A couple of weeks ago, Foreign Policy ran one of those not-all-that-informed lists they called, “Postcards from Hell: Images from the World’s Most Failed States.” Normally, this isn’t the kind of thing I would even bother commenting on. I disagree with the premise, so criticizing the execution seems pointless. However, since one of my photos of Liberia is featured in the series, here comes some pointless criticizing!

I took this photo circa November 2009 at a market in Paynesville, a part of Monrovia pretty far from the city center. It was a nice market. I bought some lapa while I was there, took some photos, and chatted with a couple of old ladies. And for the record, let me say that’s about as hellish an afternoon as I can imagine!

“You’ll know a failed state when you see it,” FP writes. But in my book, a list that includes Yemen and Somalia in the same breath as Ivory Coast and Liberia isn’t going to tell us that much. But the problem is not how little it tells us, it’s how many people like what it has to say: as of today, more than 4,500 people had posted a link to this on Facebook.

Thanks FP, for often providing great news and analysis, and every now and then providing crappy link bait.

See also: Africa is a Country posting on the same series, and Rob Crilly redeeming Pakistan through meat on a stick, which is my favorite way to for anything to be redeemed.

Nothing.

HT Bombastic Element

I can’t even imagine the kind of formalities that must go into photographing African royalty. When I wanted to take some photos of the police marching band in Monrovia recently, they made me jump through so many hoops that I just gave up. So getting this many kings and their wives and children to agree to sit for portraits is an accomplishment in and of itself. The fact that Daniel Laine’s photos are fantastic is yet another accomplishment. Check out more of them here.

I’m in Istanbul for the next week or so taking the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. I can’t tell you how jazzed I am to have instructors like Andrea Bruce and Stephanie Sinclair for my class, not to mention an all star roster of instructors.

Posting will be light this week but I’ll soon be back in West Africa* and frustrated with slow internet  in no time.

*I’m missing Liberia small small.

From a great series of portraits, Congo: 50 years, 50 faces by Stephan Vanfleteren.

Jean-Claude Lusumba, photographer, Kisangani ‘I have to pay $25 each year to be allowed to photograph in the street, and even then I often have to pay bribes to soldiers so they don’t confiscate my camera. Even with an innocent family photo under a tree, the soldiers can claim that that tree is an “object of military importance”. Because there is no work, I started photographing people in the street. I have my films developed by the Lebanese for 300 Congolese francs. I have to be careful with the pictures. Often two exposures per portrait, three at most. But always with flash. That makes the person more clearly visible and it is also more important. Flash is for starlets, and that’s what we Congolese like. Apart from the films and developing, the batteries for the flash gun are a heavy expense. A wedding photo costs $1, a funeral photo $2. Why twice as much? People always come to collect a wedding photo but that’s far less likely with a photo of a corpse.’

Lola Akinmade emailed me a couple of questions about my work for an interview on the Traveler’s Notebook, part of the Matador Network. Check it out here.

Filed under: things I want for my next birthday. Take note, friends and family, that next year simply writing on my facebook wall will not be enough.

Read more about the golden chukadu on Rachel’s blog.

George Butler is a sketch artist on a six month journey through Central and West Africa. Here’s a bit about what he’s trying to do, from his first post on the London Times Travel Blog:

I can give the viewer more information than he or she would usually get with a photograph.

I’m now looking forward to putting all these skills to the test again in my most exciting and challenging project yet. I am travelling 8,500km overland from London to Libreville, the capital of Gabon in West Africa. It will take about six months and cover 12 African countries.

My brief is to describe West Africa as I find it, something that I believe you can do honestly only with a pen and paper, which allows you to be discerning and understanding, and to record things over time. I plan to draw with pen and ink and watercolour, but with pencils in reserve.

I am carrying 500ml of ink and as much paper as I can; this is due to run out after about two months so, after that, I will draw on whatever I can find, and e-mailing the images to The Times when I can get an internet connection.

I have rarely drawn anywhere in the world where I haven’t been offered a seat, lunch, tea, chai, vodka . . . I am constantly amazed by people’s honesty and generosity and I hope I can recreate this on my African adventure.

I’ve really been enjoying following his journey over the past couple of months. I think he has indeed shown something that photos can’t show. As a writer-turned-photographer-who-still-writes, I feel very conscious of the limitations of each medium. I can hardly draw a stick figure, but as you can see from the images posted below, George can draw a whole lot more than that. Make sure you check out the whole blog, since I had trouble even choosing which images to post.