In Kent Nishimura’s Photo, the White House Press Corps Is Already Breaking Apart How a backstage image takes on new force after Trump banned CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House readingthepictures.media/p/the-white-...📷kent nishimura for @newyorker.com

In Kent Nishimura’s Photo, the White House Press Corps Is Already Breaking Apart

How a backstage image takes on new force after Trump banned CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House

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The Blowback Salute The New York Times homepage photo editors are SO good. Combine two salutes, one belligerent Trump, the perfect angle, and snap! The Commander in Chief walks headlong into the jaws of a vice. Who needs AI slop when the Iran War is this good at making its own illustrations?

Metaphor, yes, but the signs of breakdown are everywhere. (Photo: Evan Vucci / Reuters. Caption: The emergency slide of Air Force One is deployed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland ahead of President Donald Trump's trip to the GOP midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday, September 9.)

NYT Front Page: The cruel visual irony of L.A.’s newscopter tragedy, seen from above. (Photo: Ethan Swope/AP)

Just because the high court nixed limits on mail-in ballots (for now), the campaign to undermine the midterms rolls on. This Detroit election official’s face, as Justice Department poll watchers turned up for Michigan’s August primary, tells you all you need to know. Photo: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

The end of benign AI news photos? (📷 Gianluca Panella/Getty Images - NYT 9/14/26)

I’m not sharing this because the ethereal light breaking through the dark clouds onto the river feels so hopeful or divine... Photo: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images Pictures of the Moment: What the Eye Can’t Settle readingthepictures.media/p/pictures-o...

For years, I wrote about 9/11 anniversary visuals. With anti-Muslim tactics on the rise, this image of mourning and belonging from 2011 deserves to be seen once more. readingthepictures.media/p/a-911-imag... (Photo: Todd Heisler/Getty Images/Pool)

“Salam,” Again: A 9/11 Image for a New Politics of Fear

For years, I wrote about 9/11 anniversary visuals. With anti-Muslim tactics on the rise, this image of mourning and belonging from 2011 deserves to be seen once more.

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The geometry of McClain’s photo is so precise, so elaborate, that its damage is easy to miss. (From: "An American City, With Troops on Its Streets." Matt McClain for The Atlantic.)

Dressed for the fall (📷 Laki Sideris)

As a complement to Julia Nikhinson‘s tarmac shot (and my comments on intimacy), this image by Ken Cedeno led a NYT Opinion piece this morning.

ReadingThePictures@readingthepictures.bsky.social · last mo.

"Travel with Natalie" How do you photograph a blind spot? (Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP. Source: The Atlantic) #NatalieHarp

"Travel with Natalie" How do you photograph a blind spot? (Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP. Source: The Atlantic) #NatalieHarp

Like the disfigured--crying from gaping mouths. (Rows of fireplaces and chimneys are all that remain of several homes in a residential neighborhood in Spokane, Washington, after being burned by wildfire, Monday, August 3, 2026. Lindsey Wasson, AP, via France 24.)

It’s a brilliant New York Times photo edit for an article marking a war that, as its 60-day ceasefire reaches its August 17 expiration, has become both consequential and background noise. (Ships anchored this month in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran. Ali Saeedi/Getty)

* One can sheerly say: grifting has gone from disguise to a look. * What's with the "feels like," Businessweek? The wolf looks so bored, it's like: game over. * Once the ranch bosses started taking their cut off the top, the town got the message: fleece early, fleece often.

The images I couldn't stop looking at — the ironic rendering of the Fauci hearing; a Banksy statue turning a flag into a blindfold; a faceless hero exposing what a hit movie can't help revealing about men. Curation is its own kind of authorship. readingthepictures.media/p/caught-my-...

Caught My Eye: Pools, Flags, and Faceless Men

Another set of images quietly telling on power

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Great title in these trad wife times. My Mother Doesn't Work Olga Steinepreis, Germany Via Lens Culture’s 2026 Critics’ Choice Awards. Full entry: www.lensculture.com/photo-compet...

The red scare that’s real. (Fire retardant coats a neighborhood in Spokane, Washington, on Sunday, August 2. Wildfires near Spokane have destroyed hundreds of homes and structures. John Stember/The New York Times.) Via CNN Photos this Week

Reading the Mag Covers: Don’t think of a government agency. (illo: @twrushing, photo: @thevoorhes. Via Coverjunkie)

Fauci Tabled 📷: Samuel Corum/Sipa USA via Instagram

Illustration of the Day: Odysseus, pressed into service as a modern projection, exposes the fault lines in men and the male leader.  (Anna Mallina for NYT Opinion)

At a Minnesota summer camp, a submerged fleet shows how climate risk is rewriting the visual language of “wilderness adventure.” By Cara Finnegan When Canoe Country Goes Under readingthepictures.media/p/update-whe...

When Canoe Country Goes Under

At a Minnesota summer camp, a submerged fleet shows how climate risk is rewriting the visual language of “wilderness adventure.”

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This week in pictures: War by choice, baking planet by neglect. 1 - Fort Hope wildfire evacuation, Ontario, July 19. Master Cpl. Natasha Punt/Canadian Armed Forces. 2 - Dignified transfer for 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, killed in the Iran war, Dover AFB, Del., July 22. AP Photo/Matt Rourke.

Between the headline and photo, a non-normalizing breath of fresh air.

Climate Crisis Makes Quantum Leap Illustrations that break with typical greenwashing. Clearly, we’re getting torched. Big Issue (UK), The Economist (UK), via Coverjunkie

Latest doom-wash of climate emergency: German drowning deaths illustrated with picture-perfect day at the lake. (The Guardian.) Lake in Bavaria this month. 📷Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto France's Heatwave Was a Mass-Casualty Event. The Photos Don't Look Like It readingthepictures.media/p/frances-he...

Trump's brazen FIFA intervention to reinstate a US player proved our point. He didn’t just undermine a diverse, immigrant-powered USMNT he despises—he contaminated the World Cup. My 4th of July is the Next U.S. World Cup Match readingthepictures.media/p/my-4th-of-...

My 4th of July is ... the Next U.S. World Cup Match

Forget Trump's politicized pageantry. The most authentic display of American patriotism is playing out on the pitch.

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It’s appalling seeing Trump’s DHS—with all its immigrant eradication terror—co-opt the "we are the world" US Men’s soccer team to push a white Christian nationalist homeland. My 4th of July is the next World Cup match. readingthepictures.media/p/my-4th-of-... Poster: DHS/Photo: @USMNT.

Trump corrupted the 250th. But the far right is going to have a much harder time stealing the USMNT. A short visual piece on why I'm looking to the World Cup for the patriotism we were robbed of today. My 4th of July is ... the Next U.S. World Cup Match readingthepictures.media/p/my-4th-of-...

My 4th of July is ... the Next U.S. World Cup Match

Forget Trump's politicized pageantry. The most authentic display of American patriotism is playing out on the pitch.

readingthepictures.media

People are so desperate to cool off that they're drowning in canals. The media keeps feeding us frolic. France's Heatwave Was a Mass-Casualty Event. The Photos Don't Look Like It Tom Nicholson/Reuters. Julien De Rosa, AFP/Getty readingthepictures.media/p/frances-he...