BAGnewsSALON

Haiti Edit

(Speaks to aesthetizing, also graphic)

TITANYEN, HAITI - JANUARY 16: (EDITOR'S NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT) Dead bodies from this week's devastating earthquake lie in a pile January 16, 2010 in Titanyen, Haiti. Officials, overwhelmed by the thousands of dead from the 7.0-strong earthquake on January 12 earthquake, have resorted to burying the corpses without ceremony in hastily-dug pits in a rural area outside of Port au Prince. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)  (Karen called it: grisly, yet bucolic)

Speaks to political, but under guise of dramatizing. US/White man as savior.  Haitians as dependent.

(photo: JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images. Port-au-Prince January 19, 2010. US troops descended by helicopter to take control of Haiti's ruined presidential palace Tuesday, as the military earthquake relief operation gathered pace.)

Speaks to themes of redundancy, sensationalizing, possibly double standard in treatment of white/black "victims."?)

Carl Juste/AP/The Miami Herald Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010, Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Speaks to fearmongering/racial stereotypes.  Violence or play? 

Youths play with empty boxes as they collect them after food was distributed by the World Food Program in Port-au-Prince, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010. Relief groups and officials are focused on moving the aid flowing into Haiti to the survivors of the powerful earthquake that hit the country on Tuesday.  (photo: Ariana Cubillos/AP)

Role of military as media.  Military propaganda.  US as saviors.

(Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joel Carlson/Released January 17, 2010. U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Nicholas Wentworth hangs an intravenous solution inside an MH-60S Sea Hawk prior to flying an earthquake victim to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). Carl Vinson and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17 are conducting humanitarian and disaster relief operations as part of Operation Unified Response after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake cause severe damage near Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010.)

Speaks to: Haitian self-reliance.  Too rare a view?

(Photo: Frederic Dupoux / Getty Images. caption: Rescuers with a 3-month-old baby found alive in Port-au-Prince on Thursday.)   

One of the only pics I saw indicating different different social classes, Haitians as individuals.

(photo: Julie Jacobson/AP. caption: The legs of an earthquake victim are seen lying in street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010. An earthquake measuring more than 7 on the Richter scale hit Haiti on Tuesday, leaving thousands dead and many displaced.)

 

White Red Cross woman/infant - Hondros
A Red Cross worker holds a baby who had been suffering from severe dehydration in the central hospital of Port-au-Prince in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Aid has started trickling out to Haitians devastated by last week's earthquake that ravaged the country, though many fear not enough will reach desperate citizens in time to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

 
 

Pull: Savages? Voodoo?

Shaul Schwarz / Reportage via Getty Images for TIME
A man covered with debris takes a moment to catch his breath after hunting in the rubble.

Fadek

 

 

Fadek - maybe stronger treatment of "looting" than "boxes" shot

 

From Huffington Post homepage - don't have photo credit but drives home the pity dynamic.

 

Maybe too intense, but really speaks to the graphic nature of the photos, and how widely graphic images were circulated.

A man throws a dead body at the morgue of the general hospital, January 15, 2010 at Port Au Prince following the 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12. More than 50,000 people were killed and 250,000 injured by this week's earthquake, which also left nearly 1.5 million homeless, a Haitian minister said. After three days of Haitians being left to fend mostly for themselves in one of the world's poorest countries. AFP PHOTO OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI (Photo credit should read Olivier Laban mattei/AFP/Getty Images)

Special Inauguration Edition BAGnewsSALON: Looking at Michelle O

Welcome to another edition of the BAGnewsSALON, an on-line, real-time chat involving the discussion of selected images between invited guests and readers of the BAGnewsNotes blog.

Scheduled to participate are moderator Cara Finnegan (University of Illinois); producer Ida Benedetto; host Michael Shaw; author and historian Michael Steinberg; professors John Lucaites (Indiana U.), BAGnewsNotes contributer, as well as blogger and co-author of "No Caption Needed," Loret Steinberg, professor of Photojournalism - RIT and Catherine Squires (U of Minnesota), author of Dispatches from the Color Line: The Press and Multiracial America; photographer Aric Mayer; and distinguished photojournalists Mario Tama (Getty), Scout Tufankjian (her popular new book is: YES WE CAN: Barack Obama's History Making Campaign) and top freelancer Yana Paskova. 

Michelle Obama is an assertive, attractive, professional, African-American woman who is about to become America's first lady. This combination of qualities poses a unique challenge to the American visual media. How are they handling it? At this BAGnewsSALON, we will examine a series of images that have circulated in the visual media in the post-election period.