The Magnum Digest: November 15, 2019

Moises Saman covers the Kurdish refugee crisis and the Capital Gazette mass shooting for TIME

“The Kurds ended up within the borders of five nations, a tapestry cut by a jigsaw. What photographer Moises Saman documents is that division playing out in three of the countries…” So writes Karl Vick in the latest issue of TIME. Saman’s work, covering the increasingly desperate situation for Kurds in the borderlands between Iraq, Turkey and Syria, features on the cover of the issue.

You can see the full article on TIME, here.

On June 28, 2018, the offices of the Capital Gazette were the site of a mass shooting. Jarrod Ramos, whose harassment of a high school acquaintance the Gazette had covered, entered the offices and shot five staff members dead. TIME has spent recent months documenting the efforts of the publication and its staff to come to terms with those events. Saman photographed the process, and directed a soon-to-be released documentary on the Gazette.

You can read the feature and see Saman’s images, here.

Peter van Agtmael photographs a soldier’s widow for TIME

Jennie Taylor, a mother of seven from Utah, is one of thousands who have lost loved ones in America’s ‘forever wars’ in Afghanistan and Iraq. In a feature for TIME, writer W.J. Hennigan explores Taylor’s efforts to maintain her husband’s legacy in their small town, while moving forward with her life and keeping her young family together.

You can read the feature and see Peter van Agtmael’s accompanying photographs of Taylor and her family, here.

Gentlemen’s Club on the BBC

Cristina de Middel has spoken about her project, Gentlemen’s Club, for the BBC’s Through the Lens series. The work, an effort to render visible the ‘other side’ of the sex industry, saw her making portraits of male clients of prostitutes in numerous locations around the world. As the photographer explains in the interview, “Prostitution is not just about women, naked in dirty rooms, there’s also men naked in those same rooms, but we never show them.”

You can watch the video interview here, on the BBC, and you can learn more about the Gentlemen’s Club project here, on Magnum.

Rafal Milach’s vision of the Berlin Wall’s remnants

The 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – last weekend – was covered by French newspaper Libération through a portfolio of new photographs by Magnum nominee Rafal Milach. His new work, Death Strip, saw him traversing the German capital in search of traces of the Wall, “Whether whole surviving sections, or through comical allusions, he offers his offbeat vision of fragments of two intermingling eras.”

You can see Milach’s photos from Berlin here, and learn more about his practice here, on Magnum.

Magnum Photos Day

2019’s Photo Vogue Festival will feature a new element: Magnum Photos Day, presented by Fujifilm. The event, taking place on 17 November at BASE Milano, will host lectures, panels, and talks on contemporary photographic practice. Magnum photographers Olivia Arthur, Thomas Dworzak, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, and Alex Majoli will all take part.

You can find out more on Vogue Italia’s site, here.