Press Review
David Schonauer
The Weekly World Tour
Law and Order, Part 1. ”On Sunday, the people of France woke to the news that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, considered a leading contender to the be the nation's next president, had been arrested in New York City on sexual misconduct charges, including the attempted rape of a hotel employee. On Monday, the French, who love tradition as much as anyone, were treated to a time-honored New York Police Department ritual: The “Perp Walk,” in which the recently arrested are transported to jail in front of news photographers. As public theater it is part tragedy and part farce: Defense lawyers have long complained that the practice is prejudicial, but the public’s hunger for visual narrative has taken precedence.” Photo by John Marino, New York Daily News
Law and Order, Part 2. ”The Perp Walk is the first chapter of a story that ends with a trial and verdict. For Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund, the tale’s climax came this week when he was found guilty of 14 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy charges in federal court in Manhattan, concluding the biggest insider-trading case in a generation. Photographers snapped him stumbling over a curb as he left the courthouse, providing a visual denouement.” Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters, Washington Post
Law and Order, Part 3. ”Another trial, another conviction, another picture to dwell over: John Demjanjuk emerges from shadow and into the glare of the media as leaves a courtroon in Munich, where on May 12 he was found guilty as an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp in World War II.” Photo by Matthias Schrader/AP, USA Today
Desperate Moments, Part 1. ”What looks like a still from a summer action movie is in fact the real-life scene at the main fuel depot in Misrata, Libya, aflame after being bombed by the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on May 7.” Photo from AFP/Getty Images, Time
Desperate Moments, Part 2. ”A wounded man is rushed to a hospital in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, after a suicide bombing at a military training center.” Photo by Arshad Arbab/EPA, ”Lens”, New York Times
Desperate Moments, Part 3. ”In Somalia, forces of an African Union peacekeeping mission clashed with Islamists. Here, Somali civilians dragged the body of what was identified as a Ugandan peacekeeper in a neighborhood of Mogadishu.” Photo by Feisal Omar/Reuters, ”Lens”, New York Times
Desperate Moments, Part 4. ”The desperation captured in this photo was brought on by weather, not war. Photographer Jeff Robertson indicated the depths of the crisis along the Mississippi River this week by shooting an athletic field in Memphis, Tennessee inundated by floodwater.” Photo by Jeff Robertson/AP, Time
Faces, Part 1. ”Every photo story about Lady Gaga could properly be titled, ’Lady Gaga As You’ve Never Seen Her.’ For i-D magazine’s summer ’Hedonism Issue’, superstar photographer Wolfgang Tillmans photographed Gaga looking entirely normal, which may be her most shockingly original persona yet.” Photo by Wolfgang Tillmans, i-D
Faces, Part 2. ”For Steven Tyler, a judge on ’American Idol’ and author of a new autobiography, one persona will do: Rock Star. Theo Wenner captured it perfectly for a Rolling Stone cover story.” Photo by Theo Wenner, Rolling Stone
Faces, Part 3. ”The demand for gold—what the New York Times Magazine calls ’the most primitive form of wealth’—grows in times of economic uncertainty. Photographer Finlay McKay traveled to Canada’s Yukon Territory to photograph a modern-day prospector who is on top of the world during these hard times.” Photo by Finlay McKay, New York Times Magazine
Faces, Part 4. ”Is the television sitcom an art form? Actress and writer Amy Poehler, star of the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” asks you not to laugh at the question in May 23rd issue of New York magazine. In the image sequence here, the magazine in turn asks how the talented Poehler might fare as a photo editor.” Photo by Robert Trachtenberg, New York
Faces, Part 5. ”Photographer Brian Prahl snapped Kim Kardashian vacationing in Mexico earlier this month with her boyfriend, pro basketball player Kris Humphries. The images spread rapidly across the Internet, prompting In Touch magazine to report rumors that Kim’s ’larger-than-ever-backside’ is the result of a ’super-sized butt implant.’ That is celebrity news of colossal proportions.” Photo by Brian Prahl/Splash News, In Touch
Cover Story, Part 1. ”The Barnes & Noble bookstore chain has reportedly refused to display the current issue of Dossier Journal, an art-and-fashion magazine, deeming its cover photo of androgynous male model Andrej Pejic to be offensive. The retailer demanded that the magazine be wrapped in opaque black plastic, thus ensuring Dossier Journal’s place in the history of media censorship.” Photo by Collier Schorr, Dossier Journal
Cover Story, Part 2. ”An even more consequential piece of media history will be made this spring when Oprah Winfrey ends her long-running television show. The June issue of O, The Oprah Magazine looks back at the program’s great moments, but in Rob Howard’s cover image Oprah herself gazes up toward a divine future. Graciously, she thanks her fans for a quarter century of joy, laughs, lessons, and adventure. No, Oprah, thank you.” Photo by Rob Howard, O, The Oprah Magazine
Law and Order, Part 1. ”On Sunday, the people of France woke to the news that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, considered a leading contender to the be the nation's next president, had been arrested in New York City on sexual misconduct charges, including the attempted rape of a hotel employee. On Monday, the French, who love tradition as much as anyone, were treated to a time-honored New York Police Department ritual: The “Perp Walk,” in which the recently arrested are transported to jail in front of news photographers. As public theater it is part tragedy and part farce: Defense lawyers have long complained that the practice is prejudicial, but the public’s hunger for visual narrative has taken precedence.” Photo by John Marino, New York Daily News
David Schonauer begins his press review with the picture that shocked the majority of the French, (John Marino, Daily News) : Dominique Strauss-Kahn, leaving prison, surrounded by the state police of New York. No presumption of innocence for the president of the IMF, the American courts judge and display the tragedy.
Another trial took place on May 12. That of John Demjanjuk, a former Nazi who came out of hiding after so many years. Guilty of crimes in a concentration camp during the Second World War, he will finally be brought to justice.
The second part of David Schonauer’s review is called “Moments of despair”: It begins with a picture taken in Misurata where we see in the foreground a man terrified by flames. The picture is that much more impressive when one learns that the photographer was right there. (AFP/Getty Images, Time). It continues in Pakistan with a picture by Arshad Arbab for the New York Times showing two men transporting a man mutilated by a suicide attack in the city’s military training zone. This section’s final picture is by Jeff Robertson. A symbolic picture of the flooding in Memphis, Tennessee.
The third section, “Portraits”, shows extravagant personalities including Lady Gaga on a lawn chair in fishnet stockings photographed by Wolfgang Tillmans for i-D magazine. Or Steven Tyler and his red motorcycle in a rock and roll setting by Theo Wenner for Rolling Stone. Without forgetting the final touch, an affectionate kiss between Kim Kardashian and basketball star Kris Humphries. The journalist’s question in the magazine In Touch was about the young lady’s impressive posterior: “Is it the result of implants or a role model for future celebrity buttocks?”
The last section presents two magazine covers, that by Collier Schorr for Dossier Journal and Rob Howard’s for O, The Oprah Magazine.
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