July 26: Your lens to the interne t's most powerful photographs. 📸

July 26: Week in Photography

Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs.

📸 MOST POWERFUL PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📸

Noah Berger / AP Images

This summer has had no shortage of protest photos, as demonstrations for racial justice and against police brutality continue around the country. What stood out about the recent images from Portland was the escalation in violence from federal officers. While some have categorized the city’s protesters as anarchists (and indeed, there have been acts of vandalism and destruction), it is hard to justify this claim when seeing images of batons and tear gas being used on mothers who had shown up peacefully in solidarity with the movement.

Police using violence against peaceful citizens in any situation is upsetting, and to see military tactics continually used in such a way across the country should come as a wake-up call.

📸For Your 👀 Only:

HOW THE BDC IS HELPING THE COMMUNITY

The Bronx Documentary Center is known for having deep roots in the community — it offers photo classes to all ages, especially to kids, and its exhibitions are known to bring people from all over the city to the neighborhood. For the past three years, it has hosted a Latin American festival, featuring Latinx photographers on banners and projections around the Melrose neighborhood in the Bronx. We spoke with Mike Kamber, the BDC founder and executive director, and Cynthia Rivera, the exhibition director, about how the festival is continuing to bring the community together this year, and have a version available online.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW YOU APPROACHED THIS YEAR’S EXHIBITION?

MK: We’re in a community that is almost entirely Latinx, and people here obviously want to be in touch with their home countries and what is happening. There is a lot of back and forth. It's almost like the Bronx is an extension of countries in Latin America. This festival is an event that has always been needed, and it’s gotten a great response. The need now is just as great as ever. The streets are still full of people because the Bronx is all essential workers.

Tamara Merino / CovidLatAm / Courtesy the Bronx Documentary Center

From the beginning, we’ve done a lot of it outdoors, probably half or more. For now, the only thing that we can really do is go 100% outdoors and still fulfill the need, the original mission.

CR: One of the nine projects is by COVID LatAm which is a collective of 18 photographers in Latin America. Originally we weren’t going to show anything COVID-related because we felt that idea was pretty exhausted, and when we were thinking about this before, we felt that people were going to be tired of seeing those types of images by the summer.

We felt like COVID LatAm did it in such a way that wasn’t too traumatizing, and it was more about how people are dealing with COVID A lot of the photographs are about people going about their lives. I feel like it is a positive outlook instead of looking at all the negative things that are happening. Obviously, they are still happening, but we didn’t necessarily want to have all the negative stuff on the street right now.

HOW DID YOU FIND THESE PHOTOGRAPHERS?

CR: It’s a mixture of things. We’ve refrained from doing open calls in order to be able to have our own control over choosing which people and which projects. What we’ve done in the past is ask people participating to make their own recommendations for the next year, so that’s been helpful.

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR CERTAIN THEMES?

We don’t do themes for our festival, only because it keeps it really limited and we want to have a diverse range of projects.

Luisa Dorr / Courtesy The Bronx Documentary Center

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE DIGITAL COMPONENT?

CR: We’re using almost all the work that is on banners, plus additional work. The banners we put around the neighborhood. The [online] approach is creating something for people who can’t necessarily be here, so considering how you would want them to walk through each part of the exhibition or walk through people's work.

WHAT’S THE MAIN TAKEAWAY, ESPECIALLY FOR PEOPLE NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE BRONX AND THE BDC?

CR: It's important for people to make the connection between those countries and the people here, and the stories that people don’t know about. I feel like that is also rooted in the Bronx.

MK: There are also a lot of people here — for example, Mexicans know everything that is happening in Mexico but don’t know what’s happening in the DR or vice versa. In seeing the work, it brings people together and helps them think of themselves as a unified community.

HOW IS THE BDC COPING WITH THESE TIMES?

MK: We’re adapting. I think it’s hard for all cultural institutions whose real goal is to bring people together and then suddenly you find yourself in a time where you have to do exactly the opposite of that, and keep everyone apart. The work is just as relevant as ever. It's just a question of how do you get it out there and support the artist, support the community, without people being in a room. We’re meeting that in different ways. We’re doing a lot of direct action. We’re taking food around. We’re taking computers and cameras around, helping kids do their homework and figure out their studies online, just trying to be a conduit for the things that people need that were not in our original mission statement when we started.

Adriana Loureiro / Courtesy The Bronx Documentary Center

ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?

MK: We’ve been here 10 years now, and some of the strongest reactions we’ve gotten have been while putting stuff up on the street, and having people stop and talk to us. That's been happening for years, and I think that it’s only going to grow stronger. Art is not irrelevant; art just needs to adapt. We’re also doing projections as a part of the Latin American festival, and I think that will be pretty badass.

📸THE WEEK'S PHOTO STORIES FROM BUZZFEED NEWS 📸

This week, we took a hard look at the violent protests in Portland, and who was perpetuating the violence. We also looked at the impact of the pandemic on tourism, and our friends elsewhere explored different and creative ways that photography can be used.

Find more of the week's best photo stories here.

A PHOTOGRAPHER SAYS HE'S TRAUMATIZED BY PORTLAND

Matthieu Lewis-Rolland

HOW OTHER COUNTRIES ARE EMBRACING TOURISM

Carlos Osorio / Reuters

PROTESTS IN PORTLAND LOOK PRETTY DYSTOPIAN

Noah Berger / AP Images

📸SOME HOPE 📸

Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Baby flamingos are seen at the Izmir Bird Sanctuary, part of the world's largest artificial breeding island in Izmir, Turkey.

"That's it from us this time — see you next week!" —Gabriel and Kate

📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Gabriel Sanchez is the photo essay editor based in New York and loves cats. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. You can always reach us here.
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