photography: all articles

Forty-one years after the cultural revolution began, China's heritage faces another potent threat (archive)

Can the western media hegemony be broken? Charlie Devereux talks to Suvenda Chatterjee, director of the Drik photography agency, about a new photographic vision for the world.

The privatisation of image-making and the manipulation of image-reception in the global, digital age combine to diminish agency and freedom, says David Levi Strauss.

A new exhibition explores one of the terrible legacies of Latin America's dirty wars – the forced "disappearance" of thousands of people across the continent. Rob Cawston reviews, plus, a slideshow of selected images.

Amidst ongoing violence and fragile politics, how has independent reportage fared in post-Taliban Afghanistan? Charlie Devereux talks to world-renowned photojournalist Reza about his Kabul-based NGO Aïna and ambitions to construct a free Afghan media.

As a writer Susan Sontag located herself behind her subject. After her death it is her personality that is memorialised. Angela McRobbie deciphers this use of a great intellectual's legacy.

For over twenty years Ethiopia has been plagued by a recurring food and water crisis. Photographer Carlos Reyes Manzo returns to the landlocked country and documents an all too familiar struggle.

Originally intended as the British government's new home in the case of nuclear war, the underground bunker Codename "Turnstile" is now abandoned and up for sale. What will happen to this relic of the cold war? Jason Orton's haunting photographs capture a lonely subterranean city.

"Saddam was the ultimate nightmare… but now things are just bad, really bad." Despite a newly elected government, civil war looms ominously on the horizon: what is happening in Iraq and who holds the power? Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, the award-winning photojournalist, talks to openDemocracy about occupation, insurgency, and how his country fell apart.

Okwui Enwezor, curator of an ambitious new exhibition on contemporary African photography, explains how it challenges the conventional images of the continent. Plus, an exclusive slideshow of photographs from the collection.

John Davies' beautiful panoramic photographs of the British landscape capture an industrial world now lost and a modernity running away from its past, says Ken Worpole.

Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak looks in retrospective at the tragedy that gripped London in the aftermath of the 7 July bombings.

The destruction of Beijing's "hutongs" in advance of the 2008 Olympics has many consequences for China's cultural heritage. Sean Gallagher photographs a swiftly disappearing history.

Over the last 15 years, the Strait of Gibraltar has become one of the main gateways for illegal immigration in north Africa. Yto Barrada's photographs, taken between 1998 - 2004, capture the temptations of leaving, and the unfulfilled hopes of escaping into Europe. Charlotte Collins talks to her.

“Even in death they find samba is there.” Living in the poor favelas of Brazil, photographer Alex Majoli encountered a beautiful but violent culture shaped by the constant spectre of death. openDemocracy presents a Magnum slideshow with audio commentary and music, featuring photographs from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro.

On the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, photographer Pierpaolo Mittica argues that the hidden legacies of this terrible accident must be exposed. Plus, an exclusive photo slideshow of images from affected regions in Ukraine and Belarus.

openDemocracy presents the work of five young photographers documenting the state of modern Italian society.

Since 1993 thousands of Mexican women have been systematically abducted, raped, tortured and killed, and those responsible for the crimes have largely remained free. Carlos Reyes-Manzo documents in images and words a terrible and touching situation that shows no sign of abating.  

The US-Mexico border, stretching over 3000 kilometres, is the most frequently crossed border in the world. In a special interactive slideshow including audio commentary and music, renowned Magnum photographer Alex Webb showcases over 30 years of photography from this fascinating borderland region.

Nina Mangalanayagam follows the poignant story of her elderly Sri Lankan father recently relocated to northern Sweden. “Image of the week” returns with this beautiful slideshow by a young photographer to watch.