Pictures of the Day: Gaza and Elsewhere

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

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Photos from the Gaza Strip, the Philippines, Germany and South Africa.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.

Pictures of the Day: Gaza and Elsewhere

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

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Photos from the Gaza Strip, the Philippines, Germany and South Africa.

Follow Lens on Facebook and Twitter.

Responding to Reader Comments on War Photographs and Drone Victims

I’m appreciative of the reader response to my column last Sunday on photographic images from Syria. A few of those responses have made me realize that some further explanation is in order, on two points.

Several readers responded to a statement in the column about how rarely The Times publishes photographs from the aftermath of American drone strikes. My point was that these strikes have also killed children, just as chemical weapons in Syria have, but that we don’t see large front-page images of the victims.

The filmmaker Robert Greenwald drew my attention to the photographs of drone strike victims, which have been used by The Huffington Post. And a commenter, Dotconnector from New York, incisively noted that The Huffington Post gave prominent display to a photograph of children who died in a drone attack in Afghanistan in April, positioning it “all the way across the top of its home page.”

Mr. Greenwald, who has produced a film about drones, said it is extremely important for Americans to see images of those who have died in those attacks. “Images’ impact on narrative is deeply underestimated, especially by professionals who are most often driven by words and data,” he wrote. He discussed the film in an interview with D. B. Grady in The Week.

I asked Michele McNally, the assistant managing editor in charge of photography at The Times, about these readers’ observations. She pointed out that on April 8, The Times published a photograph of children who died in a drone strike, and on April 19 did so again, as well as publishing a photograph of a children’s grave in Afghanistan.

Could the photographs of the children have been displayed more prominently, rather than small and on  inside pages? No doubt. By contrast, the photograph of the dead Syrian children was displayed at the top of the front page â€" undoubtedly dictated by the news value of the chemical weapons attack. But the children are equally human and there is news value in both situations. It’s hard to imagine anyone not being moved by the sight of these innocent faces.

(On the subject of American drone strikes, I’ve written about how often the victims are described by government sources as “militants,” when that is not always the case.)

I also fielded a question from a reader, Maura T. Fan of New York City, challenging my statement that many readers find graphic photographs of foreigners far easier to take than those of Americans.  That reader wanted to know my evidence for the statement. I responded by e-mail that I based it on personal experience: many years as an editor, and many conversations with other editors around the country. I can’t prove it, but I do continue to believe it. I also should have made it clear that, even if the images are deeply disturbing, it’s still important that they are seen.

And I wanted to mention someone who was helpful on the column, but whom space did not permit me to quote: Mickey Osterreicher, a longtime photographer who now, as the lawyer who represents the National Press Photographers Association, works on press-freedom problems, of which there is an endless supply.

Finally, there is a thought-provoking post by Michael Shaw on the photojournalism site BagNews about a famed image from the Vietnam War that I mentioned in the column: Nick Ut’s “Napalm Girl.” This post discusses how the photograph was edited, calling it “one of the most significant crops” in history.

The Italian-Americans of Mulberry Street, Long Before ‘The Godfather’

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

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Strolling along Mulberry Street in Little Italy during this year’s Feast of San Gennaro, visitors passed stands selling zeppole and sausage and peppers as vendors hawked “Fuggedaboudit” T-shirts and “Godfather”-themed trinkets. But when they reached St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral at the corner of Prince Street, the atmosphere changed, the booths thinned and visitors encountered large banners with historical photographs of the neighborhood hanging on the church cemetery walls.

For modern-day viewers, the simple images of Italian immigrants and their families are a window into the struggle and joys of the residents of Manhattan’s Little Italy in the early- and mid-20th century. But for Msgr. Donald Sakano, they have a somewhat deeper function.

“While we gaze at them, it is almost as if the people in the photos are gazing back at us and are reflecting on our situation from another place, almost like an icon in a religious setting,” he said. “I find that to be magical. You look at these figures and you’re drawn into them and you wonder about the moment that occurred before and after the shutter froze their features on a piece of film.”

The monsignor’s purpose for hanging the banners â€" seven and a half feet tall, five feet wide â€" is to try to bring the festival back to its roots, and away from what he sees as a crass, commercial use of stereotypes of Italian-Americans.

The project was assembled by Mark Bussell, a photography professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a former photography director at The New York Times, with the help of Joseph V. Scelsa, founder of the Italian-American Museum on Mulberry Street.

Mr. Bussell moved to Elizabeth Street in Little Italy in 1974 and enjoyed the sense of neighborhood in the small, family-owned shops and cafes, as well as on the stoops. He found that his neighbors looked out for one another in a way that had become rare in most of the rest of Manhattan.

Over the next 30 years, he watched many young Italian families move to the suburbs as they assimilated; rising rents forced out others. Recently, he became acutely aware of the dwindling number of Italians left in Little Italy. He realized that the “soul of that neighborhood, the Italian people, were quickly disappearing, and that it was incredibly important to document them before that happened.”

So he started a class at N.Y.U., “The Last Italians of Little Italy,” and enlisted his students to make photo essays and videos and to help preserve existing historical images. At first, they faltered. As a local butcher told Mr. Bussell, “A thousand N.Y.U. students have come into my shop to photograph me over the years, and not one ever returned.”

Courtesy of the Italian-American Museum A bakery on Mulberry Street. Circa 1935.

But over the course of three years, Mr. Bussell made sure his students did return, and with the help of Mr. Scelsa, Monsignor Sakano and a couple of neighborhood mainstays, they spent time in residents’ homes and shops.

At the festival last year, the cemetery walls featured life-size portraits of parishioners of St. Patrick’s done by Mr. Bussell’s student Alex Arbuckle. This was the beginning of Monsignor Sakano’s campaign to use photographs to try to refocus the festival on the neighborhood and the people who live there â€" and on a broader, more nuanced view of what it means to be Italian-American.

“The Sopranos,” the “Godfather” movies and the reality television show “Jersey Shore” have helped shape the image of Italian-Americans â€" even, sometimes, among themselves, said Joseph Sciorra, associate director of the John D. Calandra Italian-American Institute at Queens College.

“Italian-Americans are often represented in the broadest caricatures â€" whether undereducated, bigoted people from the outer boroughs who are overly concerned with their own body image or, of course, the ubiquitous Mafioso image,” he said. “There’s very little room in the media for an interesting and nuanced depiction.”

And while popular culture seldom shows the rich musical, artistic and intellectual heritage of Italian-Americans, Mr. Sciorra would be satisfied simply with more complex and subtle portrayals. Too often, he said, the third, fourth and fifth generations of Italian immigrants have their sense of Italian-American identity “created by the ‘Godfather’ movie narrative, as opposed to any story told by their own godfathers.”

Besides the photographs on the cemetery walls of Old St. Patrick’s, there have been other quiet efforts to broaden the cultural portrayal at the San Gennaro festival in the last few years, with buskers playing authentic Italian folk music and the Italian-American Writers Association selling books and holding readings.

And the religious processions, not the dubious items being sold, are still the core feast events for most of the Italian residents of the neighborhood, Mr. Sciorra said.

“Italian-American festivals have always been a mixture of the sacred and the profane,” he said.

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

The Italian-Americans of Mulberry Street, Long Before ‘The Godfather’

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

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

Strolling along Mulberry Street in Little Italy during this year’s Feast of San Gennaro, visitors passed stands selling zeppole and sausage and peppers as vendors hawked “Fuggedaboudit” T-shirts and “Godfather”-themed trinkets. But when they reached St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral at the corner of Prince Street, the atmosphere changed, the booths thinned and visitors encountered large banners with historical photographs of the neighborhood hanging on the church cemetery walls.

For modern-day viewers, the simple images of Italian immigrants and their families are a window into the struggle and joys of the residents of Manhattan’s Little Italy in the early- and mid-20th century. But for Msgr. Donald Sakano, they have a somewhat deeper function.

“While we gaze at them, it is almost as if the people in the photos are gazing back at us and are reflecting on our situation from another place, almost like an icon in a religious setting,” he said. “I find that to be magical. You look at these figures and you’re drawn into them and you wonder about the moment that occurred before and after the shutter froze their features on a piece of film.”

The monsignor’s purpose for hanging the banners â€" seven and a half feet tall, five feet wide â€" is to try to bring the festival back to its roots, and away from what he sees as a crass, commercial use of stereotypes of Italian-Americans.

The project was assembled by Mark Bussell, a photography professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a former photography director at The New York Times, with the help of Joseph V. Scelsa, founder of the Italian-American Museum on Mulberry Street.

Mr. Bussell moved to Elizabeth Street in Little Italy in 1974 and enjoyed the sense of neighborhood in the small, family-owned shops and cafes, as well as on the stoops. He found that his neighbors looked out for one another in a way that had become rare in most of the rest of Manhattan.

Over the next 30 years, he watched many young Italian families move to the suburbs as they assimilated; rising rents forced out others. Recently, he became acutely aware of the dwindling number of Italians left in Little Italy. He realized that the “soul of that neighborhood, the Italian people, were quickly disappearing, and that it was incredibly important to document them before that happened.”

So he started a class at N.Y.U., “The Last Italians of Little Italy,” and enlisted his students to make photo essays and videos and to help preserve existing historical images. At first, they faltered. As a local butcher told Mr. Bussell, “A thousand N.Y.U. students have come into my shop to photograph me over the years, and not one ever returned.”

Courtesy of the Italian-American Museum A bakery on Mulberry Street. Circa 1935.

But over the course of three years, Mr. Bussell made sure his students did return, and with the help of Mr. Scelsa, Monsignor Sakano and a couple of neighborhood mainstays, they spent time in residents’ homes and shops.

At the festival last year, the cemetery walls featured life-size portraits of parishioners of St. Patrick’s done by Mr. Bussell’s student Alex Arbuckle. This was the beginning of Monsignor Sakano’s campaign to use photographs to try to refocus the festival on the neighborhood and the people who live there â€" and on a broader, more nuanced view of what it means to be Italian-American.

“The Sopranos,” the “Godfather” movies and the reality television show “Jersey Shore” have helped shape the image of Italian-Americans â€" even, sometimes, among themselves, said Joseph Sciorra, associate director of the John D. Calandra Italian-American Institute at Queens College.

“Italian-Americans are often represented in the broadest caricatures â€" whether undereducated, bigoted people from the outer boroughs who are overly concerned with their own body image or, of course, the ubiquitous Mafioso image,” he said. “There’s very little room in the media for an interesting and nuanced depiction.”

And while popular culture seldom shows the rich musical, artistic and intellectual heritage of Italian-Americans, Mr. Sciorra would be satisfied simply with more complex and subtle portrayals. Too often, he said, the third, fourth and fifth generations of Italian immigrants have their sense of Italian-American identity “created by the ‘Godfather’ movie narrative, as opposed to any story told by their own godfathers.”

Besides the photographs on the cemetery walls of Old St. Patrick’s, there have been other quiet efforts to broaden the cultural portrayal at the San Gennaro festival in the last few years, with buskers playing authentic Italian folk music and the Italian-American Writers Association selling books and holding readings.

And the religious processions, not the dubious items being sold, are still the core feast events for most of the Italian residents of the neighborhood, Mr. Sciorra said.

“Italian-American festivals have always been a mixture of the sacred and the profane,” he said.

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

From Today’s Paper: Dozens of Illegal Firearms Taken Off the Streets

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, left, and the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., center, on Thursday with more than 45 guns that they said were sold by two traffickers to an undercover detective during an 18-month investigation.