Windows and Mirrors, Skies of Blue, and Dream Baby Dream

Or: Dispatches #16

Feb 12, 2025

Dream baby dream.

With DOGE-induced global financial chaos seemingly on the cliff-edge ready to topple over any day that one of Musk’s master race of highly gifted toddlers taps an errant keystroke; I decided to revisit Adam Curtis’ superlative documentary Hypernormalisation.

Watching this film following 16 months of genocide in Palestine, Assad toppled in Syria, and Trump winning a 2nd term has been a wild experience. I recommend it - even as a rewatch. Some incredible music in there, too.

We now live in a world where Kanye West takes out a Super Bowl ad for his website, sending millions there. Millions that, when they get there, find a single white t-shirt emblazoned with a black swastika. Jesus. Christ.

We live in a world where crusading (literally) Christian and noted alcohol enthusiast, Pete Hegseth is in charge of the most powerful military in the world. Where Putin-parroting dipshit Tulsi Gabbard is Trump’s Director of National Intelligence - a contradiction in terms, there. I think. We live in a world where a brain-rotted billionaire can stand at a podium, do an actual Nazi salute and the world’s media spends a week with thinkpieces about hearts going out and Roman gestures. We live in a world where… ah you get the idea.

I see skies of blue…

The accelerated nazification of X-The Everything App since the US presidential election has at least made many of the Twitter hold-overs decide they needed to find a new home, and the new home they found was Bluesky.

Bluesky is great. I was an early adopter but found no one there. I bounced to Mastodon, only coming back to Bluesky at the turn of the year when the eXodus began. Bluesky feels like the early days of Twitter. A great community. A chronological feed. Good chat. There’s a small but growing photography community over there featuring some familiar faces, including Neil, Andrew, Marcel, Wesley, and a whole host of other Substackers.

I’m here @lionelsmint.neilmilton.scot, and I hope you’ll come over and follow me. And if you haven’t explored Bluesky yet, do. Join and get involved.

A bit weird, but I’ll take it

Talking of the aforementioned Wesley; a writer of arguably one of the best photography newsletters and one you should definitely be subscribed to on Substack, and it’s in his absence that I find it difficult to take too seriously Digital Camera World’s recent listicle, 10 photographers you should be following on Substack. Neil Scott and Marcel Borgstijn are deservedly on there, as am I (thanguverymush) but damn if there weren’t some essential names missing. Still, it was lovely to be recognised, so many thanks to writer, Tom May.

Romuald Broniarek

Ok, screeching segue. During an unrelated breakfast meeting last week, my friend and colleague Antek called to ask if I’d like to join him and his fiancée on a walk to the Old Town for an exhibition, In Passing: The Unknown Photographs of Romuald Broniarek. In the 1950s, the photographer was responsible for propaganda photojournalism for Przyjaźń magazine; however, as we all would, he made his own view of his Poland too. His photos are remarkable, and I’m sure I’ll write about him some more later.

It’s all Donalds these days

I’ll wrap up this month with a photograph I made of Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk at the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Ok, so let’s get to the news.

What's been happening this month

With the death of cinema icon David Lynch last month, Aperture examined the director’s outsized influence on photography. (Aperture)

The controversy over the VII Foundation documentary, The Stringer rages on. Nick Ut now plans a defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers. (Petapixel)

In preparation for his 1984 film Paris, Texas, Wim Wenders travelled from Texas through Arizona and New Mexico to California. The trip resulted in his photo series Written in the West. (The Guardian)

Musée previews Minneapolis Institute of Art's new exhibition The True America: Photographs by Ernest Cole, showing now at the Harrison Photography Gallery. (Musée)

The finalists of this year’s Leica Street Photo competition have been announced. There are a few disappointing choices, but this year’s selection is tremendous. Congratulations to the finalists. (Leica Street Photo)

Dispatches from Substack

On Reading the Pictures, Michael Shaw studies the photography created at Trump’s second inauguration, the Coronation of King Donald II.

In his seeming extension to the excellent Photopedagogy website that I've used in my classes many times, Jon Nicholls explores John Szarkowski's concept of Mirrors and Windows and how it can be used in the classroom.

I try not to return to the same publication twice in the same month, but Reading the Pictures offered more analysis that was hard to pass over. In this one, Michael and Cara Finnegan examine Mark Mahaney's daring portrait of Elon Musk.

On the subject of returning to things, let’s swing back around to Szarkowski. From a couple of years ago but recently reposted, Neil Scott delivers a short talk on the seminal book, The Photographer’s Eye.

On the ever-excellent Process, Wesley Verhoeve shared a deeply personal, and moving, project, a family portrait shoot with his father, his father's siblings, and their partners.

Miscellany

Top Dawg Entertainment are having a hell of a 2025. Grammy wins for Doechii and Kendrick and two iconic performances. Astonishing stuff. I can’t find an embeddable link for Doechii’s Grammys show, so you’ll have to make do with a link. And just when I thought I had a video for Kendrick, the NFL blocks external streaming, so here’s the Super Bowl Halftime show in all its glory.

And then there’s this little vignette of Astronaut Don Pettit changing the lenses on his Nikon on the International Space Station. Quite the flex.

astro_pettit

A post shared by @astro_pettit

Edit: In the original publication of this newsletter, Patrick Witty’s Field of View newsletter was recommended, and I have enjoyed and shared his work in the past. Until today, I was unaware of the 2018 sexual misconduct allegations against him. I have removed the recommendation of Mr. Witty’s newsletter until I read more about the situation.

And Finally…

With two last month, The Tinnitus Diaries will have a short break this month, though there are no shortage of shows. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with Photos, mostly.

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