The Cheat Sheet

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Everyday there are lives at home and on the other side of the world that go unnoticed; lives that may matter little to the personal hustle of trying to pay rent, get children to do their homework or figure out how late to leave the couch and still make it to work on time; but everyday photojournalists celebrate these lives.

From children playing while 1,034-plus bodies are pulled from the rubble of a clothing factory in Lahore where shirts are sewn for wealthy westerners, to the tattered remains of an American flag on a still ravaged New Jersey coast line on the six month anniversary of Hurricane Sandy; these documentary images take us beyond a scrolling news flash on the bottom of a cable news show and ask us to look. To look and if we stop long enough to force us to stare for a moment; to question why.

Click though to The Daily Beast to see all the images for the week in pictures.

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Edmund Clark, Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out

The Guantanamo detention camp occupies an isolated 45 square mile plot of land in Cuba, its complex a crucial point of cultural convergence amidst the war on terror. Edmund Clark’s project investigates Guantanamo through its influence on distinct notions of home: for the American community who reside in the naval base; the detainees incarcerated in its compound; and the former prisoners who now rebuild their lives in Europe and the Middle East.

From Clark’s statement on ifthelightgoesout.com:

The series’ disjointed narrative aims to convey the sense of disorientation and dislocation central to the daily experience of incarceration at Guantanamo, and to explore the legacy of disturbance such experiences have in the minds and memories of these men. The viewer is asked to jump from prison camp detail to domestic still life; from life outside the naval base and back again – from light to dark.

Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out opens tonight, and runs through January 12, 2013, at Flowers Gallery, in New York City.

Whoa.

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The Path of Hurricane Sandy: New York & New Jersey

High winds, heavy rains, extreme tides, and even snow, the “Frankenstorm” crippled the East Coast, delivering an especially powerful punch to New York City. Millions were left without power, streets and tunnels were flooded, the city’s 108-year-old subway system was brought to its knees, and over 30 deaths along the East Coast have been attributed to the storm. The Daily Beast takes a look at the storm and its aftermath on its course from the Carribean through the East Coast.

Stay safe out there today. 

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William Klein & Daido Moriyama opening at Tate Modern

At Tate Modern in London, William Klein + Daido Moriyama starts tomorrow, October 10. The exhibition examines the relationship between the work of Klein, one of most important photographers in the 20th century, and Daido Moriyama, the Japanese photographer has made a radical impact on the photographic world by his Aré Buré Boké (grainy, blurry, out-of-focus) style. For more information about the exhibition, visit tate.org.

If you won’t be in London, there are two other exhibitions of Moriyama’s work currently on view in Paris and in Tokyo.

In Paris, Polka Galerie is currently hosting a three-part cycle of exhibitions dedicated to his work. Currently on view is Hokkaido-Northern, presenting Moriyama’s photography from Northern part of Japan in 1978, later revisited in color in the years since 2008. Cycle Daido Moriyama is on view through January 13, 2013, for more information, visit polkagalerie.com.

In Tokyo, BLD Gallery presents Labyrinth, a collection of Moriyama’s contact sheets, both original, as well as new collages combining negatives from the past five decades of his work. Out of all three of the above exhibitions, you will be the closest to the subject of Moriyama’s work here. After visiting the gallery, go to the Golden Gai bar district in Shinjuku, his favorite part of town. After a few drinks in the tiny bars, you too may experience Daidio’s Shinjuku as he revealed it in his works.

The above gallery features work from the William Klein + Daido Moriyama exhibition at Tate Modern.

Labyrinth is also available as a book published by Aperture.

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Daniel Etter: Witnessing Syria’s Descent Into War

During the last 15 months I have traveled to Syria again and again. I witnessed a small glimpse of the country’s descent from a largely peaceful uprising into a full-scale civil war.

What seemed to me at first a hopeful struggle for change has turned into a violent deadlock. August was the bloodiest month in Syria so far. With more than 4,000 civilians dead, the human toll exceeded that of the deadliest month of the war in Iraq, which was already ten times higher than the deadliest month in Afghanistan.

A morning airstrike—lacking an obvious noncivilian target—hit a neighborhood in Aleppo, on August 23. Here, Syrians in the Shaar section of the city watch the attack.

The rebels fight with Kalashnikovs, rocket propelled grenades and home made bombs against the government’s tanks, helicopters and fighter jets. What the rebels lack in firepower, they have in manpower, courage, motivation and sometimes a disregard for their own physical safety. Neither side seems to have the power to decisively turn the tide against the other.

With every passing day, the conflict has become increasingly sectarian. Except for a very small number, the rebels are Sunni Muslims from Syria’s poor and disadvantaged countryside. Religion serves as a unifier and was the only hope that promised justice under a corrupt regime.

In the Tareeq al Bab area of Aleppo on August 24, election posters of Baath Party members have been torn.

Today, even more secular rebel outfits use religious symbols. They grow beards and fly the black flag of jihad to attract money from conservative Muslim donor states. Jihadists from the United Kingdom, Libya and Pakistan have joined the ranks of the fighters. Though relatively few, they play into the government’s narrative of a foreign, Islamist conspiracy against Syria.

On the other side you have Alawites, Shiites, Christians and countless other minorities that side with the Syrian regime—not necessarily because they support it, but because they fear what might come if the rebels win. President Bashar al Assad has projected an image of himself as a protector of minorities and interreligious peace. Partly because the largely Sunni opposition has failed to reach minorities, for many Syrians he has become exactly that.

Working as a journalist in this environment has proven difficult and dangerous. Many of our colleagues lost their lives. Some were foreign reporters, but most were Syrian. One of the last was Tamer al Awam, who I met in Syria in a makeshift refugee camp close to the broder with Turkey in June 2011. We spent some time working alongside, and we connected because we both called Germany one of our homes. I was not aware that he started working in Syria as a filmmaker until activists changed their profile pictures on Facebook to his portrait and announced his death in Aleppo. According to activists, he was hit by shrapnel during sustained army shelling of opposition forces.

Aleppo has been one of the most challenging stories I have covered so far, frontlines shift within minutes and jets strike anywhere in the city no matter if there are military targets or not. There is no secure place for civilians in the parts of the city held by the rebels. The government’s message seems to be that you either fight on their side or you pay the price for the rebel’s actions.

A family walks through the Tareeq region of Aleppo on August 25, 2012.

But it is not only the security situation that proves increasingly challenging. The opposition was in the past desperate for journalists to cover their plight, but with critical reporting on their actions, such as human rights abuses and religious radicalization, they are slowly becoming unwelcoming towards reporters.

A school in the Aleppo region shelters approximately 150 refugees who have fled local violence. Here, a mother holds her newborn infant on August 13, 2012.

If I as a photographer had to choose one of my images to sum up the conflict, it would be the tattooed rebel prisoner. He has the ruling Assad family inked on his chest like a holy trinity. The late Hafez al Assad in the middle, his two sons Basil and Bashar on the side. For the prisoner, an alleged government militiaman, they used to be the only legitimate rulers of Syria. When the rebels entered Aleppo, he surrendered, screaming “I give my blood for the Free Syrian Army!” and cut the Assads’ images out of his chest with a dirty razor knife.

He told his story under the watchful eyes of a prison ward, so there is no way to be sure that he did not make it up so not to anger his jailers. But no matter who inflicted the cuts in his chest and tried to erase the Assads, the wounds might get infected, they might heal—but they will be visible as long as he lives. The bloody conflict continues. I do not see an easy end to it. But hopefully, a future generation will overcome the pain and the hate that the wounds cutting through Syria inflicted.

— Daniel Etter

View more from Daniel Etter’s Witnessing Syria’s Descent Into War at The Daily Beast.

Wow.