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Mississippi Drug
War Blues
The Case of Cory Maye
Produced by Paul Feine and Roger M. Richards
At 11p.m on December 26, 2001 police in Prentiss,
Mississippi raided the residence of Cory Maye, a 21-year-old
father who was at home with his 18-month-old daughter
Ta'Corriana.
The cops were looking for drugs and smashed through the back
door. In the ensuing chaos, Maye hunkered down with his
daughter in a bedroom and when the police broke down that
door, he fired three bullets, one of which killed Officer
Ron Jones. Maye testified in court that the police did not
identify themselves until after they had entered his
residence; indeed, he testified that they did not identify
themselves until after he had fired his shots. Once they
did, he said he put his weapon on the floor, slid it toward
police, and surrendered.
"Mississippi Drug War Blues" is a story about the
intersection of race (Maye is black and Jones was white);
the war on drugs; the disturbing increase in the
militarization of police tactics; and systemic flaws in the
criminal justice and expert-testimony systems.
It is a tragedy in which one man is dead and another may
spend his life in prison.
 Camera Review: The Canon
XL H1
By Dirck Halstead
Canon has always taken a "wait and see"
attitude when
it comes to introducing its new video products. Then, once
it has determined the direction the market is going in, they do
their homework, and come up with something that is beyond anything the competition has. Such is the case with the new Canon XL H1.
Read more>
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 Panasonic AG-HVX-200 P2 Camcorder Review
By Bill Southworth
I should begin by pointing out that I’m fairly new to video. My idea
of a camera has always been a Leica M6 hanging over my shoulder
and
extra rolls of film in my pocket. Now, as a burgeoning documentary
maker, I find myself loaded down with bags of lighting, tripods,
sound equipment, and cameras. For music videos, I frequently have a
whole car full of equipment for multi-camera shoots. That said, I
come to the task of evaluating the Panasonic HVX-200 with a
particular point of view. I like simple, rugged cameras that produce
gorgeous pictures. The HVX-200 is in my comfort zone.
Read more>
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 The Journalistic Orphans of
Magnum Photographer Jonas Bendiksen
By Ron Steinman
After only 10 years in the business, Jonas Bendiksen has a fully
developed philosophy of photography. In his words, "I love working
on stories that get left behind in the race for daily
headlines—journalistic orphans."
Read more>
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 Katrina: Another View
Text and Photographs by
Edward Richards
As things settled down in Baton Rouge, and security was relaxed on
the flooded areas, which was about two months after the storm, I
started systematically exploring the entire region affected by
Katrina, from Ocean Spring, Mississippi, which is just east of
Biloxi, to Grand Isle, Louisiana, which is west and south of New
Orleans.
What I saw was both amazing and frightening.
I started
documenting the damage with my 4x5....
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 Coal Hollow
Photographs By Ken Light
Reviewed
By J.B. Colson
"If we must grind up human flesh and bone in the industrial machine we
call modern America, then before God I assert that those who consume
coal and you and I who benefit from that service because we live in
comfort, we owe protection to those men first, and we owe security to
their families if they die."
Read more>
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 Alec Soth's
NIAGARA
by Roger Richards
The past two years have been very interesting for
photographer Alec Soth, a period of time in which he has gone from
being an unknown to fame after his exceptional book Sleeping by the
Mississippi was released in 2004....
Read more>
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The Bang Bang Club
Filmmaker Dan Krauss' award-winning documentary
The Death of Kevin Carter
tells the story behind Carter's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph
(right). The Bang Bang Club is a book by his colleagues who covered the
violence of the last years of South Africa's apartheid regime. View a
gallery of photographs and excerpts from the book.
Read more> |
