PJL: August 2013 (Part 1)

Features and Essays

Lynsey Addario: Finding redemption in the world’s ‘rape capital’ (CNN Photo blog) Democratic Republic of Congo

Pete Muller: Mugabe Faces Test in Zimbabwe Vote (NYT) Related: Mugabe Faces Test as Zimbabwe Votes

Glenna Gordon: Nigerian Weddings: Money and Marriage in a Massive African Economy (The Daily Beast)

National Geographic: The Serengeti Lion (National Geographic) interactive multimedia

Richard Mosse: The Enclave (New Republic) Congo

Dillon Marsh: ‘Invasive Species’ in Cape Town (CNN) Cell phone towers disguised as trees have popped up all around South Africa

Alessandro Gandolfi: Harenna, the last coffee collectors (Parallelo Zero) Ethiopia

Mosa’ab Elshamy: Witness to a Massacre: Photographs from Rabaa (LightBox) Egypt

Narciso Contreras: A Burst of Violence in Cairo (NYT)

Moises Saman: Human trafficking in the Sinai (Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin)

Rina Castelnuovo: A Rite of Passage, an Act of Defiance (NYT) In a West Bank culture of conflict, boys wield the weapon at hand

Ahmed Deeb: Tunnel Children (zReportage) Gaza Strip

Uriel Sinai: Animal ER, Israel (Reportage by Getty Images)

Andrea Bruce: In Old City of Damascus, War Closes In (NYT) More on NOOR website here

Andrew McConnell: Lebanon: The Gathering Storm (Panos Pictures)

Tommy Forbes: Doha (American Photo) The capital city of Qatar, a shimmering city at the edge of the desert

Diego Ibarra Sanchez: Ending Polio, but First, Many Setbacks (NYT) Pakistan

Anastasia Taylor-Lind: India (VII Photo)

Justin Jin: Another Great Leap Forward? (Panos Pictures) China

David Butow: Seeing Buddha (NYT Lens) Photographing the part of Buddhism that can’t be seen

Ji Yeo: Beauty Recovery Room (Dazed Digital) Post-op plastic surgery portraits from South Korea | related interview here

Sergey Ponomarev: Afghan School Woes (NYT)

Marieke van der Velden: A Monday, or Any Day, in Kabul (NYT Lens) In Kabul, so often depicted as impoverished and war-ravaged, van der Velden chose to focus on the people living the story, asking them, What is your favorite place in your city?

David Gilkey: Afghanistan (NPR Pictureshow)

Christoph Bangert: Embracing the West, Except Its Ideals (NYT) Afghan youth

Jordi Ruiz Cirera: Bolivia’s isolated Mennonite community (CNN Photo blog)

Juan Manuel Castro Prieto: Shamanism looms high in the Andes (CNN Photo blog)

Ana Carolina Fernandes: Bodies and Souls (burn magazine) Transvestite community in Rio

Lianne Milton: Wrecking homes for an Olympic highway in Rio (CNN Photo blog)

George Steinmetz: Rebuilding the Jersey Shore (New Yorker) Shortly after Hurricane Sandy, Steinmetz helicoptered over New Jersey and shot a series of aerial photographs of the devastated coastline. In July, Steinmetz returned to the area to see how things had changed

Dave Jordano: Detroit’s Fight to Survive: A Humanist’s Look at the Motor City (LightBox)

Kirk Crippens: Stockton, Bankcrupt (NPR Pictureshow)

Giles Price: Gettysburg, Readdressed (NYT magazine)

Jeremy Wade Shockley: My American West (burn magazine)

Ben Lowy: West to the Border (Backspaces)

David Harriman: Portraits of Illegal Immigrants Facing Deportation to Mexico (Feature Shoot)

Lauren Greenfield: I Want to Be a Disney Princess (Institute)

Chris McPherson: A lover and a fighter (CNN Photo blog) The life of an adult film star

Alicia Vera: This Is Not Just A Story About Prostitution (NPR Pictureshow)

Nina Berman: Fractured: Shale Play (Slate Behold) Fracking Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region

Emily Berl: Portraits of L.A.’s Marilyn Monroe Impersonators (Feature Shoot)

Ramón Ruiz: Milton’s Last Year (CNN Photo blog) Documenting Parkinsons

Tony Fouhse: Live Through This: Documenting One Woman’s Struggle with Heroin (LightBox)

Dietmar Eckell: Happy End (NBC News photo blog) Wrecked planes in forbidding landscapes

Peter Andrew: Aerial Freeways (Wired Raw File) Aerial freeway photos give engineers their due as geometric artists

Adrienne Grunwald: Regulars at a New Jersey Racetrack (Feature Shoot)

Hollis Bennett: Rocking the world’s ‘heaviest’ cruise (CNN Photo blog) Raging metalheads on a luxury cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico

Adam Reign: Harlem’s Underground Ballrooms (CNN Photo blog)

Ian Willms: An Indigenous Way of Life Threatened by Oil Sands in Canada (NYT Lens)

Abbie Trayler-Smith: The Big O (afinebeginning.com) Youth obesity in Wales

Marc Wilson: The Last Stand (Document Scotland) Physical remnants of the Second World War on the coastlines of the British Isles and northern Europe, focusing on military defence structures that remain and their place in the shifting landscape that surrounds them

Espen Rasmussen: Tough Guy competition (Guardian)

Kai Wiedenhöfer: A world divided by walls (CNN Photo blog)

Carolyn Drake: Tracking Medical Mystery (Photo Booth) Tracking mysterious, fatal kidney disease known as Balkan endemic nephropathy, in Croatia and Bosnia

Just Jin: Zone of Absolute Discomfort (Panos Pictures) Russia’s Far North | Work also on the photographer’s website here

Mikolaj Nowacki: Ode to a Polish River (NYT Lens)

Joachim Ladefoged: Festival Fringes (Photo Booth) In June, Ladefoged spent several days at the Roskilde Festival, in Denmark

David Ramos: Modern Day Gladiators Of Calcio Storico Fiorentino, Italy (Reportage by Getty Images)

Articles

Honor The Treaties (Reelhouse) A portrait of photographer Aaron Huey’s work on the Pine Ridge Reservation

Journalists in Syria Face Dangers of War and Rising Risk of Abduction (NYT)

What’s With the U.S. Media’s Aversion to Graphic Images? (The Atlantic)

War photography, war pornography – must we see blood to understand conflict? (Trust.org)

The month in photography – audio slideshow (Guardian) Cate Blanchett, Mars and Mass Observation feature in August’s guide to the top photography around the world, with works by Nan Goldin, William Eggleston, Walker Evans and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Rainbow Transit – photobook showcase (YouTube) A brief tour through Per-Anders Pettersson’s book Rainbow Transit

Two Rivers by Carolyn Drake – photobook review (Guardian)

International Center of Photography Triennial, New York – review (The Financial Times)

Transition: Contested landscapes in South Africa (New Statesman) A photography essay including work by Philippe Chancel, Raphaël Dallaporta, Pieter Hugo, Santu Mofokeng, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Thabiso Sekgala and Alain Willaume.

AFP Haiti photographer Thony Belizaire dead at 54 (Fox News)

No Safe Places In Syria: Photographer Abducted At Media Center (NPR)

War of Images: Rolling Stone, Tsarnaev and the Branding of a Tragedy (LightBox)

Nic Dunlop’s Burma (BBC)

Bill Henson and the Dark Matter of Portraiture (LightBox)

Daniel Naudé’s best photograph – a feral Africanis dog (Guardian)

Daniel Beltrá’s best photograph: an Antarctic iceberg from above (Guardian)

Wire Photographer Spotlight: Conflict and Conscience in Gaza by Ali Ali (LightBox)

Ed Drew’s Afghanistan: the first wet-plate conflict photos in 150 years (Guardian)

Eugene Richards: Jerry Berndt: A Remembrance (Photographer’s blog)

Featured photographer: Philipp Engelhorn (Verve Photo)

Featured photographer: Susana Girón (Verve Photo)

Featured photographer: Karen Miranda Rivadeneira (Verve Photo)

Featured photographer: William Coupon (Verve Photo)

Nature Within the City: Bruce Davidson’s Los Angeles (LightBox)

Come for the Photographs, Stay for the Ranching (NYT) When Jean Laughton bought an inexpensive house in South Dakota to use as a base for a photography project, she had no idea she would stay indefinitely — or become a rancher

The Original New York Street Photographer, Alice Austin (The Atlantic Cities)

Louis Draper, Plucked From Obscurity (NYT Lens) The photographer Louis H. Draper, who, because he was black, was largely unknown outside of New York at the time of his death, is receiving some posthumous attention

Rosalind Solomon’s Photographs of the AIDS Epidemic (Photo Booth)

A New Look at Walker Evans’s ‘American Photographs’ (NYT Lens)

Sandy, the book: A look at the superstorm through iPhone photos (NBC News photo blog)

The Marginalized, Front and Center (NYT) Peter Baryshnikov is following in the footsteps of his father, Mikhail — but not with jetés and battements

Photographing Serengeti Lions Up Close Using Infrared, Robots and Drones (Peta Pixel)

Is the web photography’s friend or foe? (Guardian)

Wanted: The networked photojournalist (BJP)

17 Signs That You Were Alive Before Digital Photography (PhotoShelter blog)

Interviews and Talks

Bruce Davidson (CBS) Civil Rights Movement photographer Davidson remembers pivotal moments forever captured on film

Alex Webb (Ideas Tap ) Webb on research and collaboration

Anders Petersen (The Klieg Light)

Pete Souza (LightBox) Obama’s Photographer Joins Instagram

Fred Ritchin (BJP) Meta-narrative: Ritchin on the future of photojournalism

Dominic Nahr (Vice)

Laurent Van der Stockt (Syriadeeply.org) The Photographer Who Crossed Obama’s ‘Red Line’

Jonathan Alpeyrie (La Journal de la Photographie) Interview with photographer Alpeyrie, held hostage in Syria for 81 days and freed on July 20

War Photographers: Michael Kamber and Louie Palu on Iraq and Afghanistan (Reason TV)

Ian Teh (Open Society Foundations) From the Yellow River to the East River

Fernando Moleres (CPN) Out of darkness: Moleres on Sierra Leone’s juvenile prisoners

Brian Storm (MediaStorm) Storm on Why You’ll Never Master Multimedia

Narciso Contreras (AP Youtube) On Covering Syria

Mark Seliger (NYT Lens) ‘Photography Is My Wife, Music Is My Mistress’ | Related article here

Jehad Nga (The Aesthete)

Tim Page (TIME) Veteran War Photographer Tim Page on Cambodia, Conflict and Getting High

Joseph Rodriguez (NYT Lens) Searching for Hope and Humanity in L.A.

Pete Muller (WPO YouTube)

Maxim Dondyuk (PDN) Inside a Cossack Youth Camp

Michele Palazzi (Slave Magazine)

Keith McManus (NPR Pictureshow) How Spring Break Changed My Life

Demetrius Freeman (NYT Lens) Be a Human First, Then Take the Photo

Jabin Botsford (NYT Lens) Diving for the Winning Shot

Spencer Murphy (The Stare Show)

Mikko Takkunen is an associate photo editor at TIME.com. Follow him on Twitter @photojournalism.