PJL: June 2014 (Part 1)

Features and Essays

Lynsey Addario: Crisis in South Sudan (New York Times) Food crisis worsens in South Sudan as civil war is displacing millions

Pierre Terdjman: Central African Republic (Paris Match L’Instant)

Glenna Gordon: The Nigerian Schoolgirls (New York Times Lens blog) Gordon photographed the personal possessions of the kidnapped schoolgirls

Adriane Ohanesian: The hunt for al-Shabab (Al Jazeera) African Union troops continue their struggle to push al-Shabab out of Somalia

Giulio Di Sturco: Dark Gold (LightBox) Di Sturco visited Madagascar to document the cocoa battle between the farmers who produce the beans, the gangs who steal them and the police who aim to stop the violence

Edgar Martins: The European Space Agency (Vice) Martins spent the past two years exploring the facilities of the European Space Agency

Antoine Bruy: Scrublands (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth) Documenting people with self-sufficient life styles

Jon Lowenstein: Victims of Modern-Day Slavery (CNN Photo blog) Lowenstein’s latest project shows those who have been victimized by human trafficking in the United States

Brandon Thibodeaux: Mississippi Delta (New York Times Lens blog) A road trip that started with heartache and a search for authentic blues led a photographer to the heart of the Mississippi Delta and its families

Isadora Kosofsky: Vinny and David: Life and Incarceration of a Family (LightBox) Kosofsky followed one family for over two years, documenting the impact the vast and complicated juvenile justice system has on individuals and their families

Sara Naomi Lewkowicz: Portrait of a Young Man with Down Syndrome (Al Jazeera America)

Anthony Suau: Organic Rising (PROOF) Stills related to Suau’s film on food production

Matt Black: Harvest of Shadows (MSNBC) Black chronicles the lives of workers in the fields of California’s Central Valley, the nation’s top food producing state. Immigrant rights advocates and labor unions are lobbying for reform to try to bring these workers out of the shadows where they’ll be able to find work without the threat of deportation

Naomi Harris: Dog Bless America (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth) Harris uses Instagram as a visual diary, documenting a road trip around America with her rescued dog Maggie

Peter van Agtmael: Years after deadly attacks, 9/11 museum opens (MSNBC) Scenes from the opening day

Luke Sharrett: Sacrifices Set in Adorned Stone (New York Times Lens blog) Arlington National Cemetary gravestones

Ashley Gilbertson: Bedrooms of the Fallen (LightBox) Honoring the casualties of war | Philip Gourevitch’s foreword to the book on New Yorker website

Ross McDonnell: Vigilantes (Wired Raw File) A series documenting Mexico’s Auto Defensa—bands of vigilantes who protect communities against the violence of the cartels. In some communities, they have all but replaced the ineffective policing of federal forces

Leandro Viana: Bolivia in São Paulo (burn magazine) Everyday, thousands of Bolivians arrive in the city of São Paulo

Rodrigo Abd: Gold Miners in Peru Face Eviction Under New Law (Wall Street Journal) Peru’s government declared all informal mining illegal in April and began a crackdown

Alessandro Gandolfi: Shanghai’s Rolls Royce generation (Parallelo Zero) China

Chiara Goia: Mongolia’s Beautiful, Brutal Winter Cold (Wired Raw File)

Kathryn Cook: Memory of Trees (Wired Raw File) Story of the Armenian genocide through a visceral and broadly visual survey of the people and places that were, and still are, affected by the tragic events of a century ago

Yuri Kozyrev: Syrians Return to Devastation in Homs (LightBox) Kozyrev traveled to Syria for TIME to document locals returning to the almost completely-leveled city of Homs. The return came after a ceasefire between the government and rebel forces who held the city for almost two years

Pierre Marsaut: For refugees, no home sweet home (Washington Post) Syrian refugees in Bulgaria along with migrants from other countries

Jošt Franko: Syrian children seek refuge in Lebanon (MSNBC) No nation has accepted a larger number of refugees during the three-year-old Syrian conflict than neighboring Lebanon, where the influx of one million Syrians – 500,000 of whom are children—has overwhelmed the country’s infrastructure

Christopher Morris: Marine Le Pen (Paris Match L’Instant) French National Front leader Le Pen on the campaign trail

Alexander Chekmenev: Ukrainians share their stories ahead of elections (MSNBC) Chekmenev spent months over the winter photographing Ukrainian protesters. This spring, he revisited some of them to talk about their hopes for the future

Laia Abril: Asexuals Tell Their Stories (CNN Photo blog) Abril had long been shooting projects about gender and sexuality when she stumbled onto a concept she’d never heard of before: asexuality – people who feel no sexual attraction to others

Articles

Creative Destruction in Homs: The New Order of Ruins (No Caption Needed)

Italian Photojournalist Andy Rocchelli, Translator, Killed In Ukraine (NPPA)

The women who take cameras into battle (Guardian) They’ve been tied up in Benghazi or shot at by Somalian smugglers. But three of the world’s top female documentary photographers – Alixandra Fazzina, Kitra Cahana and Lynsey Addario – have seen first-hand that women endure less violence on the frontline and can get closer to the action

War photographers are unique, driven and talented – without them the world would be blind (Guardian)

Object Lessons (Columbia magazine) Photographer Nina Berman discusses the evolving state of photojournalism — and shares evidence from her latest project

The Case for Digital by Simon Bainbridge (Aperture)

Photography is the art of our time by Jonathan Jones (Guardian) The old masters painted the drama of life and death. Today photography captures the human condition – better than any other artistic medium of our age

Peter van Agtmael’s thoughts on covering war (New York Times Lens blog) Van Agtmael’s new book is a personal look at America’s recent wars, as well as his own struggles to experience and explain conflict

Photographer Mohamed Abdiwahab’s grim record of Somalia’s violence (Al Jazeera America) Since 2011, the 27-year-old Mogadishu-based freelance photographer has transmitted 825 images to Agence France-Presse, the world’s oldest news-wire agency. More often than not, they capture an unpalatable brutality

George Steinmetz’s Eye From the Sky (PROOF) What is it like strapping yourself into the equivalent of a leaf blower, getting a running start, then taking off into the air with a camera in your hand?

Marilynn K. Yee Exploring the World, in New York (New York Times Lens blog) Yee left Los Angeles to cover New York City during the chaos of the 1970s. Now, she retires as a staff photographer for the New York Times

The Salt of the Earth review – photographer Sebastião Salgado is a magnetic subject (Guardian) A documentary portrait of the renowned Brazilian photographer by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado manages to be both illuminating and uplifting

VII Photo rises to challenges of changing photographic landscape with dynamic new agency model (British Journal of Photography) It may have had a tough few years – losing some members, shedding staff and closing its offices – but Olivier Laurent finds VII Photo ready to adapt to a fast-evolving industry

In Paris, Photojournalism Hits the Streets (LightBox) French photojournalist Pierre Terdjman has decided to cut out the middle man. Frustrated to see magazines pass on his reports from Central African Republic, he’s taken to the streets – posting his images on Paris’ walls in a bid to bring the news directly to the people

Exhibitions announced for Visa pour l’Image 2014 festival (Canon Professional Network)

German Photographer Michael Schmidt Awarded $112,500 Prix Pictet (PDN Pulse) Michael Schmidt was recognized for his long-term project “Lebensmittel,” translated as “food stuff”. But the photographer, suffering from a long illness, died, aged 68, just three days after the ceremony (BBC News)

Interviews and Talks

Kitra Cahana — Stories of the homeless and hidden (TED) As a young girl, photojournalist and TED Fellow Cahana dreamed about running away from home to live freely on the road. Now as an adult and self-proclaimed vagabond, she follows modern nomads into their homes — boxcars, bus stops, parking lots, rest stop bathrooms — giving a glimpse into a culture on the margins

Robin Hammond on covering mental health in Africa (Ideas Tap) Related on World Press Photo Vimeo

Mary Ellen Mark: Man and Beast (Leica blog)

Elliott Erwitt talks to David Alan Harvey (burn magazine)

Tom Stoddart on one hundred years of Leica cameras (Guardian)

Marcus Bleasdale (United Nations of Photography)

Sam Abell (PROOF)

Elizabeth Krist, National Geographic Magazine Senior Photo Editor (Christies)

Cory Richards on Pushing Through the Struggle (PROOF)

Juan Arredondo: Documenting Colombia’s Exploited Child-Soldiers (Leica blog)

Michelle Frankfurter (PetaPixel)

Amy Wolff (A Photo Editor) Wolff is a photo editor at Photo District News

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