. 

“Taken both individually and collectively, Suchak's deeply compelling photographs provide human-scale opportunities for reflection,” said Meg Kennedy, curator of material culture and co-chair of UVA’s Art in Library Spaces committee. “Presented within their historical context, the images invite Library visitors to encounter and explore significant themes and reactions to memorialization.” 

Now several years removed from the events themselves, Suchak sees the photographs differently. “As we look back at the entirety of the movement, I want people to see the physical scale and emotion of this change in our community,” he said. 

The exhibition does not end with the removal of the monuments. Instead, it turns toward what comes next. 

As visitors end their walk through “The Monuments,” they are invited to contribute their own answers to a challenge at the heart of the exhibit: Going forward, how should people and events be memorialized? 

There is no single, simple answer. But the question points toward a larger conversation about the future of public space, and about how history, memory, community, and civic life shape the places we share. 

“The Monuments” is now on view in the third-floor gallery of Shannon Library.

View selected photographs here

The Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture with Ron Haviv: Testimony (1989–2026)

 

Speaker

Ron Haviv, Emmy-nominated filmmaker and award-winning photojournalist. Director of The VII Foundation.

Testimony (1989–2026)

October 22, 2026

05:00PM - 06:30PM EDT

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs

Harvard University
Tsai Auditorium (Room S010), CGIS South Building
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Register here

This event is open to the public and will be recorded. Please register to attend. There will be a public viewing of the exhibition and reception before the lecture, 4:00–4:45 p.m. Please plan on being seated at 4:45 p.m. as the event will start promptly at 5:00 p.m.   

Content Advisory: This presentation includes graphic photographs and video documenting armed conflict, violence, and their aftermath. Viewer discretion is advised.

For more than thirty-five years, Ron Haviv has documented many of the defining events of our time. Through a visual presentation, he explores the realities of conflict and the ethical, practical, and personal challenges of visual journalism, from Central America and the Balkans to the Arab Spring, Ukraine, and an increasingly polarized United States. 

Throughout his career, Haviv has focused on documenting human rights abuses and the consequences of war, including three genocides. Drawing on his experiences in the field, he reflects on the role of the photographer—as witness, observer, and, at times, participant—and explores the ethical responsibilities of documenting history as it unfolds. The lecture also asks what responsibility belongs to the audience. Is witnessing enough, or does seeing create an obligation to understand, remember, and act? 

The presentation weaves together a series of short films with commentary and stories from the field, providing context for the images and an inside look at the challenges and responsibilities of visual journalism.

Take a look at the work of visual artist Ron Haviv >

Chair

Melani Cammett, Center Director; Chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Identity and Conflict. Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, Department of Government, Harvard University.

Speaker Biography

Ron Haviv is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and an award-winning photojournalist. He co-founded VII Photo Agency and The VII Foundation, where he currently serves as a director. He is dedicated to documenting conflict and raising human rights issues around the globe.

Haviv’s first photography book, Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal, was called “One of the best non-fiction books of the year,” by The Los Angeles Times and “A chilling but vastly important record of a people’s suffering” by Newsweek. His other monographs are Afghanistan: The Road to Kabul, Haiti: 12 January 2010, The Lost Rolls, and Shadow of Memory.

Haviv has produced an unflinching record of the injustices of war covering over twenty-five conflicts and his photography has had singular impact. His work in the Balkans, which spanned over a decade of conflict, was used as evidence to indict and convict war criminals at the international tribunal in The Hague. President George H. W. Bush cited Haviv’s chilling photographs documenting paramilitary violence in Panama as one of the reasons for the 1989 American intervention.

His work is in the collections of The Getty, Eastman House and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston amongst others and has been seen in numerous other museums and galleries, including the Louvre, United Nations, Council on Foreign Relations, Fotografiska, and the International Center of Photography.

Haviv has co-created multi-platform projects for Doctors Without Borders’ DR Congo: The Forgotten War and Starved for Attention, Unicef’s Child Alert for Darfur and Sri Lanka and the International Committee of the Red Cross’s World at War. His commercial clients include Ad Council, American Express, BAE, Canon USA, ESPN, IBM, and Volkswagen.

Haviv is the central character in six documentary films, including National Geographic Explorer’s Freelance in a World of Risk, in which he speaks about the dangers of combat photography, including his numerous detentions and close calls. 

He has provided expert analysis and commentary on ABC World News, BBC, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, and The Charlie Rose Show. He has written opinion pieces for The Washington Post and The New York Times and spoken at TEDx along with numerous other lectures at universities and conferences.

LIFE’s Everson Museum exhibit spotlights power of print media

Via The Daily Orange

September 16, 2026

For decades, Life Magazine’s mission was to give Americans a way to see the world through photographs, from notable political affairs and wartime scenes to family life and everyday moments.

Now, “LIFE: Six Women Photographers” brings that history to the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, displaying photographs and issue snippets of Life Magazine, from six women who documented American life throughout the 20th century.

“It’s an interesting reminder that images have always been really powerful,” said Steffi Chappell, Everson’s Director of Curatorial Affairs and a Syracuse University alum. “Back when Life was first introduced, because of the way that it used images was so new, it blew everybody’s mind.”

The exhibition, organized by the New York Historical, is on display at the Everson until Sept. 27. It features the work of Life’s earliest female photographers: Margaret Bourke-White, Hansel Mieth, Marie Hansen, Nina Leen, Lisa Larsen and Martha Holmes, placing their photographs alongside the original Life issues where their work appeared. The black and white photos document both major historical events and ordinary American life from 1936-56. From photos of garment workers socializing and crowds surrounding a Yugoslavian president’s visit to the Soviet Union, the exhibit’s images capture a range of historical moments from the Great Depression to the Cold War.

Before the exhibit arrived at the Everson, Chappell knew Life’s role in shaping American society, but after research, she knew the magazine’s photographs would make a great addition to the museum.

For Chappell, the exhibition also provides an opportunity to consider what’s changed since Life’s popularity — and what hasn’t. It’s a reminder of the power of images and what print media “used to be,” making it suitable for the Everson, Chappell said.

When Life was established in 1936, its heavy reliance on photography distinguished it from other publications, Chappell said. The exhibition includes a prospectus that described the magazine’s mission as seeing and showing the world through images.

“It was all about the photos,” Chappell said. “And that was the first time that the American public has seen a publication like that. And so it was really, really impactful.”

Nina Leen’s 1947 photo essay, “American Woman’s Dilemma,” turned to the competing expectations placed on women in postwar and depression America. The photo essay presented three options for women with children: motherhood on top of a full-time career, full-time housework or part-time work alongside housekeeping.

Nearly 80 years later, Chappell said the questions raised by Leen’s photographs remain surprisingly familiar.

“It’s 2026 and we’re still having this discussion about working parents and should someone be staying home with the kids and is it OK for kids to go to daycare?” Chappell said. “Even though that’s from the 1940s, it still is shockingly current.”

Desi Drake of Liverpool was drawn to the Everson’s exhibit particularly because of Bourke-White’s work. Of all of the images on display, Drake’s favorite was Bourke-White’s shot of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana that appeared on the cover of Life’s inaugural issue in 1936.

Drake said she found it “amazing” that the photographs were taken by female photographers in the 1930s and noted the significance of a woman’s work being featured so prominently at the beginning of the magazine’s history.

Other photographers documented women entering traditionally male-dominated spaces. Hansen’s 1942 “The WAACs,” a series of photographs that showed the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps preparing for military support roles while also emphasizing expectations of femininity.

Similarly, Mieth’s series “Garment Workers at Play” documented women at work while capturing their relationships and social lives outside the factory, giving the series a playful and intimate quality.

“Every artist, photographer, painter, sculptor, always brings their own unique perspective, which is influenced by their background, their life experiences, where they grew up, who their family members were,” Chappell said.

The exhibition also draws attention to another person behind every published image: the editor.

While photographers controlled their subjects and which images they submitted, Life’s editors ultimately decided which photographs appeared in the magazine. Several photos in the exhibition didn’t actually end up in an issue of Life.

For Chappell, understanding the editorial process changes how visitors interpret the exhibition.

“If you go into the show and you don’t read any of the text and you just are looking at the images, you might not pick up on that idea that the photographers took the photos, but the editors were the ones that actually got to choose which photos were printed and which photos the public saw,” Chappell said.

The original Life issues displayed in the exhibition make that editorial process visible. Visitors can see the photographs in the context in which millions of Americans encountered them when the issues were first published.

For some visitors, the exhibition brought back memories of Life as a physical part of American society.

Loey Rotchforde, who lives in Syracuse, was reminded of the Life issues she used to see in thrift stores after attending the exhibit. She described Life as a “big cultural setter” and said the exhibit was a testament to “the power of print publications.”

Since Life’s establishment in 1936, society’s relationship with photographs has changed drastically, with images now dominating digital platforms and advertising, Chappell said.

The difference, Chappell said, is that photography was once a much newer and more concentrated form of storytelling. For Life’s first issue, founder and former Life editor-in-chief Henry Luce made the decision to put Bourke-White’s photograph on the cover. Bourke-White became not only the first female photographer at Life, but one of the first-ever photographers to capture numerous significant events.

“I don’t think he went into it thinking, ‘I’m going to put a woman photographer on the cover of Life Magazine. I’m just going to put the best photograph on the cover of Life Magazine,’” Chappell said.

Related: Margaret Bourke-White exhibit February 6 - April 26, 2026

The Monuments: Who Should Shape Public Space New exhibit features photographs by Sanjay Suchak

 

Now open on the third floor of Shannon Library at The University of Virginia:

Who decides what belongs in public space, and what do those choices say about our democracy?

"The Monuments: Who Should Shape Public Space?," a new exhibit from the Karsh Institute of Democracy and the University of Virginia Library, explores these questions through photographer and former Karsh Institute Practitioner Fellow Sanjay Suchak's images documenting the removal and current status of Confederate monuments across Virginia.

UVA Shannon Library

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA

 

Robert E. Lee Monument Overhead, Richmond, Virginia, July 2, 2020

Foundry workers prepare to melt down the face of the Robert E. Lee statue for repurporsing, October, 2023

9/11 In remembrance

 Via Pasatiempo

The Santa Fe New Mexican

September 11, 2026

 Tony Vaccaro, Minoru Yamasaki, World Trade Center Architect, 1969

Friday, September 11, marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, changing the United States forever and shuffling the world’s geopolitical makeup.

Before you get into the political fallout of the attack, I suggest you sit for a moment with the people who were in Lower Manhattan that morning and during the days that followed. They are people who lost their lives, witnessed the horror and survived, documented the tragedy, saved lives, attempted to save lives, and, years later, suffered from illnesses caused by hazardous dust.

One way to sit with these humans is to visit a virtual project on the Monroe Gallery of Photography website titled “9/11 In Remembrance.”

Gallery co-owners Sid and Michelle Monroe curated a Pop Up and online exhibition for the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in 2021, near the end of the height of the pandemic, by choosing 25 photographs that speak to the history of the World Trade Center: the before, the pride of the Twin Towers, the day of the attack, and the days that followed.

The photographers whose work is featured in “9/11 in Remembrance” are Tony Vaccaro, Eddie Adams, Carolyn Schaefer, Neil Leifer, Eric Draper, Eric O’Connell, Stephen Wilkes, Shepard Sherbell, Joe Blake, Joe McNally, Thomas E. Franklin, Nina Berman, and David Butow. — Ania Hull


See It: “9/11 In Remembrance,” Virtual Project, 2021, at monroegallery.com/gallery/virtual-projects.

9/11 25 Years Later: Photojournalist Eric O’Connell recalls being thrust into horror and history after living just a week in NYC

 Via AM New York

September 10, 2026

Eric O’Connell had been living in his apartment on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, next to historic Fraunces Tavern, for less than a week when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks struck the city. 

As a 33-year-old photojournalist and commercial photographer at that time, he had been working in various parts of the country, teaching and photographing for magazines and advertising stock. Because New York City is the American center of photojournalism, it was only natural for O’Connell to make a new home here. 

Like many others, O’Connell recalls hearing about the first attack on the World Trade Center that day while watching television.

“When the first plane hit the World Trade Center, I saw it on the news – Matt Lauer and Katic Couric were preempted and they showed a picture of the building on fire (the north tower) – may be a Cessna hit it and I said, ‘ok, this is not an accident and my training kicked in,’” O’Connell said from his current home in San Antonio in an interview with this reporter, who had spoken to him for the first time in 25 years. “I grabbed my cameras and ran out the door.”

That’s when he said the metal doors on the building shook; he didn’t realize it at that moment, but that was when the second plane had hit the south tower. “It felt like an earthquake,” he recalled.

Despite having moved to NYC in July, O’Connell was not too familiar with the city. He had just spent July teaching in Italy and all of August in New Mexico teaching art. Nevertheless, he made his way to the World Trade Center, running down Broadway to Liberty Street, passing the black tombstone-like Deutsche Bank building.

Then O’Connell came upon the grotesque scene of horror: A piece of plane fuselage on a parking lot across from the south tower. A chunk of steel from the plane pierced the hood of a car. Gruesome body parts were scattered.

Then came the unthinkable: Jumpers.

“They (firefighters) were coming across the parking lot, and then I heard it. I saw something out of corner of eye; it finally registered that a body was falling,” O’Connell recalled. “Then I saw these guys running. Firefighters were dragging him, a firefighter hit by debris. I didn’t know at the time that a body had hit him.”

O’Connell had witnessed what this reporter had seen while covering that fateful morning: Firefighter Danny Suhr struck by a jumper. He ran around the corner and snapped a picture of him being removed in front of 90 West St. He then shot a few frames of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

“I was standing on the corner (of Liberty Street) where there was scaffolding and I thought, ‘Okay, this is barely safe – things were falling out of the sky,’” he recalled. “I took a picture of the church from the corner, and my instinct was that there was extreme danger. There were two cops there, one a female, and we didn’t know where to go.”

O’Connell had witnessed what this reporter had seen while covering that fateful morning: Firefighter Danny Suhr struck by a jumper. He ran around the corner and snapped a picture of him being removed in front of 90 West St. He then shot a few frames of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

“I was standing on the corner (of Liberty Street) where there was scaffolding and I thought, ‘Okay, this is barely safe – things were falling out of the sky,’” he recalled. “I took a picture of the church from the corner, and my instinct was that there was extreme danger. There were two cops there, one a female, and we didn’t know where to go.”

Eric O'Connell: Greek Orthodox Church and Towers, September 11, 2001

“Then we heard the rumble; we knew the building was falling and someone yelled, ‘Run!’” O’Connell recalled. “The female cop screamed, ‘In here!’ I chose to dive in, turned left and curled up in a ball.”

O’Connell had grown up in the southwest U.S., where his community sometimes suffered tornadoes. As the south tower fell, he remembered the advice his mother gave him when a twister approached: Get into the corner. 

“I headed to the wall, and the impact threw me in the air,” he recalled. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Please let it be quick.'”

As soon as the rumble of the collapse stopped, “only 10 seconds, I was sitting on my ankles with knees bent thinking maybe the building is on fire and I might die from the smoke,” he said. “I felt like I had three inches of talcum powder on my face. Then I heard a woman’s voice say, “We can get out here.’ I also heard another voice say, ‘Over here.’”

He could not tell where the doorway was at first, the entrance to Liberty Street completely blocked by debris. Instinctively, he unscrewed the dust-filled filter from his camera and took a few photos, capturing a female police officer and in the background with this reporter.”

Eric O'Connell: The crowd, September 11, 2001

Once outside of the building, the street was dark and filled with dust. He made an important life choice.

“My early influences were all those journalism guys, like James Nachway and Anthony Suau (both famed war photographers), and I thought, ‘I’m not a Nachway or a Suau – I’m not a war photog,’” he said. “So I had a choice to turn right or left, and I turned left. I didn’t want to be one of those people.”

O’Connell then photographed a man in a dust-coated business suit. He took a picture of O’Connell with an instant camera next to an MTA bus. Then he made a joke that “disgusted” O’Connell. “Who do we sue?” the man had quipped.

O’Connell kept walking south and ran into an abandoned hot dog cart.

“I grabbed a water and as soon as I did, a different female cop put her hand on my shoulder, pulled me towards her and said, ‘you need to wash your face,’ so she dragged me to a water fountain, and she pressed the button for me. She then disappeared and I kept walking.”

He said a few guys had a transistor radio on top of car, listening to the news. He said he thought about the movie “Red Dawn,” and thought about the country being under attack as happened in the film.

By the time he made it to Battery Park, he turned back when he heard another rumble, and “I saw an enormous cloud of dust and smoke,” the collapse of the north tower.

“I started to understand what may have happened, but I just didn’t know what to do so I went home, (to his apartment on Pearl Street) and I saw the pictures on television. I took my clothes off. I knew my life had changed forever,” he said.

After cleaning up, he went back out and walked a woman across the Brooklyn Bridge; “she was terrified to walk across,” O’Connell recalled. He went to a friend’s house in Brooklyn to get food and some sleep.

“I tried to sleep but I kept waking up because I was having a nightmare of falling – I’d He brought his processed film to Time Magazine the next day, but because he had shot it on black-and-white film, they weren’t interested. He later sold the images to CNN and “60 Minutes” and gave and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church — which had been destroyed in the Twin Towers’ collapse — a photo to help them raise money to rebuild.

Eric O’Connell showing photos in an exhibit in 2021 at Monroe Gallery of Photography for the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Photo shows last picture of the Greek Orthodox Church crushed in the collapse.

(Photo Courtesy of Eric O’Connell)

O’Connell said he sometimes regrets not having done more on that “historic moment.” But he was also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that so many also experienced. He never returned to the site: “I couldn’t even go down there.” He said he didn’t leave Manhattan for a year.

“I was scared to leave – didn’t think I could come back – I was in a red zone, and so when I finally did leave, I’d make sure to take my insurance card, or utility bill, to show where I lived. I was just angry about stuff – I had just moved to New York City,” he said. “I chose to turn my back on it; I didn’t have that connection to all those people – I only had a few friends.” 

Now living in San Antonio, he continues to work as a photographer, but also works part-time for Parks and Recreation and rides his bike on the greenways, “like the West Side Highway along the river.”

One of the guys he rides with is a retired NYPD officer, “the only person he knows who speaks about 9/11.”

Exhibit: 9/11 In Remembrance

When The Faces of Ground Zero Giant Polaroids Came To Santa Fe

 

Photograph by David E. Starke/9/11 Museum

As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 nears, Joe McNally will be sharing the story behind his powerful portraits of 272 lives changed by 9/11. The Faces of Ground Zero, which are life-sized, giant Polaroids, was created by photographer Joe McNally in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. Working out of a special studio housing the camera, a highly specialized instrument, he photographed 272 people whose lives intersected in profound fashion with 9/11.

Firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, iron workers, volunteers, families—all came to the camera to have their story told in pictures and their own words. The Giant Polaroids, framed, stand roughly 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide. They toured the US and internationally, became a book, and assisted in raising approximately $2 million for the 9/11 relief efforts.

The project is now on view, installed permanently in the 9/11 Memorial Museum

On September 10 at 5pm EDT Joe McNally will be at Adorama in a special appearance to discuss the creation of this project, and the emotional story of how these pictures were made. Reserve a spot here, watch on YouTube here.

In 2014, Monroe Gallery was honored to present a selection of The Faces of Ground Zero Giant Polaroids in a retrospective exhibition of Joe McNally's career.

Pop Up exhibition: 9/11 In Remembrance

9/11 In Remembrance 25 Years Later

 

Tony Vaccaro: Twin Towers in sunset, New York,1979

Monroe Gallery of Photography announces a special Pop Up exhibition of photographs commemorating the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center that became known as 9/11. The Pop Up is at Monroe Gallery, 112 Don Gaspar Avenue September 9-13, 2026.

Every year since 2001 solemn ceremonies are held to remember the many that lost their lives, the families whose lives were changed forever, and the selfless first responders who performed heroically on that day, and for days after, in the search for survivors.

Shepard Sherbell: Firemen on scene of the terrorist attack on World Trade Center, September 11, 2001

The twin towers design process started in 1965 and construction began in 1972. The twin towers were the tallest buildings in the world for a very short time. Photographs in the exhibit document the construction of the World Trade Center, its prominence in the skyline of Manhattan, and the devastation of September 11, 2001

Sidney and Michelle Monroe relocated their family and Gallery from New York City to Santa Fe shortly after 9/11. This exhibit is a remembrance of the World Trade Center, fellow New Yorkers, and the countless lives affected on that day.

Joe McNally - Faces of Ground Zero: 25 Years Later

 

Via Adorama

Joe McNally shares the story behind his powerful portraits of 272 lives changed by 9/11

Adorama, New York, NY

Thursday, September 10  •  5 PM - 6 PM

Reserve a spot

Please join us for a very special night in honor of the 25th Anniversary of 9/11.

The Faces of Ground Zero, which are life-sized, giant Polaroids, was created by photographer Joe McNally in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. Working out of a special studio housing the camera, a highly specialized instrument, he photographed 272 people whose lives intersected in profound fashion with 9/11.

Firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, iron workers, volunteers, families—all came to the camera to have their story told in pictures and their own words. The Giant Polaroids, framed, stand roughly 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide. They toured the US and internationally, became a book, and assisted in raising approximately $2 million for the 9/11 relief efforts.

The project is now on view, installed permanently in the 9/11 Memorial Museum, but for one night only, join us in-store to see a limited amount of the giant Polaroids up close!

On the 25th Anniversay Joe McNally will be at Adorama in a special appearance to discuss the creation of this project, and the emotional story of how these pictures were made.

Related exhibition: 9/11 - In Remembrance

Joe McNally is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning photographer whose prolific career includes assignments in nearly 70 countries. McNally is often described as: Authentic, articulate, an exceptional technical photographer whose varied skill set means he is called upon often for the “unusual” or “challenging” job. But no job is too big or too small for McNally because he loves photographing anything or anyone interesting in front of his lens.

He is also known world-wide for his unmatched visual creativeness and extraordinary imagination. He is calm under pressure and excels in the field whether it is a portrait of a celebrity or corporate CEO to an unwieldy fashion shoot with a crew of 60.

Joe McNally’s credit list includes 5 covers of the National Geographic, (amongst an overall 15 coverages for the magazine), 7 Covers of Life Magazine and 4 successful Olympic coverages as he looks ahead to number 5 with Paris 2024 approaching. McNally has also climbed the Empire State Building 4x and the Burj Khalifa tower 2x. A proud Nikon Ambassador, he is the rare photographer to make the bridge between photojournalism and commercial photography and has the distinct ability to come away with a photograph no matter the twist or turns he might encounter on assignment.

Ron Haviv Covers The Viral Confrontation of Jake Lang and "Spiderman"

 

Ron Haviv

J6 activist Jake Lang at a “rally” where he was met by opposing protesters, Minneapolis City Hall, August, 2026

On August 22, 2026, Jake Lang hosted a "rally" outside Minneapolis City Hall to support a woman convicted of using racial slurs against a child. He was met by opposing protesters. Lang was later arrested for causing a riot as was Spider-Man. 

The Woman Guiding Tourists Through New York City’s Worst Day

 Via the New York Times

August 24, 2026

"The tour begins outside a Burger King on Liberty Street in Lower Manhattan, and the guide explains why. People forget that this was commandeered by the police on Sept. 11, 2001, as a staging area amid the chaos, “NYPD Temp HQ” spray-painted over the front door.

What follows is a very specific narrative of the events of that day as told by a very specific guide, Christina Stanton, who lived it firsthand. She continues to watch it unfold, 25 years on.....

Why keep reliving that?

Because.

Because the boat rescue is praised as the largest maritime evacuation in the country’s history — it has been called the “American Dunkirk” — and there is a documentary about it narrated by Tom Hanks, and yet few on her tours seem to have heard of it.

Because not everyone realizes that the number of illnesses and deaths linked to the attacks continues to grow, far surpassing the number of people who died that day.

Because, surrounded by plaques and statues and the reflecting pools and the broken hull of that huge metal Sphere, she, too, is a memorial."

Click to read full article.

Related exhibition: 9/11 - In Remembrance

Stanley Forman and his Pulitzer Winning Photographs

 1976, Part 14: Stanley Forman … - The Georgia Politics Podcast - Apple Podcasts

Via Georgia Politics Podcast

August 14, 2026

Welcome to The Georgia Politics Podcast! In this episode, we take a fascinating detour into the world of photojournalism with legendary photographer Stanley Forman.

Forman sits down to discuss his remarkable career, the photographs that shaped his legacy and the stories behind some of his most iconic images. From his early days as a young photographer to the moments that earned him national recognition and Pulitzer Prizes, Forman offers a firsthand look at the people, places and events he captured through his lens.

It's a conversation about photography, journalism and history — and a reminder of how a single photograph can capture a moment and define an era.

An extraordinary picture collection spanning 100 works will be on view at museums across the United States.

Via PetaPixel

August 8, 2026

An extraordinary picture collection spanning 100 works by photographers including Diane Arbus, Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon, Nan Goldin, and Edward Steichen will be on view at museums across the United States.

The American Federation of Arts (AFA) announces the launch of the new traveling exhibition Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder, featuring photographs by more than 50 photographers and artists.

Monroe Gallery of Photograph contributed photographs to the collection, including the featured image of Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, 1965 by Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro (American, 1934– 2022) Martin Luther King Jr., Selma, Alabama, 1965 Gelatin silver print, 18 7/8 x 12 3/4 in. Portland Museum of Art, Maine. Promised Gift from the Judy Glickman Lauder Collection, 10.2010.8 © Steve Schapiro. Courtesy Monroe Gallery, Sante Fe, NM

“Photography connects us to history while reminding us that we are a part of its ongoing story. It has the power to tell authentic, compassionate stories about what it means to be human." --Judy  Glickman Lauder.

Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder will travel to the Southampton Arts Center (July 25–September 27), Sarasota Art Museum (October 18, 2026–April 4, 2027), the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston (May 28–August 29, 2027), and the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami (September 30, 2027–February 26, 2028).

Full article here.

Not that long ago, the press could root out corruption, topple presidents, and end wars. Now, even the biggest scoops have little impact.

 Via Craig Unger

Not that long ago, the press could root out corruption, topple presidents, and end wars. Now, even the biggest scoops have little impact. Here's how and why the media lost its mojo.

Our so-called free press can no longer do what it used to do. That’s because it presumes an audience that shares the same factual reality most of us see. And that audience, a national citizenry that shares the same set of facts, no longer exists.

Full article here

America The Beautiful Review in Musée Magazine: "the exhibition examines representations of the country while complicating what it means to be American"

 Via Musée Magazine

Written by Georgina Laube

August 6, 2026

The United States is one of the most visually and culturally represented countries in the world, yet despite its constant representation, a lingering question remains: is the image of the country shaped more by what it is or by what it is imagined to be?

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, which opened over Memorial Day weekend at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and runs through August 9, directly engages with this question. The timing of the exhibition is particularly significant. Memorial Day is both the unofficial beginning of summer and a national holiday dedicated to commemorating those who died in service to the United States. Against this backdrop, the exhibition examines representations of the country while complicating what it means to be American.

Ryan Vizzions: Protesters face off with police and the National Guard on February 1, 2017, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. | Courtesy of artist and gallery ©.

Bringing together more than 45 photographs, the group exhibition explores the complexity of the United States, its identity, its shared culture, and what it means to be an American on an individual and collective scale as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary during one of the most politically and socially divisive periods in its history.

Ryan Vizzions: January 7th, 2026 - After the murder of Renee Good by a masked federal agent, a vigil was held in her honor. Upward of 10,000 Minnesotans showed up to pay their respects at the location she was killed | Courtesy of artist and gallery ©.

The works on view range from photographs of the Statue of Liberty and the vast American plains to images of protestors exercising their First Amendment rights, moments of conflict born from struggles for freedom and equality, and scenes of everyday life in both rural and urban communities throughout the years. Together, these photographs create an honest portrait of America, capturing both its beauty and its complexities while highlighting its constant evolution.

Margaret Bourke-White/ ©Life Picture Collection

Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor, 1952 | Courtesy of artist and gallery 

Among the exhibition's recurring symbols is the American flag. Historically, the flag has functioned as a symbol of the nation and its people, but its meanings have never been singular. For some, it represents hope, opportunity, and the promise of a better life. For others, it can signify dominance or fear. It has also long served as a symbol of collective unity, communicating the belief that the nation is stronger together than divided.

David Butow: A protester at Ferguson police headquarters two nights after the Grand Jury decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, November 24, 2014 | Courtesy of artist and gallery ©.

From photographs of the flag being raised at Ground Zero following September 11 to images in which it appears during memorial services for fallen service members, the exhibition presents the flag across a variety of contexts. In doing so, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL encourages viewers to critically examine what the symbol communicates today and how its meaning continues to shift. The exhibition makes clear that the flag can simultaneously function as a symbol of freedom and a symbol of oppression, prompting viewers to consider what happens when a national symbol becomes contested and no longer universally embraced.

Nina Berman F**k the KKK, New Jersey, 1990 | Courtesy of the artist and gallery ©.

Musée Magazine is a dynamic, print and digital biennial, and interactive website dedicated to featuring works by emerging and established artists. Sometimes quirky, sometimes sensual, always unpredictable, Musée moves on the cutting edge as an unparalleled photo-based platform. Today, Musée finds itself at the vanguard of photography and film culture. We strive to empower promising artists as they navigate and launch future careers throughout the global photographic community, while commingling with industry influencers to provide relevant content for academics, students, and photography aficionados alike. Like a photographic library, Musée has a broad appeal, encompassing all genres from the photo-world’s beloved masters to the new, exciting, and unexpected. 

Beyond the Cowboy: Human-horse Solidarity Across Time

 

Via NPQ

August 3, 2026

“Defend the Sacred.” Standing Rock, Cannon Ball, North Dakota, 2016. Ryan Vizzions.

Throughout U.S. history, horses have also played a role in Black and Indigenous political movements and land sovereignty projects.

In 2016 and 2017, the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies protested against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatened their ancestral lands and water supplies. At the water protectors’ camp in North Dakota, horses were a common sight. Native protestors would patrol the camp on horseback to keep a lookout for law enforcement officers. At a standoff between protestors and security forces in November 2016, Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman interviewed a protestor who had brought their horses from Crow Creek, South Dakota. “We protected our water, and we did a good job at doing it,” the protestor told Goodman after the crowd refused to back down from pepper spray and attack dogs. In Ryan Vizzions’ iconic photo “Defend the Sacred,” a Standing Rock protestor on horseback faces a row of police officers and armored vehicles. While the rider is alone with their horse, this image is a far cry from the lone cowboy in the ICE recruitment ad. They face the police officers while knowing that entire communities are supporting them. Here, the horse and rider are not symbols of brash individualism or allegiance to a flag, but part of vast, multispecies networks that are fighting for the survival of current and future generations. The Standing Rock rider and their horse are part of a collective movement, an intergenerational struggle for the wellbeing of land, water, and people.

Full article here

National park ranger quits, tours visitor centers to fight censorship

 Via SFGATE

July 31, 2026

Earlier this month, Melissa Dalley began striking up conversations with strangers about history. At the  Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center in Grand Teton National Park, she called their attention to where a sign detailing a massacre of Native Americans once stood, and told them it was quietly removed this winter. Then she passed out flyers containing the missing information.

If Dalley seemed like a park ranger, it's because she used to be. But these days, she instead travels around to parks like Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier as a visitor on a mission: She's committed to fighting censorship across the National Park Service by talking about what the Donald Trump administration has omitted.  -full article here

Preserving National Park stories before they’re lost

Our 433+ national parks are public land for all people and should reflect the fullness and complexity of the American experience – not a narrowed, partisan, or distorted version of it.

Eugene Tapahe: ART HEALS The Jingle Dress Project and Standing Rock Movement

 SPECIAL INDIAN MARKET EXHIBIT

Eugene Tapahe: ART HEALS

The Jingle Dress Project and Standing Rock Movement

Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to announce a new exhibit and special reception on Thursday, August 13 from 5-7 pm during the renowned Santa Fe Indian Market weekend, the world’s largest and most prestigious Indigenous art market, now in its 104rd year.

Diné (Navajo) artist Eugene Tapahe will present an artist talk on the 10th anniversary of the Standing Rock movement for the opening of his new exhibition featuring photographs from the 2016 Standing Rock movement and his photography series titled Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project. The exhibition continues through November 1, 2026. 

The unity and resilience of native ceremony, traditional storytelling, and the healing power of the jingle dress have connected these two historical events. Tapahe will share his insights and the dream which brought healing through his art.

Jingle Dress Dance, Standing Rock Camp (Highway 1806), ND, Native land of the Dakȟóta and Lakȟótiyapi people, 2016

Tapahe documented the strength, unity, inspiration, resilience, and hope of the Indigenous-led movement that began in April 2016 to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota He remembers the grace and courage of Jingle Dress dancers healing the trauma inflicted on the water protectors from  police and private security forces by water cannons, LRAD sound cannons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, mace, tear gas canisters and bean bag blasts. 

When asked “Why did you go to the Oceti Sakawin camp?”, Tapahe says “It was my responsibly to be there, to help our people, our ancestors, our water, and our land. It felt as if our ancestors were physically standing with us in unity around the sacred fire – singing and dancing with us. The spiritual awakening will be with me always as I continue my creative journey to photograph and document the beauty of Mother Earth and our people.”

Years later, Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project originated from a dream Tapahe had during the COVID-19 pandemic, inspiring him to unite the land and people through the healing power of the Ojibwe jingle dress dance. 

Nizhoni (Beautiful), Monument Valley, Arizona, 2020

Since then, Tapahe has traveled thousands of miles documenting family members and friends dancing the healing honor dance in National Parks and Monuments, honoring the places where their ancestors once lived. Tapahe describes the images as “incredibly powerful and spiritual. Looking at them, I still can't believe I took these photographs. I believe this project is larger than myself, and I hope that when people view them, they feel the same way – that we are all blessed to be in the presence of such beauty.” 

The images have raised awareness of many Native American issues, such as land acknowledgment, women’s rights, and, most importantly, the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).  

During the project, Tapahe discovered one overarching metaphor. “I put my hand on one of the jingles and I shook it. That one jingle didn’t make any sound,” he said. “But together, they have the power to heal. As human beings, if we are able to unite ourselves and our prayers and make a beautiful sound as the jingle dress does, we could be powerful.” 

View the exhibition here