Earlier today, Magnum Photos announced that it would be conducting a thorough internal review of its entire archive. The decision comes one week after a series of photos from 1989 depicting teenage sex workers were unearthed in the archive, raising concerns about how they were captured and the legality of licensing such imagery.
If you're a photojournalist who covers stories in dangerous places, here's something you should know: don't try to bring bulletproof vests or gas masks through airports in Thailand, as they're considered "war weapons." At least two journalists (including one photographer) have found this out the hard way over the past two years.
In order to tell you this crazy story, we have to go back to May 2015. As you may have read, my brand new $1,600 L lens fell to the ground after I got it out of my backpack. The glass didn’t have any scratches, however, the focus was completely broken and all photos turned out blurry. Although it was a huge shock at first, I wanted to turn this moment around and “develop the negatives”. I quickly fell in love with this broken look and created a set about broken characters with a broken lens by a former broken soul called “Broken: Amsterdam”.
There are well over 100 million users on Instagram (assuming a quarter of them didn't just up and leave), and even though the typical Instagram photo stream consists of food and the family pet, there are certain places that show up more often than others. Times Square, The Eiffel Tower, Disneyland, the Bangkok Airport... wait... that last one seems out of place doesn't it?
As it turns out, no. Not only is Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport the number one most Instagrammed location of 2012, but Bangkok's massive shopping mall, Siam Paragon, took second. Only then does the list become populated by the locations you might expect to see.