tragedy

Skydivers Capture a Terrifying Midair Plane Crash on Helmet Cam, Escape Unscathed

The kinds of stunts the rise of action cameras has allowed us to capture in POV are often scary, but more often than not they're also planned. However, for nine skydivers, the footage their helmet mounted GoPros captured recently wasn't planned in the least, and it will likely be the most terrifying thing you see all week... or month... or year.

Viral Photos from the Navy Yard Tragedy Don’t Show a Shooting Victim

Update: The Associated Press has re-released the photos, and is now confirming that they DO show scenes related to the Navy Yard shooting.

A widely distributed image used to illustrate stories about Monday's horrific shooting at the Washington Navy Yard likely had nothing to do with the tragedy, offering a cautious tale of modern media overreach.

Documenting Grief as a Photojournalist: Why We Do What We Do

Nineteen young men. Fathers, brothers, and sons. Friends and fiancés, teammates and drinking buddies. These are the men who were lost on June 30, 2013 in Yarnell, AZ during an event labeled the Yarnell Hill Fire.

I knew most, if not all of these men by sight, some by name, a small handful I knew very closely, sharing laughs with them and their families over the years. Over the past 72 hours or so, I have had the privileged to watch first hand as the city of Prescott and the state of Arizona has been joined by the world in remembering and honoring these fallen firefighters.

A Photographer’s First Hand Account of the Sandy Hook School Shooting

On the morning of December 14th, 2012 I found myself scanning the redundant array of social media apps on my phone. Just as I was about to pry myself out of bed, I had come across a recent twitter post by one of my fellow graduates of Newtown High School. In just a few minutes I would learn that my former hometown elementary school had become the site of one of the most horrific school shootings that this country has ever seen.

Photog Accuses Le Monde of Trashing 27 Years of Work Without Notice

Argentinian photographer Daniel Mordzinski, know for his work photographing literary giants, is accusing famous French newspaper Le Monde of trashing 27 years of his work without warning. Boxes worth of negatives and slides were allegedly thrown away when the photographer's office at the newspaper was cleaned out without notice earlier this month.

Ten Years Later: The Impact of The Tragic Columbia Space Shuttle Photo

Two days ago marked the 10th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, in which 7 astronauts lost their lives during reentry as the rest of us watched horror-struck from the ground. The following day, newspapers the world over were announcing the tragic news, all of them using the same photo taken, not by a prolific AP photographer, but a cardiologist and his 6.3MP Canon D60.

The Idea is That People Should Look A Certain Way in the Face of Tragedy

During the 9/11 attacks in NYC, Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker shot what is perhaps the most controversial image created that day: a photo that appears to show a group of young people casually enjoying themselves while the World Trade Center burns in the background. Hoepker kept the image under wraps for four years and then caused quite a stir after publishing it in a 2006 book. Columnist Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times that "The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous. They’re just American."

Public Outcry Causes Photographer to Drop Copyright Lawsuit

A Tucson photographer recently found out the hard way that the public doesn't always side with photographers in copyright infringement cases, even if their claims are valid. About a month after the tragic 2011 Tucson shooting, portrait photographer Jon Wolf threatened so sue nearly three dozen media outlets after they showed a portrait he made of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green -- the youngest victim -- and demanded $125,000 from one newspaper for publishing the image.