Pictures of the Day: Syria and Elsewhere

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Photos from Syria, Yemen, Gaza Strip and the Philippines.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.

T Magazine\'s New Editor Pledges to Make Future Issues More Diverse

The new T magazine made an impressive start on Sunday. Thick with ads, its editorial content - including a fascinating cover story on the 79-year-old socialite Lee Radziwill - was strong.

“T: The Times Style Magazine” has been redesigned with a well-respected new editor, Deborah Needleman, who came to The Times recently from The Wall Street Journal.

There was much to admire. But many readers found one aspect of the magazine disturbing - its lack of people of color. Indeed, there could be no argument; it was overwhelmingly white.

One reader, Susan Clark of Annandale, Va., put it this way:

The new T arrived yesterday. I’m impressed by its heft. As I looked through the magazine, I was surprised at Deborah Needleman’s choices. There is a complete absence of any people o color in articles or fashion shoots. I assume the ads cannot be controlled, but I saw only one African-American and one Asian-American among the thousands of models in the ads. The T doesn’t look like my neighborhood or America.

Another reader, who described himself as “an older white guy” from Silver Spring, Md., raised the same point:

Perhaps it is because I live in an integrated neighborhood, but when I look at those magazines I always look to see how many non-white people are pictured. As near as I can tell, there was one black face in the entire magazine, as many as there were purple plastic faces. I realize that it is all advertising, but doesn’t The Times have some responsibility to ensure that something it publishes should look at least a little like 21st-century America

I asked Ms. Needleman to respond. She noted that the response to the magazine has been extremely positive but said she agrees with this complaint. And she intends to remedy it in future issues. She wrote:

It was something I noticed and regretted as we were putting the issue together. We are a global magazine and so would like the content , subjects and geography of stories to reflect that. In coming issues, we cover the people and places of Seoul, São Paulo, Kenya, Bollywood actors, Nigeria, etc. A majority of fashion models are still unfortunately mostly white, but it is our aim to celebrate quality and beauty in all its diverse forms. We can and will aim to do better, but our goal is first and foremost to deliver the best stories we find, and it is my belief that quality and good journalism appeal to all of us regardless of our specific ethnic origins.

It will be interesting to see how her plan, certainly a reasonable approach, plays out in future issues.

Motherhood, Reborn and Everlasting

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Most human beings swoon at the first sight of a baby. No matter how homely â€" or loud â€" they elicit a primal response from pretty much everyone.

But not Rebecca Martinez.

She’s a perfectly nice 62-year-old photographer who was the oldest of seven children, which meant that she spent much of her childhood caring for her siblings: helping her mother change, feed and bathe them in their Los Angeles home. After that, there was no romance for her in having or raising a child, so she never had any of her own.

Still, she does have many “part-time children in her life,” and she is always interested in exploring unfamiliar worlds and feelings.

That led her to immerse herself for five years in the Reborn subculture, a growing group, almost exclusively women, who collect shockingly lifelike handmade dolls of newborn babies. Many of them treat the dolls as if they were real members of their families â€" taking them shopping and out to restaurants.

“Many of them have a very, very strong genetic makeup to nurture and they love babies,” Ms. Martinez said. “And many are mothers. A lot of people think these are people who can’t! have children. Some are, but many of them have children and love the baby stage of nurturing. They can love a baby, they can nurture it in a permanent way.”

Each doll is unique and made by individual artists of varying degrees of skill. Once completed, they are ”adopted” from “nurseries” that sell the dolls, for anywhere from a few hundred dollars to up to $15,000. They come with names and often adoption papers.

Rebecca Martinez A workshop teaches artists how to apply realistic-looking hair, made of very fine mohair, to the dolls’ heads.

Reborn culture started around 1990, with people stripping the paint and hair off store-bought vinyl dolls and painstakingly reworking them to be more lifelike. Now some people use kits with doll parts that when assebled are weighted to feel like a real infant when held.

After discovering this movement, Ms. Martinez bought her own doll for research and started exploring the burgeoning subculture, attending conventions, photographing baby-beauty contests, baby showers, owners and artisans.

“In general, most of the women are Anglo, conservative, Christian and right-to-lifers,” Ms. Martinez said. “All of the things that I’m not.”

When Ms. Martinez travels, she will sometimes bring one of her own five reborn dolls to photograph people’s reactions. She prefers to carry them in open bags because she feels uneasy putting them into closed containers, and her suitcases are always searched by airport security if a doll shows up in a scan. This leads to unusual encounters â€" like when other people in line get upset thinking that a real baby is about to be harmed by X-rays as they pass through security (Slide 13).

Rebecca Martinez “Emmy in Overhead.”

“These dolls are very powerful objects,” she said. “If I bring one of these dolls out, there’ll be a group of people around me very, very fast. They soon know it’s not real, but people have very strong reactions. I’ve seen people who will hold them, and their bodies will start responding and they’ll be rocking them. And then they realize and feel a little embarrassed.”

Sometimes, women who have lost a newborn have commissioned artists to make a reborn doll that looks exactly like their deceased baby. Modeled after photographs of the real infant, these dolls are called portrait babies.

One of her subjects, Min Lee (Slide 12) who runs a “nursery,” sells most of her dolls to customers in China. While some of them adopt dolls that look Chinese, the majority want Caucasian-looking babies,as do most buyers elsewhere.

While Ms. Martinez respects the work of many of the artists who create reborn dolls, she does not share the feelings of the women who make up this subculture.

“For me, they’re dolls that are beautifully made, crafted, but part of my fascination is I don’t feel these things,” she said. “I’m fascinated by how people react, but I’m very, very neutral about them.”

Everyone has different obsessions, but ultimately, Ms. Martinez’s series “PreTenders” is about people choosing whom â€" or what â€" to love.

“It is a personal choice, where we put those emotions,” she said. “People will love people and living creatures, but when people choose something that’s not real, and project all this love into that, I do my best to try to understand it.”

“People are less judging when men choose to love an inanimate object like a racing car,” she added. “Why are people so judging when women choose to love something that looks s! o real”!

Rebecca Martinez Sally Charnock is a collector in Britain. She specializes in collecting babies with expressions â€" crying, yawning, reactive in some way.

Follow @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Follow Lens on Facebook.

Motherhood, Reborn and Everlasting

In order to view this feature, you must download the latest version of flash player here.

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Most human beings swoon at the first sight of a baby. No matter how homely â€" or loud â€" they elicit a primal response from pretty much everyone.

But not Rebecca Martinez.

She’s a perfectly nice 62-year-old photographer who was the oldest of seven children, which meant that she spent much of her childhood caring for her siblings: helping her mother change, feed and bathe them in their Los Angeles home. After that, there was no romance for her in having or raising a child, so she never had any of her own.

Still, she does have many “part-time children in her life,” and she is always interested in exploring unfamiliar worlds and feelings.

That led her to immerse herself for five years in the Reborn subculture, a growing group, almost exclusively women, who collect shockingly lifelike handmade dolls of newborn babies. Many of them treat the dolls as if they were real members of their families â€" taking them shopping and out to restaurants.

“Many of them have a very, very strong genetic makeup to nurture and they love babies,” Ms. Martinez said. “And many are mothers. A lot of people think these are people who can’t! have children. Some are, but many of them have children and love the baby stage of nurturing. They can love a baby, they can nurture it in a permanent way.”

Each doll is unique and made by individual artists of varying degrees of skill. Once completed, they are ”adopted” from “nurseries” that sell the dolls, for anywhere from a few hundred dollars to up to $15,000. They come with names and often adoption papers.

Rebecca Martinez A workshop teaches artists how to apply realistic-looking hair, made of very fine mohair, to the dolls’ heads.

Reborn culture started around 1990, with people stripping the paint and hair off store-bought vinyl dolls and painstakingly reworking them to be more lifelike. Now some people use kits with doll parts that when assebled are weighted to feel like a real infant when held.

After discovering this movement, Ms. Martinez bought her own doll for research and started exploring the burgeoning subculture, attending conventions, photographing baby-beauty contests, baby showers, owners and artisans.

“In general, most of the women are Anglo, conservative, Christian and right-to-lifers,” Ms. Martinez said. “All of the things that I’m not.”

When Ms. Martinez travels, she will sometimes bring one of her own five reborn dolls to photograph people’s reactions. She prefers to carry them in open bags because she feels uneasy putting them into closed containers, and her suitcases are always searched by airport security if a doll shows up in a scan. This leads to unusual encounters â€" like when other people in line get upset thinking that a real baby is about to be harmed by X-rays as they pass through security (Slide 13).

Rebecca Martinez “Emmy in Overhead.”

“These dolls are very powerful objects,” she said. “If I bring one of these dolls out, there’ll be a group of people around me very, very fast. They soon know it’s not real, but people have very strong reactions. I’ve seen people who will hold them, and their bodies will start responding and they’ll be rocking them. And then they realize and feel a little embarrassed.”

Sometimes, women who have lost a newborn have commissioned artists to make a reborn doll that looks exactly like their deceased baby. Modeled after photographs of the real infant, these dolls are called portrait babies.

One of her subjects, Min Lee (Slide 12) who runs a “nursery,” sells most of her dolls to customers in China. While some of them adopt dolls that look Chinese, the majority want Caucasian-looking babies,as do most buyers elsewhere.

While Ms. Martinez respects the work of many of the artists who create reborn dolls, she does not share the feelings of the women who make up this subculture.

“For me, they’re dolls that are beautifully made, crafted, but part of my fascination is I don’t feel these things,” she said. “I’m fascinated by how people react, but I’m very, very neutral about them.”

Everyone has different obsessions, but ultimately, Ms. Martinez’s series “PreTenders” is about people choosing whom â€" or what â€" to love.

“It is a personal choice, where we put those emotions,” she said. “People will love people and living creatures, but when people choose something that’s not real, and project all this love into that, I do my best to try to understand it.”

“People are less judging when men choose to love an inanimate object like a racing car,” she added. “Why are people so judging when women choose to love something that looks s! o real”!

Rebecca Martinez Sally Charnock is a collector in Britain. She specializes in collecting babies with expressions â€" crying, yawning, reactive in some way.

Follow @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Follow Lens on Facebook.