PJL: December 2013 (Part 1)

Features and Essays

Krisanne Johnson: Mandela’s Legacy: The Born Frees (The New Yorker) During the past two years, the photographer Krisanne Johnson travelled across South Africa documenting the Born Frees, the first generation of the so-called rainbow nation

Rena Effendi: Courage in Congo (Institute)

David Degner: Sha’abi Music (Reportage by Getty Images) Sha’abi music (literally translating to the music of the ‘poor’) is the new anthem of a new Egypt

Jerome Delay: Clashes Sweep Central African Republic (AP Big Story)

William Daniels: Bloodshed in Bangui: A Day That Will Define Central African Republic | The Crisis in the Central African Republic (LightBox) Two sets of photos by William Daniels documenting the country in turmoil

Bryan Denton: Out of Syria, Into a European Maze (NYT) As war rages on, more refugees are risking a journey to what they hope will be prosperous new lives

Khaled Hasan: Syrian refugees left in the cold (Al Jazeera) Residents of the Domiz refugee camp in Iraq’s Kurdistan region prepare for winter

Jost Franko: Farming in Gaza (VII)

Emanuele Satolli: The World’s Deadliest Drug: Inside a Krokodil Cookhouse (LightBox) Satolli has spent the past year chronicling a group of Russians addicted to krokodil, a lethal opiate made with ingredients from hardware stores and pharmacies that causes skin to become scaly, rot and fall off the bone

Rob Hornstra: The Sochi Project (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth)

Mikhail Mordasov: In Olympic Sochi, a Photographic Pregame (NYT Lens)

Misha Friedman: Mind Games: Anand vs Carlsen (Project website) Friedman photographed the two master chess players before their championship match

Jerome Sessini: Romas in France (Magnum)

Stuart Franklin: Ruling The Waves (FT Magazine) Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin’s images of British tidal power

Adam Patterson: The River (Dazed and Confused) Photographer Adam Patterson has directed a portrait of Dublin’s most infamous estate: Tallaght

Sim Chi Yin: China’s Polluted Steel Town (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth) Handan, one of the ten most polluted cities in China

various photographers: Modern Day Slavery (NOOR) Group project on slavery by NOOR photographers Pep Bonet, Nina Berman, and Jon Lowenstein

Noriki Takasugi: Samurais in Fukushima (Wired) For more than 1,000 years people of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan have gathered every summer to celebrate an ancient tradition of the samurai

Katie Orlinsky: Bought and Sold (Reportage by Getty Images) Trafficking and illegal migration in Nepal

Peter Hove Olesen: Haiyan Aftermath (zReportage) Philippines

Marcelo Pérez del Carpio: Raising Coca and Hopes in Bolivia (NYT Lens)

Jon Lowenstein: Chile’s Enduring Rifts, Part III (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth) Exploring the ways in which the country has recently begun to confront its past

Dominic Bracco II: A Contested Election in Honduras (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth)

Musuk Nolte: An indigenous group under threat (CNN Photo Blog) Peru

Mauricio Lima: Reinventing Rio de Janeiro (NYT) A divided Rio de Janeiro, overreaching for the world

Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky: Blood, Sweat and Jaguars (Panos Pictures) Catholic Holy week in small mountain communities of Acatlan and Zitlala in the Mexican state of Guerrero

Carlos Javier Ortiz: Life After Death in Chicago (NYT Lens) Ortiz has been documenting the effects of violence in urban areas, going into homes and neighborhoods that have been often overlooked

John Moore: An Immigrant’s Dream, Detained (NYT Lens) As the United States deports record numbers of immigrants, John Moore looks at a newly opened detention center

JT Blatty: Fishing in the Louisiana bayou (CNN Photo blog)

Vittoria Mentasti: The Inuit of Nunavut (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth) Mentasti’s photos of the Inuit people of Nunavut, the northernmost region of the Canadian Arctic

Thomas Gardiner: Canada’s Wild West (Slate Behold) Small towns in western Canada

Articles

AP and other news orgs call for greater White House access (AP)

Obama’s White House takes image control to a new level (Washington Post)

Limit on Access Stirs Tensions Between White House Photographer and Press Corps (NYT) By the paper’s public editor: When White House Photos Are ‘Visual Press Releases’

Photographer Dan Kitwood on documenting the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan (In Focus by Getty Images)

Bullit Marquez on typhoon Haiyan: ‘Everything was levelled to the ground’ (Guardian) Filipino photojournalist Bullit Marquez reveals his experiences in the aftermath of the devastating storm that hit the Philippines in November

Waiting for Mandela (AFP Correspondent) Veteran AFP photographer Alexander Joe on photographing Nelson Mandela’s release from prison

Postscript: Saul Leiter (1923-2013) (The New Yorker’s Photo Booth)

Saul Leiter, Photographer Who Captured New York’s Palette, Dies at 89 (NYT) More on Lens blog here

Photographer on New York Times Nipple Photo: ‘It Was an Unplanned Moment’ (New York magazine)

A ‘Powerful’ Image of Breast Cancer Offends Some Times Readers (NYT)

A cautionary tale on the use of a photo (Seattle Times)

Magnum: Social Concerns, Visual Pleasure (NYT Lens) A new book and exhibition explore the photo agency’s efforts since its 1947 founding to remain true to its original mission while nurturing and empowering photographers to do meaningful work

What Does Robert Capa’s “Close Enough” Rule Mean Today? (PDN)

The Month in Photography (Guardian) December’s guide to the best photography exhibitions and books

TIME Picks the Best Photobooks of 2013 (LightBox) From Tony Ray-Jones’ ‘American Colour’ and Sebastião Salgado’s ‘Genesis’ to Viviane Sassen’s ‘In and Out of Fashion’ and Marc Cohen’s ‘Dark Knees’, TIME presents the best photobooks of the year

It’s Time to Move (book website) Set during the political uprising in Cairo, Egypt in 2011, the book combines pencil and gouache illustrations by Wieben with Nahr’s documentary photography. The book is partly true and partly lies. It is about the fears, hopes, and observations of a small group of witnesses to the events in Egypt.

Robert Nickelsberg’s Afghanistan (Politico) Nickelsberg has been covering Afghanistan for 25 years. His new book Afghanistan: A Distant War is a look at the turmoil that has rocked Afghanistan for much of recent history | Related interview on BBC here

Books of the Year: Anton Corbijn, Waits/Corbjin (American Photo) When you spend 35 years shooting Tom Waits, anything can happen

Alec Soth’s top 10 photo books of 2013 (Telegraph) Magnum photographer Alec Soth picks his favorite photo books of the year

JH Engström Is About to Release His Fifteenth Photo Book (Vice) Engström’s forthcoming book, Ende und Anfang, is made up of photographs he took at the end of the 20th century while traveling around Europe and the US.

Josef Koudelka’s ‘Wall,’ and More (NYT) New York Times reviews photo books for the holidays

Photographers Banding Together to Help Down-and-Out Colleague (PetaPixel)

‘Identity Crisis’ in Photojournalism (American Journalism Review)

Featured photographer: Oksana Yushko (Verve Photo)

Featured photographer: Melissa Golden (Verve Photo)

Featured photographer: James Morgan (Verve Photo)

Featured photographer: Ula Wiznerowicz (Verve Photo)

Interviews and Talks

Lynsey Addario (PROOF) “It’s very easy for people to live in their own world … and sort of be very comfortable and I like to make people feel uncomfortable every so often, and realize what they have.” —Lynsey Addario

Mary Ellen Mark (Leica Camera) Nothing more extraordinary than reality

In Chronicling Mandela, Finding Themselves (NYT) The photographers João Silva, David C. Turnley and Louise Gubb remember what it was like to photograph Nelson Mandela’s life

David Guttenfelder (CBS) On working inside North Korea

David Guttenfelder (Pri.org) Guttenfelder on one of his Typhoon Hiayan photographs

David Turnley (NBC) Turnley speaks to Ann Curry about photographing the life of Nelson Mandela | His tribute to Mandela on LightBox here

Dennis Dimick (NPPA) National Geographic’s Executive Editor Dimick talks to NPPA

Hal Buell (BBC) How photographs told the story of the Vietnam War

Massimo Vitali (Vice) Since 1994, Vitali has been taking large format photographs of exotic places where groups of people congregate to communally share in ritualistic leisure activities

James Estrin (PDN) On good photo projects

John Vink (Emaho magazine)

Using Instagram to find and share media with meaning (Journalism.co.uk) Podcast with Peter Bale, vice-president and general manager, CNN International Digital; Paul Moakley, deputy photo editor, Time magazine; Kathy Ryan, photo editor, The New York Times Magazine

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