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PHOTOGRAPH BY SEBASTIAN SCHMITT, DPA/AP
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The power of water: Visceral images show devastation from deadly European floods. The rainfall set new records over the Rhine River Basin in Germany, where most of the flooding occurred, and officials in Belgium called the floods the worst in decades. Scientists see two ways in which climate change likely contributed to flooding: the amount of rain delivered and the slow pace of the storm, Nat Geo reports. (Above, a regional train sits in waters from the flooded Kyll River in Kordel, Germany.)
Photographer slain: In 2018, Danish Siddiqui stood with the world’s best journalists as he accepted the Pulitzer Prize for photography for his brave work covering the purge of the minority Rohingya from Myanmar. Danish, the chief photographer for Reuters in India, was killed Friday on assignment in Afghanistan. He was embedded with Afghan forces when they were ambushed by the Taliban, the BBC reports. Danish’s work earlier this year covering the deadly second wave of COVID-19 in India was widely praised. Danish, 38, is survived by his wife, Rike, and two young children, Reuters wrote in this obituary and retrospective of his work.
Whose copyright is it anyway? Small-town Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer died without anyone in his family paying for his funeral. An out-of-towner discovered his work and repaired his negatives, producing prints that became known—and valuable—in the art world. Now his family wants a cut of the action. The challenge is akin to legal dustups over the work of outsider artists Vivian Maier and Henry Darger, the New Yorker reports.
Whose photos? Harvard University has come under fire for its “ownership” of images from 1850 of enslaved people. The photos had been commissioned by Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz, whose now-debunked theories on racial difference were used to support slavery in the U.S. A descendant of two of the photo subjects said the images were taken against their will and that Harvard exploited the portraits for profit. In March, a Massachusetts state judge rejected the challenge, saying the portraits were owned by the photographer and not the photo subjects, WBUR reported.
‘Ghost marriage’: The discovery of a trunk of keepsakes led Kurt Tong to create an award-winning photobook of love beyond the grave. Dear Franklin uses photographs and letters from that trunk to tell the story of a Hong Kong businessman whose girlfriend died at sea. But the businessman “married” her anyway in an elaborate ceremony, becoming eternally wedded to her in the spirit world, the Guardian reports.
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