Fotoeins Fotografie

In case you’ve missed them, here are five recent photographic essays from the last few weeks, and some reasons why you should also have a look.

A Peek into Modern China

To many, China remains a mysterious country. As the following images show, frank, spontaneous, and “quiet” photography offers a candid view of the nation’s people, their lives, and the effects of a rapidly developing economy on urban- and landscapes. From The Atlantic’s In Focus, here are “Scenes from 21st-Century China”.

Why Didn’t People Smile?

Why are smiling faces less common in old photographs and painted portraits? One reason was that being taken seriously meant serious dispositions; being prone to smiles apparently was left to the domain of poor, charlatans, and fools. In The Public Domain Review, Nicholas Jeeves writes about the history of the smile in “The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture”.

Picking up the Pieces After Sendai

At the risk of voyeurism, there’s a specific horror when one looks at post-disaster pictures, as the images go against our ideas of how things are supposed to look, at how things are supposed to be. Given the significant probability of a large earthquake along the west coast of North America, I wonder about plans in place to mitigate loss of life and property, and, just as important, plans to rebuild after “the big one” strikes. The 2011 Sendai quake continues to provide many lessons to heed, if not to scare, sadden, and surprise. Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj went back recently to Japan and produced the series “The Broken Lives of Fukushima”.

How are Asians Portrayed?

For a mix of seriousness and humor, Tommy Kha’s latest photographic work examines and explores ” … ideas of intimacy, the role of the photographer in self-portraiture, and the ways in which Asians are portrayed in both film and television.” I would add that Kha’s “Return to Sender” series (on The Slate’s Behold) also looks at “… the ways in which Asian-American men are portrayed in both film and television …”

Your Quota of Baby Squirrel

To some, squirrels and chipmunks are pests. If only to melt the cold empty vacuum that sometimes occupies the space we call our “hearts”, the following may help to chip away the ice. You’ve been duly warned: a tremendous display of “d’awwwwww” follows at “Abandoned Baby Squirrel Rescued by Filmmaker, Becomes Best Friend”.

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