The Forensic Photographer

‘When we get a call, it could be murder, it could be sexual offenses, or it might be our firearm people–you just never know.’ This is the story of Mark Frost, a forensic photographer who, for more than 20 years now, has been assisting the investigations of every imaginable crime with the detailed photos he takes. This mini-documentary by David Beazley on Frost’s work provides a unique insight into an all-important component of criminal investigations that many of us forget about. But as Frost suggests, the advent of cheap digital cameras has translated to more departments photographing crime scenes on their own; if the trend continues, it could mean the death of Frost’s art.

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The Forensic Photographer from Beazknees on Vimeo.

The Birth of a Debate

D.W. Griffith’s notoriously racist film The Birth of a Nation, which tells a mythicized origin story of the KKK, is experiencing something of a revival. As Dorian Lynskey explains in this piece for Slate, the reason has less to do with the story the film tells, so much as it does with the debate the film sparked: should there be a limit to what subjects art can handle, and if so, who gets to set that limit? It’s the kind of eternal debate that has always mattered in the art world, but especially matters in our current clime, when First Amendment freedoms, censorship, and government oversight frequently dominate political discussions. And according to Lynskey, this question of whether dangerous art can ever merit suppression, has been one of the very debates that defined American history.

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Actors costumed in the full regalia of the Ku Klux Klan chase down a white actor in blackface in a still from ‘The Birth of a Nation,’ the first feature-length film, directed by D. W. Griffith, California, 1914. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In 1916 a 41-year-old man in Los Angeles published a short pamphlet called “The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America.” In passionate if somewhat pompous tones, the author described motion pictures as “the laboring man’s university,” but warned that their power to educate and instruct the nation could be “muzzled by a petty and narrow-minded censorship” that would create “a sugar-coated, virtuously-garbed version … in order to satisfy the public mentors of our so-called morals.” He quoted dozens of journalists and politicians who opposed censorship, cited Shakespeare and the Bible for good measure, and protested that “this new art was seized by the powers of intolerance as an excuse for an assault on our liberties.”

The pamphlet’s author was the film director D.W. Griffith, and the subtext for his First Amendment flag-waving was the fierce campaign against his 1915 motion picture The Birth of a Nation.

Read on at Slate.

In The Crosshairs

Chris Kyle, a decorated sniper, tried to help a troubled veteran. The result was tragic. If you don’t recognize Kyle’s name outright by this point, you are surely at least aware of Clint Eastwood’s blockbuster adaptation of Kyle’s autobiography, American Sniper, which has dominated box offices and national political conversation for the past few weeks. In the year between the book and the film, Nicholas Schmidle wrote this excellent piece on Kyle for The New Yorker. He dissects Kyle’s book thoroughly, offering suspenseful scenes from the battlefield and his life back in Texas, and a considered analysis of Kyle’s words and character. Though Eastwood’s film muddles fact with fiction for dramatic effect, if you’re looking for a good read on American Sniper that’s anchored in fact, this is one of the best you’ll find.

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Eddie Ray Routh, left, served in the Marines for four years. Kyle, right, wrote a best-selling memoir about his life as a SEAL.
CREDIT ILLUSTRATION BY A. J. FRACKATTACK; PHOTOGRAPH: LEFT: REUTERS; RIGHT: ERIC TANNER

On the morning of August 2, 2006, three Navy SEALs walked onto the roof of a four-story apartment building in Ramadi, in central Iraq. One of them, a petty officer and a sniper named Chris Kyle, got into position with his rifle. Peering through his gun’s scope, Kyle scanned the streets below; as other American soldiers searched and cordoned off homes, he waited for insurgents to appear in his sight line.

It was an especially bloody phase of the war, and Kyle, who was thirty-two at the time, had distinguished himself amid the violence. That summer, he recorded his hundredth career kill—ninety-one of them in Ramadi. He was on his way to becoming one of the deadliest snipers in American history, with a hundred and sixty confirmed kills.

Read on at The New Yorker.

The Nipple Artist

Some tattoo artists specialize in color tattoos, some in traditional Japanese tattooing, and some in styles all their own; Vinnie Myers, on the other hand, tattoos nipples. That probably sounds ridiculous, but it’s serious business–Myers has become world-renowned for tattooing women who’ve undergone double mastectomies due to breast cancer. Caitlin Kiernan had the procedure after her battle with cancer, and she agreed to participate in this documentary video for PBS’ POV Series and The New York Times, produced by video journalist Kassie Bracken. The short video follows Kiernan on her journey through the final phases of breast reconstruction, as she tries to regain a sense of normalcy after the disease. It’s a beautiful story, albeit an emotional one, and a reminder that there’s still some good in the world.

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See the original post at the New York Times.