U.S. President Barack Obama is framed by his teleprompter while delivering remarks at the Costco wholesale store, repeating some of the same policy proposals from his State of the Union speech the night before January 29, 2014 in Lanham, Maryland. Obama is beginning a two-day, four-state tour to promote a raise in the minimum wage, immigration reform and other other policy ideas. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
Former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi is seen inside the glass cage for the first time as the prosecutor began to read out the defendants’ names after Morsi and other defendants arrived at Cairo’s Police Academy to attend the first session of their trial on charges of breaking out of prison during Egypt’s 2011 uprising in Cairo, Egypt, on January 28, 2014. By Pool/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.
A Holocaust survivor huddles in a blanket to stay warm during a ceremony in the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, on Holocaust Day, January 27, 2014. The ceremony took place 69 years after the liberation of the death camp by Soviet troops. By Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images.
Sahara Borja talked to photographer Souvid Datta about his series In the Shadows of Kolkata, which profiles mothers and children in Calcutta’s red-light district:
Can you speak a bit about the children you photographed? What was their day-to-day like? How did you interact with them?
“Children of prostituted women in the area lead varied lives. A few local NGOs run campaigns convincing mothers to send their children away to boarding schools outside the city run by religious bodies. This constitutes a small minority though. Most remain in the area, living within brothels or temporarily hired rooms, and dropping out of schools at a young age. Occasionally this is due to economic difficulties or from facing stigmatization and discrimination. The result however is commonly young women being picked up by local ‘madams’, pimps or traffickers, and young men giving into the area’s gang culture.”
Shoppers leave the Columbia Mall after a fatal shooting on January 25, 2014. Three people were killed in a shooting at the popular shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland, located about 45 minutes outside Washington. By Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images.
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood chant slogans and raise four fingers, the symbol known as “Rabaa”, which means four in Arabic, remembering those killed in the crackdown on the Rabaa al-Adawiya protest camp in Cairo last year, during a demonstration in Cairo on January 24, 2014. A suicide bomber struck Cairo police headquarters on Friday, the first of three bombings in the Egyptian capital that killed five people ahead of the anniversary of the 2011 uprising. By Mahmoud Khaled/AFP/Getty Images.
A vendor plays with a ball he is selling at the Divisoria market in Manila on January 23, 2014. By Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images.
A man tries to stay warm as thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators hold a rally on the National Mall before walking to the US Supreme Court during the 41st annual March of Life on January 22, 2014. Held around the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, the march draws thousands from around the country for a rally on the National Mall before marching up Capitol Hill to the US Supreme Court. By Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.
A person makes a happy face on a car window during a snow storm in New York City on January 21, 2014. In New York, a storm alert was issue for noon (1700 GMT) Tuesday to 6:00 am (1100 GMT) Wednesday with as much as a foot (30 centimeters) forecast for the metropolitan region. By Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images.
For his series Screamers, Stefano De Luigi captured close-ups of protestors in Italy. Sahara Borja talked to De Luigi about the project:
Give us a bit of context here, which protests did you mostly attend? Can you describe the feeling in the air?
“I worked extensively for about a year on the social protests erupting in the country. Italy has been facing an economic recession for about three years now and the crisis is reaching its peak. What I tried to photograph is the terror felt by the middle class who are losing all the conquered certainties they have acquired over the last 50 years in Europe—this includes widespread wealth, secure jobs, free and high-quality education, and one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world.”
Regarding the image format, why did you choose to focus on faces only and not the wider scene?
“I deliberately decided to focus on expressions—sometimes very dramatic ones. Images of masses in protest are not able to convey this sense of social discomfort affecting many citizens in Italy, and broader Europe. These frozen faces in a screaming expression of rebellion, terror, and sometimes anger better reveal the drama that many are facing.
(Photo: Milan – 7 October, 2011 – J., 15 years old, by Stefano De Luigi)
The Dish 