News

Charles de Gaulle campaign poster

After the attacks by Islamic State in Paris the old slogan “With You, For You” is fitting

Our doom was never so beautiful

It may be bad news about CO2 levels but it’s gorgeous

The future of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia

Gaudi’s eternally unfinished church may actually be nearing completion


The long, strange journey of checked luggage

Finally, the answer to how many chances are there along the way to steal my valuables

The late Omar Sharif in a magazine called Alive

I remember Omar Sharif best for a 1997 interview in a forgotten magazine in Cairo

Syrian-American composer who plays for peace

A symphony for Syria reminds me of Sarajevo and the hope that cosmopolitan tolerance will survive


My family in central Turkey, 1948

A nothing moment on their travels that seems to capture a life now lost

Li Xiaodong’s modest, radical architecture

The New York Times misses why a small library in rural China represents a great hope for the country

Bashar al-Assad stonewalls Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose gets in a theater of the absurd debate with Assad and loses


Activists in Raqqa exposing the Islamic State

We owe a great debt to the people documenting the devastation around them

The cultural destruction of war in the Middle East

My beloved Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo may not be a total loss but much is elsewhere

Focus Festival returns to Mumbai with a video from my previous exhibit

A new video includes photographs I exhibited in Mumbai two years ago


When I stumbled into John Galliano’s greatest show

On John Galliano’s return, a memory of seeing one of his greatest moments

New York City Illustrated, 1910

A century on, a tourist souvenir reveals the architectural wonders of a city long lost

The amazing marginalia of In Search of Fatima

A reader hostile to everything lets her feelings be known


My shoot in the Sundarbans near Calcutta

Going off-road and off-grid to document an NGO’s work in West Bengal

Portraits of African elites in India 500 years ago

Who knew Africans ruled parts of India, including Bengal, centuries ago?

Looking for Ukrainians to lead the separatist movement

Santa Claus and a dog whisperer among those leading the Ukrainian separatist movement


The ancient theater in Sabratha, Libya

Anarchy in post-Gaddafi Libya sends me into storage to find photos I took on my trip there in 2004

My journey to Bolivia for Hermès is out

Le Monde d’Hermès just published my account of my breathtaking trip to the salt flats of Uyuni

The Jeff Koons show at the Whitney is a failure

This exhibit will not change any minds about Koons so what was the point of mounting it?


The New York Times shuts down India Ink

The Times gives up being local everywhere, returns to the parochial interests of a US audience

An unworldly article on the world’s game

The Brazilian game of futevolei is just the Asian sport of sepak takraw and not as impressive

Why we still need newspapers

How a New York Times investigation of Walmart in Mexico changed the future of retail in India