The visual week that was in the American media: President Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing American troops from the long war in Afghanistan absorbed the attention of the 24-hour news cycle and then, for the most part, disappeared from view. Photographer Chip Somodevilla’s shot of an empty White House pressroom seemed to tell the story appropriately.
The news topic that people never get tired of is the weather. The American heartland, where flooding and a record number of tornadoes have already caused devastation this spring, suffered another blow as the Souris River crested, flooding the city of Minot, North Dakota. Charles Rex captured the sense of surreally bad luck with a shot of a disembodied lawn ornament.
Elsewhere around the world: A dangerous train ride for migrants from Central America, via the European Press Agency…riots over land-use issues in Italy, snapped by Fabio Ferrari…an odd perspective on a paramilitary exercise in China…and Romeo Ranoco’s beautiful photograph of a religious devotee in the Philippines.
Next comes sports—and in particular two American women athletes making news this week. Serena Williams, the defending Wimbledon champion, returned to the tournament after a year in which she suffered one health problem after another. Carl de Souza photographed her distinctive handiwork…meanwhile, the improbably-named Hope Solo, goalkeeper of the U.S. women’s soccer team, led her squad into action in the FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament in Germany. If I’m not mistaken, she’s destined to have her face on a box of Cheerios before too long.
As always, the media was filled with faces this week: Patrick Demarchelier made Beyonce shimmer in W magazine, and Adrian Dennis documented her shatteringly sexy performance at the Glastonbury music festival….Americans celebrated the recovery of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s, wounded by a mad gunman in January but back in a newly-released photo….The notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger was arrested after 16 years on the run, but the best photo of him was one taken long ago….On the other end of the cultural spectrum, photographer Ethan Levitas photographed Nikolaj Hubbe, the director of the Royal Danish Ballet, for the New Yorker.
And the cover stories of the week: Katy Perry by Terry Richardson on Rolling Stone, and the cast of the television vampire series True Blood—shot three different ways by Michael Muller for Entertainment Weekly. Bloodlust and breasts: What more could we ask for?
David Schonauer
