PJL: September 2013 (Part 2)

Features and Essays

Marcus Bleasdale: The Price of Precious (National Geographic) The minerals in our electronic devices have bankrolled unspeakable violence in the Congo | From the October issue of National Geographic magazine | Related video here

Sven Torfinn: How Babies Are Made (Panos Pictures) Congo

various photographers: Everyday Africa (National Geographic) A group of photographers in Africa share snippets of ordinary life on an Instagram feed called Everyday Africa

Pete Muller: Mogadishu – Take Off (Monocle) Somalia is a failed state but its airport, once a no-go zone, could offer a glimmer of hope. Writer Tristan McConnell and photographer Pete Muller illustrate the change | Audio slideshow

Benedicte Kurzen: Religious War Along The Tenth Parallel (NOOR) The tenth parallel North runs straight through Africa from Guinea in the west through countries like Ivory Coast and Nigeria up until Somalia in the East. It’s also an ideological front line where Muslims and Christians collide

Ruth McDowall: Nigeria (Photo Booth)

Michael Christopher Brown: Cairo (Magnum Photos) Life after the crackdown

Laura Boushnak: Empowering Arab Women Through Literacy (NYT Lens) Boushnak documented schools and classes in five countries in the Arab world

Sergey Ponomarev: Damascus (Paris Match)

Andrew McConnell: In Times of War (Panos Pictures) Damascus, Syria

Moises Saman: Syria’s war refugees (CNN Photo Blog)

Mads Nissen: Syria’s Exodus (Panos Pictures) As the conflict in Syria continues, 2,000,000 people have now been forced to flee their homes. Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp has grown to become the second largest camp in the world

Noriko Hayashi: Unholy Matrimony (Paris Match) The tradition of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan

David Monteleone: Spasibo (VII) Chechnya

Frank Herfort: Post-Soviet Architectural Oddities (CNN Photo Blog)

David Guttenfelder: The Real North Korea (National Geographic) Inside North Korea’s tightly controlled society, the truth is rarely simple | From the October issue of the National Geographic magazine | Related video here

Sim Chi Yin: Casualties of China’s Rapid Urbanization (NYT)

David Guttenfelder: The Crowded—and Epic—Reality of Climbing Japan’s Mt. Fuji (TIME)

Tyler Hicks: Afghan Soldiers Struggle in the Embattled District of Sangin (NYT)

Vivek Singh: Fear and Loathing in North India’s Sugarcane Town (NYT)

Arindam Mukherjee: Anglo-Indian community of Calcutta (BBC)

Fabio Bucciarelli: Frustration and Suffering in Haiti’s Mental Facilities (LightBox)

Andrea Bruce: A New Start for Kingston (NOOR) Improvements have been made to curb the violence that has troubled Kingston, Jamaica

Rick Loomis: A Soldier’s Wife (LA Times) An Iraq war veteran struggling with PTSD and alcoholism

Martin Schoeller: The Changing Face of America (National Geographic) Unexpected portraits illustrate America’s “melting pot” nature | Related video here

Eugene Richards: When Age Produces Beauty: Photographs of Legends at Work (LightBox) Richards’ to photograph prominent American artists who are in their 80s or about to arrive there

Matt Black: The People of Clouds (Photo Booth) Mixtec migrant workers in California’s Central Valley

Bryan Schutmaat: Grays the Mountain Sends: Poetic Views of the American West’s Darker Side (LightBox)

Kathleen Robbins: Cotton farms fading away in historic Delta (CNN Photo Blog)

Anthony S. Karen: Ku Klux Klan (L’Instant – Paris Match)

Mike Peters: NYC Portraits (Wired Rawfile) Using a camera to cope: reflecting on 9/11 through portraiture

Andrew Lichtenstein: After Oligarchy: New York City’s Mayoral Race (Facingchange.org)

Curran Hatleberg: On the Road to Photograph America (Slate Behold)

Abelardo Morell: Visions on Earth (National Geographic) Using the ground beneath his feet as a canvas, a photographer inspires fresh appreciation for America’s national parks

Simon Roberts: Pierdom (LightBox) Victorian piers in Britain | Related on BBC website here

Edward Burtynsky: Water (Slate Behold)

Dimitris Michalakis: Burnout (Lens Culture) Greece

Paolo Verzone: Karlberg Military Academy (Agence Vu) Sweden

Articles

David and Daniel (Roads and Kingdoms) David Burnett tries to meet with Daniel Céspedes, the man in his famous 1973 Chile photograph

The Speed Graphic Returns (Roads and Kingdoms) David Burnett revisits Chile with his Pacemaker Speed Graphic

The Power of Photography (National Geographic) Photographers use their cameras as tools of exploration, passports to inner sanctums, instruments for change. Their images are proof that photography matters—now more than ever.

The Visual Village (National Geographic) James Estrin on photography at 125 | Related gallery here

Witness to a Syrian Execution: “I Saw a Scene of Utter Cruelty” (LightBox) images from a photojournalist chronicles a harrowing scene near Aleppo

An execution in Syria (Paris Match)

In Aleppo clinics ‘you walk on blood’, says photojournalist (Trust.org)

Why Syria’s images of suffering haven’t moved us (Washington Post)

How Photographic Technology Shapes Our Understanding of War (Atlantic) As cameras have evolved, we’ve been exposed, more intimately, to conflict

Vietnam War Photos That Made a Difference (NYT Lens) Richard Pyle, the last surviving Saigon bureau chief for The Associated Press during the Vietnam War, recounts how the wire service marshaled the talents of a legendary corps of photographers in pursuit of the truth.

Telling the Stories Behind the Images of ‘War/Photography’ Exhibition (PBS)

The “Shame of Memory” Haunts a War Photographer (NYT Lens)

Everyday Nigeria — Not Idealized, Not Debased (NYT Lens) A Nigerian writer has teamed up with photographers to provide words and pictures of daily life that challenge stereotypes about the country and the continent

After the gold rush: former mining towns captured on camera (Guardian) Bryan Schutmaat photographed the dying days of the mining industry in remote US towns.

Almost Human: Mary Ellen Mark’s Photos of Animals (LightBox) A new show in Oaxaca, Mexico highlights Mark’s work in the animal kingdom

At Photoville, Tyler Hicks’s Photographic Year (NYT Lens) At the Photoville photography exhibition in Brooklyn, shipping containers house picture presentations, including one that showcases a year’s worth of assignments from The Times’s staff photographer Tyler Hicks

Reimagining a Tragedy, 50 Years Later (NYT Lens) Dawoud Bey explores the relationship of past to present with diptychs of people the same age as the victims of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing — both at the time of the bombings and in the present day.

Antonio Olmos’s The Landscape of Murder project (BJP)

Once upon a time in America: National Geographic’s images from the golden age of Kodachrome (Independent) Nathan Benn spent two decades shooting 10,000 rolls of film for ‘National Geographic’. Twenty years after his final commission, his work remains as fresh and evocative as ever thanks to the unique properties of Kodachrome.

England’s ‘Non-Conformists’: Early work by Martin Parr (CNN Photo Blog)

Paris In My Time: Mark Steinmetz’s Homage to the City of Lights (LightBox)

What’s The Landscape Of Modern Landscape Photography? (Picture Show)

Mystery in the Sky: A Legendary Photo (Slowly) Gives Up Its Secrets (LightBox) A new documentary film — and a previously unpublished image — shed light on one of the most famous, and most widely misinterpreted, photographs of the 20th century: ‘Lunch Atop a Skyscraper.’

Pieter Hugo: seeing South Africa anew (Guardian) Kin, a moving new exhibition in New York, asks troubling questions about the photographer’s conflicted homeland | Photos here

Simon Roberts – Pierdom (Photobookstore on Vimeo) Video browse through of Roberts’ new book

Andy’s World: Rare Photographs From Warhol’s Own Camera (LightBox)

Sitting for a Portrait by Nadav Kander (NYT magazine 6th Floor blog)

Amy Winehouse posing for Back to Black – Mischa Richter’s best photo (Guardian)

Maja Daniels’ best photograph: the Malroux twins on the streets of Paris (Guardian)

Featured Photographer: Troi Anderson (Verve Photo)

Featured photographer: Amanda Berg (Verve Photo)

High society hairdresser’s secret life as street photographer (BBC)

Interviews and Talks

The Photographers on Photography (PROOF) National Geographic photographers on the power of photography

Yuri Kozyrev (Ideas Tap) Kozyrev on covering conflict

Moises Saman (Wired Rawfile) Conflict photographer’s best pictures are some of humanity’s worst moments

Marcus Bleasdale (National Geographic) Bleasdale on working in Congo

Martin Schoeller (PROOF) Schoeller on intimate portraiture

Noriko Hayashi (Panos Social) Hayashi recently won the Visa d’or Feature prize

Art Greenspon (LightBox) Peter van Agtmael interviews Greenspon about his famous Vietnam War photograph

Steve McCurry (Telegraph) Audio slideshow | McCurry explains the stories behind some of his most iconic images

Conversation With Nick Nichols and Brent Stirton (PROOF)

Alessandra Sanguinetti (Vice)

Elliott Erwitt (Coolhunting.com)

Michael Christopher Brown (wearejuxt.com)

Bruno Stevens (Foto8)

Jonathan Klein (BJP) Getty Images’ Klein: “We need new economic models”

Simon Baker (Emaho magazine) Tate Modern’s curator of photography, says: ‘Europe’s no longer the home of photography’

Kate Peters (Frankie.com)

Jake Naughton (NYT Lens)

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