Moises Saman

A cemetery worker wraps the body of a man killed during fighting in Sadr
City after washing his corpse following the Islamic tradition at the Wadi as
-Salaam cemetery in Najaf, Iraq.

Photograph © Moises Saman/New York Times.

Photograph © Moises Saman/ New York Times.

I came across this brief interview with photojournalist Moises Saman in the Columbia Journalism Review. The pictures I've lifted here are the ones he discusses in the interview. You can find more about Saman and his work here.

Magnum Archives Sold, Moved

Archives. I am not all that knowledgeable about them. But Magnum has just sold its press print archives (through 1998) to MSD Capital (D stands for Dell, stands for computer) who have had them shipped to the University of Texas where they will be housed. Reports are here at PDN and here at The New York Times. Such purchases of cultural/historical resources by the wealthy is obviously nothing new. But it always makes me slightly nervous. According to the PDN report MSD "has purchased only Magnum’s press prints, not licensing or resale rights to the images" while Magnum "still holds all negatives and contact sheets." This sounds like a complicated legal arrangement and the question of who holds rights to what is important in terms of the control of public access and, ultimately, public memory.