U. names new medical school dean to replace Vivian Lee

The University of Utah on Wednesday replaced Dr. Vivian Lee, former head of health sciences and dean of the medical school, who resigned amid controversy involving the Huntsman Cancer Institute last year.

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New Eagle Mountain playground honors sheriff’s Sgt. killed in the line of duty

The Cory B. Wride Memorial Park is to honor Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cory Wride. He was shot and killed in the line of duty along the highway in Eagle Mountain in 2014.

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Govia Thameslink 'could lose franchise' over rail chaos

Rail company could be stripped of services if there is no improvement soon after weeks of disruption.

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Massive natural gas project promising $1 billion for Utah delayed

Plummeting natural gas prices and other factors led to the pause of the proposed Greater Chapita Wells natural gas infill project in the Uinta Basin that was expected to generate $1 billion in state royalties over its lifetime.

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Tariff war hurting Utah farmers and ranchers

China’s move to strike back in a trade war with President Donald Trump has already taken a toll on prices for agricultural products in Utah.

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Renters would get longer tenancies under government plans

A minimum three-year contract would allow people to put down more roots in their area, ministers say.

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Hi-tech dreamcatcher defeats sleep amnesia

The device designed to capture your dreams and offer more creative waking lives.

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Draper fire marshal dies unexpectedly

Draper Fire Marshal Bryan Thatcher died unexpectedly on Friday.

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Mix-and-match holidaymakers get more protection

A change in the rules means millions more package holidays will be covered when something goes wrong.

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Trump urges Saudis to raise oil output 'by two million barrels'

The US president says he asked Saudi Arabia to increase oil production due to "turmoil in Iran".

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Officials identify Idaho man who died in Utah County plane crash

The pilot who died in a plane crash in a remote part of Utah County on Friday has been identified, officials said Saturday.

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$12 million Intermountain project to foster focus on 'non-medical factors that affect health'

Intermountain Healthcare has announced a new project that is designed to better reach people with "non-medical factors that affect health" by increasing cooperation between community health centers and traditional health providers.

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Utahns rally for change in Trump's immigration policy

Hundreds gathered on the steps of the Utah Capitol to express support for the children and families affected by President Donald Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy.

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Fort Duchesne Police seek public’s help locating elderly woman with dementia

Authorities are asking for the public’s help in locating an elderly woman who they say walked out of a residence in the La Mesa subdivision Saturday afternoon.

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Live blog: Multiple wildfires continue burning for 3rd straight day

Multiple wildfires continue burning throughout Utah for the third day in a row just days before the fireworks season begins.

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Cultural offerings the key to downtown economic development, analyst says

The availability of various cultural attractions has been the top issue that prospective business clients mention in discussions about locating to Utah.

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Solving a Salt Lake poverty problem: Addiction recovery center creates employment program

First Step House, an addiction recovery center in Salt Lake City, launched a new employment program Friday to help individuals in recovery break through the poverty cycle.

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Fresh Air Weekend: Comic W. Kamau Bell; Musician Frank Newsome

Bell's new Netflix special is called Private School Negro. Kevin Whitehead reviews reviews John Coltrane's Lost Album. Newsome is a former coal miner who sings a cappella in a lined-out hymn style.

(Image credit: KC Bailey/Netflix)

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Utah CrossFit instructor starts ASL class for deaf community

When Jamie Hardman took her first ASL course back in high school, she never thought she would become a certified interpreter, let alone an ASL CrossFit instructor.

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Musical 'East Of The River' Examines A Gentrifying Anacostia

Set amid a theoretical debate about a potential Whole Foods arriving in the historically underserved Washington, D.C. neighborhood, the musical looks at the good and the bad of gentrification.

(Image credit: Eslah Attar/NPR)

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Electric corridor along Utah's I-15 now fully charged

Rocky Mountain Power, in conjunction with Utah Clean Air Partnership and Maverik, announced Friday the completion of an electric vehicle corridor along I-15 and more than 350 charging stations statewide.

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Looking At Photographer George Rodriguez

Photographer George Rodriguez has chronicled a visual history of Los Angeles over his multidecade career. His work is being celebrated in a new book as well as his first retrospective.

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Hearing From New American Citizens This Independence Day

It's almost the Fourth of July. We reached out on social media to folks who recently became American citizens to find out what the holiday means to them.

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Separated Triplets Offer A Glimpse Into 'The Wild West Of Psychology'

Would they have been better off not knowing about each other? That's the question director Tim Wardle keeps asking himself — he's the director of a documentary called Three Identical Strangers.

(Image credit: NEON)

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Electric car buyers claim they were misled by Nissan

Nissan is accused of exaggerating the benefits of its latest Leaf electric car model.

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Step Away From The 'Trauma Buffet' With These 5 Beach Reads By Authors Of Color

Sometimes it seems like authors of color are relegated to writing about nothing but suffering, says author Silvia Moreno-Garcia. But we all need a taste of happiness — starting with these five books.

(Image credit: Chris Hackett/Getty Images/Tetra images RF)

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Volunteer cleanup planned for Provo Canyon to remove items from transient camp

From the sound of the river to the scenic views of the mountains, Provo Canyon is a favorite place to recreate in Utah County, especially along the trail.

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Affordable housing on Utah's federal lands? Lee proposes trio of bills

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, detailed a trio of public lands bills in a speech at the Sutherland Institute in Salt Lake City on Friday. One would take "ordinary (federal) land just sitting there," and transform it into affordable housing or other uses.

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Virgin Atlantic stops accepting forced deportations

The airline's move comes amid concern over the treatment of Windrush migrants and LGBT asylum seekers.

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Nationwide crackdown on health care fraud leads to two Utah indictments

Two indictments were handed down in Utah this week amid a nationwide crackdown on health care fraud.

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Penny drops

Discount retailer Poundworld is teetering on the brink. For staff and customers, it's more than just a brand that could be lost.

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Fortnite: A fortnight in my 40s in Battle Royale

A lapsed gamer is challenged to spend a fortnight playing Fortnite to understand its appeal.

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Reward offered for information after 32 cows allegedly poisoned in Tooele

Police are investigating the reported poisoning of 32 cows at a rodeo arena in Toole that left animals "frothing at the mouth" and "on the ground with their legs sticking straight out."

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AI to help tackle fake news in Mexican election

The smart software will help media groups debunk fake news and respond to reports of violence.

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2 men with woman shot by police in Iron County face criminal charges

Criminal charges were filed Friday against two Las Vegas men accused in a string of car burglaries that led to police shooting a woman who was accompanying them.

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Lettuce growers warn of imminent shortage

Leafy salad growers say the summer's high temperatures have boosted demand but damaged crops.

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Products to help with biking safety, maintenance

Be safe, be seen and freshen up your bike for riding this summer.

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1 dead in crash near Heber City; U.S. Highway 40 closed

One person has died after a two-car crash on U.S. Highway 40, officials said Friday.

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Events, festivals happening around Utah in July

July is nearly here, and with it comes a month of food, festivals and fireworks, thanks to both Independence Day and Pioneer Day falling within a few weeks of one another. Check out the list for events to attend throughout the month.

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Watch us give our RetroPie console a whole new look

Steel firms Tata and ThyssenKrupp to merge

The German and Indian-owned joint venture will become the second-biggest steelmaker in Europe.

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Here's where you can and can't launch fireworks in Utah

Monday marks the start of an abbreviated first part of the July firework season, much in part to changes made to the fireworks laws during the legislative session. Here's where you can and can't light fireworks in Utah.

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GM warns against potential car tariffs

The US Commerce Department is probing the impact of foreign auto imports on national security.

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Aircraft missing from Utah County, officials say

An aircraft has been reported missing from Utah County, officials confirmed Friday.

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New NHS app 'puts patients in control of their own healthcare'

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt unveils a new NHS app which "puts patients in control".

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Sovereignty issue

The Chinese government has recently been calling a number of businesses to task for calling Taiwan a country, as the BBC's Cindy Sui reports.

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Electric car buyers claim they were misled by Nissan

Nissan is accused of exaggerating the benefits of its latest Leaf electric car model.

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Lincoln Beach, Marina closed at Utah Lake due to algal blooms

Lincoln Beach and Marina at Utah Lake is officially closed due to algal blooms, public health officials announced Friday.

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PCWorld is streaming Overwatch PTR on Twitch!

'I do believe in second chances': Families offer forgiveness to man who killed sons

Last year, the families of two men killed by a teenager fleeing from police told the parole board they were still struggling with their deaths. This year, they came to his parole hearing with messages of hope and forgiveness.

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Goodbye To Harlan Ellison, 'America's Weird Uncle'

Our critic Jason Sheehan says he's a little surprised that the legendary sci-fi writer passed away peacefully at home. It should have been an attack by alien space bears, or an argument with gravity.

(Image credit: Barbara Alper/Getty Images)

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Best Raspberry Pi gaming cases

Judge appoints attorney for security guard charged with murder

A security guard accused of shooting a man in the back and killing him made a brief first appearance in court Friday, indicating he understood the murder charge against him.

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Utah tech company Domo goes public amid skepticism

Utah tech unicorn Domo went public Friday and is trading relatively well on an IPO that has been met with skepticism since its initial filing.

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'Leave No Trace' Follows A Father And Daughter Off The Grid

Director Debra Granik's new film is based on a true story about a veteran suffering from PTSD who lives secretly in a municipal forest with his teenage daughter.

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Remembering Former Poet Laureate Donald Hall

Hall, who died on Saturday, wrote about farm work and his wife, poet Jane Kenyon, in the 1993 memoir Life Work. He and Kenyon spoke to Fresh Air in 1996, and Hall was interviewed again in '02 and '12.

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4 LDS chapels vandalized in Cottonwood Heights

Cottonwood Heights police need the public’s help in finding whoever broke windows in four local LDS church buildings since June 1.

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'Leave No Trace' Follows A Father And Daughter Off The Grid

Director Debra Granik's new film is based on a true story about a veteran suffering from PTSD who lives secretly in a municipal forest with his teenage daughter.

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Remembering Former Poet Laureate Donald Hall

Hall, who died on Saturday, wrote about farm work and his wife, poet Jane Kenyon, in the 1993 memoir Life Work. He and Kenyon spoke to Fresh Air in 1996, and Hall was interviewed again in '02 and '12.

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Myst III: Exile and Myst IV: Revelation are back on sale for the first time in a decade

How to make Split underwater pictures

Click the title of the article to read this post on Improve Photography, which includes all media files mentioned.

Underwater pictures are always fascinating and open the eyes for a new unknown world. But sometimes you have beside the great underwater world also a great overwater world. With split underwater shots you can combine these two worlds in one photo. But how can you make them? The easy answer is: Get an underwater case ...

The post How to make Split underwater pictures appeared first on Improve Photography.

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Canada 'will not back down' over US metals tariffs

Canada also unveiled $2bn in aid to protect its steel and aluminium industries from the US tariffs.

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Casino Comeback: 'Atlantic City's Best Days Are In Front Of It'

Legendary gambling destination Atlantic City, N.J. has had a tough few years. Now, it wants to re-make itself to offer more: shows, spas, a local beach and dining.

(Image credit: Michelle Gustafson for NPR)

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Utah experts warn about pitfalls of long-term auto loans

Here’s one surefire way to give your financial advisor heartburn – take out a car loan of seven or even eight years. That’s what more and more car buyers are doing to get lower monthly payments.

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Charges: Landlord stabbed, shot at sleeping tenant

A landlord was charged Friday with breaking into a tenant's house and stabbing a man who was asleep in bed.

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32 cows poisoned in Tooele and police want to know who’s responsible

The owner of Bit N’Spur Riding Club arena was shocked on Wednesday morning when he found 32 cows in distress.

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Investigators seek public's help locating car connected to homicide

Investigators from Emery County are asking for the public's help in finding a vehicle that is a "key piece of evidence" in the homicide of a woman whose body was dumped in Utah.

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KSL Investigators put family pets to the home security test

If you’re a dog owner, you’ve likely wondered how your canine would react to an intruder breaking into your home. Will they bark, bite or lick the crook to death?

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François Clemmons: From Mozart to Mister Rogers

AMA heads to the Nantucket Film Festival with François Clemmons. Known for his role as Officer Clemmons on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, he reflects on his life and the film Won't You Be My Neighbor?

(Image credit: Noam Galai for NPR at Nantucket Film Festival)

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Nike shares fly as sales momentum mounts

A 3% rise in sales in the crucial North America region sends shares in the sportswear firm soaring.

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At The Education Department, Student Artworks Explore Tolerance And Racism

In an exhibit at the department's headquarters in Washington, young artists speak out through their work about race, sexuality and about being young and having a voice.

(Image credit: Courtesy of YoungArts)

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Best TV streaming service: YouTube TV vs. SlingTV vs. Hulu vs. PlayStation Vue, and all the rest

Is SlingTV better than Hulu, or should cord cutters subscribe to PlayStation Vue? Or YouTube TV? We compare all the TV streaming services, and one rises to the top.

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Tesco trials shopping without tills

The retailer is testing whether shoppers can buy products using an app, rather than visiting a till.

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Make perfect steaks for the Fourth with $33 off the iGrill 2 smart thermometer

Live coverage: Wildfires continue to burn throughout Utah

Seven wildfires are burning across Utah Friday in northern, central and southern Utah, according to Utah Fire info.

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Wasatch, Duchesne counties worry over Salt Lake City's water 'muscle'

How much control is too much control, or is there such a thing if it protects a watershed that serves over a half-million people? A 1915 law gives Salt Lake City "extraterritorial" jurisdiction — authority over land use outside its boundaries.

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Pearl Arrendondo: How Can Mentors Push Students To Move Beyond Their Circumstances?

Pearl Arredondo grew up in East Los Angeles, the daughter of gang members. Education was her ticket out. She says young people need mentors to push them not to be victims of their own circumstances.

(Image credit: Ryan Lash/TED)

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Victor Rios: How Can Mentors Guide Kids To Live Up To Their Full Potential?

Victor Rios had dropped out of high school. But one teacher helped him turn his life around. Today, he's a sociologist who studies youth and the factors that nurture their potential.

(Image credit: Ryan Lash/TED)

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Regina Hartley: Why We Shouldn't Overlook The "Scrapper" With The Atypical Resume

Regina Hartley grew up a self-described scrapper, with far fewer opportunities than her peers. Now the VP of Human Resources at UPS, she says she knows the value of candidates who faced adversity.

(Image credit: Mark Tioxon/TED)

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Jeff Smith: How Much Entrepreneurial Potential Lives Inside Our Prisons?

After serving a year in prison, Jeff Smith realized his fellow inmates were just as business savvy as many on the outside. He now works to help inmates harness those skills when they leave prison.

(Image credit: Ryan Lash/TED)

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Get a blazing fast 27-inch 1440p Acer FreeSync monitor for $200 off at Newegg

A Wednesday July 4 may mean long week of heavy traffic on Utah's roads

Utahns may face a 10-day period of heavy traffic due to the Fourth of July holiday falling in the middle of the week this year.

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Cottonwood Mall site developer says referendum against project is illegal

Attorneys for Ivory Development sent a cease-and-desist letter to groups that oppose the Cottonwood Mall site project, and filed claims alleging the groups have failed to properly register with the state's elections office.

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Domestic violence charges: Man told wife she was to cook, clean

A man who told his wife that her purpose was "to serve him by cooking, cleaning and giving him sex" has been charged with a pair of felonies in a recent domestic violence incident, according to court documents.

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Noel Bowler goes inside the union movement

Modern working life is so frenetic, we often don’t get the chance to dwell on how it’s evolving, how secure it is, or how we’d cope if our jobs came under threat. Who are the people, or groups of people, fighting this seemingly inevitable trend? The people who see something noble and worthy of protection in work?

Noel Bowler provides a possible answer in his series Union, which is on show at Impressions Gallery from 04 July – 22 September. Taking us inside the meeting rooms and head offices of industrial unions, it introduces us to the people who try to safeguard labour rights.

Bowler portrays union offices in fourteen countries, ranging from Washington to Warsaw to his native Ireland. He invites us to consider office spaces, meeting rooms and boardrooms as empty, dormant chambers, heavy with a sense of suspended conversation. In doing so, he gives us the chance to consider how these beleaguered organisations – which date back to the nineteenth century – are adapting to today’s challenges.

Economists now openly talk about a third industrial age, an era of self-employment, flexible employee arrangements, and zero-hour contracts. Traditional work practices, they say, are just that – old-fashioned, a thing of the past. The rooms Bowler photographs are quiet, and yet their set ups suggest important summits and dramatic negotiations.

“Even the furniture seems dramatic and overthought,” Bowler tells BJP, “perhaps burdened under the weight of its own responsibilities.”

Marine Engineers Benevolent Assocoiation [MEBA], Washington DC, USA. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

Bowler is fascinated by what we can learn from the built environment – Making Space, his first major series, portrayed rooms used for prayer by Muslim communities in his native Ireland. “I think viewer engagement is vital to the narrative,” Bowler says. “For me, allowing the viewer to populate the images within their own imagination is not only one of the strengths of this type of work, but of photography as a whole.”

Many of these rooms were chanced upon rather than sought out, a factor which gives Union a sense of authenticity. “I always take the rooms as I find them,” Bowler says. “As a rule I don’t rearrange or change anything within the frame.

“Where possible, I would spend up to an hour in each room on my own, just absorbing my thoughts and research and allowing instinct to decide the frame. For me, this process allows for those serendipitous moments to occur.”

One such moment is the image taken at the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations) building in Washington DC, America’s capital, and the heart of its federal government. “This was the office of the person assigned to escort me around the building. A room, otherwise I would never have seen,” Bowler says.

This five year project allowed Bowler to explore organisations as varied as the United Steelworkers of America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and alongside these interior shots, Bowler took portraits of union leaders. One of his portraits shows Bob Crow, for example, General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers in the UK from 2002 until his death in 2014 from a heart attack, just weeks after organising major industrial action across London’s transport networks.

Bob Crow, General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

There’s a sense of a palimpsest here; the distinct character of the unions communicated through the details that lie embedded in the many rooms, offering clues as to the attitudes and beliefs of those who inhabit them. A poster on one worker’s messy desk reads ‘Vote Socialism’, positioned next a photo of Karl Marx making the victory sign. In contrast, a meeting room, minimalistic and modern, portrays a Rene Gruau poster – more socialite than socialist.

“I feel we live in a neo-liberal society with the cult of the individual at the forefront, satisfied to let corporate power run things in the background,” Bowler says. “There seems to have been a shift in ideology, which basically promotes corporate individuality as good and collective non-corporate action as bad. So long as this ideology exists, I think unions will battle to find their position within it.

“That sense of ‘the battle still to come’ is very much present whether it’s to organise and reassure the labour market as a whole or to simply reaffirm its own position as a mechanism that’s still relevant.”

www.noelbowler.com Union by Noel Bowler is on show from 04 July – 22 September at Impressions Gallery, 7 Aldermanbury, Centenary Square, Bradford, BD1 1SD www.impressions-gallery.com Union by Noel Bowler is published by Kehrer, priced €48; the book includes an introduction by Ken Grant www.kehrerverlag.com

General Secretary’s office at the French Confederation of Management – General Confederation of Executives [cfe-cgc], Paris. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

Office of James P. Hoffa, General President of the Brotherhood of the Teamsters, Washington DC. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

Len McCluskey, General Secretary of UNITE, London, UK. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

Solidarnosc, Gdansk, Poland. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

Boardroom of the Brotherhood of the Teamsters, Washington DC, USA. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

Executive Committee Meetings Hall, Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia [FNPR], Moscow, Russia. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

UNISON Boardroom, London, UK. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions [OPZZ], Warsaw, Poland. From the series Union © Noel Bowler

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Get Good Photography Reviews While Avoiding the Bad Ones

Click the title of the article to read this post on Improve Photography, which includes all media files mentioned.

Several years ago I was talking to a high school friend. He had just been turned down for a teaching job. Turns out, one of his references as saying some negative things about him. I’m not sure how many jobs my friend missed out on because of that person, but once he stopped using him ...

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Lloyd's of London chief executive Inga Beale to step down

Dame Inga Beale, the only woman to lead the 330-year-old insurance market, will leave next year.

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Accountancy giant PwC hangs up on landlines in mobile move

Staff must switch to mobiles by the end of the summer as landline phones will be phased out.

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Legal bid to throw out US sex trafficking law

The US law is hitting the people it was supposed to protect, argue digital rights campaigners.

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Fake bookings hit Singapore's Ryde Technologies

Ryde Technologies says 2,000 "phantom bookings" have cost its drivers thousands of dollars.

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Floating robot Cimon sent to International Space Station

The ball-shaped robot that can move around in zero gravity blasts off to the International Space Station.

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The 10 best PC games of 2018 (so far)

Fake bookings hit Singapore's Ryde Technologies

Ryde Technologies says 2,000 "phantom bookings" have cost its drivers thousands of dollars.

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10 great movies to celebrate the Fourth of July

Stream a few of these fantastic movies to capture the spirit of Independence Day.

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Bluesound Pulse Mini Bluetooth speaker review: Great sound, strong feature set, and a few rough edges

The Bluesound Pulse Mini sounds great, will mesh with other Bluesound speakers, and plays music from a wide variety of sources. But its out-of-box experience and controls leave something to be desired.

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'A Very English Scandal' Is Veddy, Veddy Fun, Indeed

The stars of Paddington 2 (Ben Whishaw and Hugh Grant) reunite, under ... very different circumstances, for a 3-episode Amazon mini-series about a gay relationship that shocked the U.K. in the '70s.

(Image credit: Sophie Mutevelian/BBC/Blueprint Television Ltd)

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Tesco trials shopping without tills

The retailer is testing whether shoppers can buy products using an app, rather than visiting a till.

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Surprise upgrade to UK growth

The UK's economy grew faster than previously estimated in the first three months of the year.

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CO2 shortage 'to hit food choices on supermarket shelves'

The Food and Drink Federation warns that supplies of pork and chicken products will be affected.

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Instagram Photo Sizes Made Easy

They say there are only three things in this world you can count on—death, taxes, and that social media sizes that you’ve committed to memory will change out of the blue. Fear not, denizens of Instaland! We’re on top of it. We’ve thoroughly researched all facets of Instagram sizing, so all you need to do is worry about whether or […]

The post Instagram Photo Sizes Made Easy appeared first on PicMonkey Blog.

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Sports Direct pips Apple in global retailers' list

A new survey ranks Sports Direct above the US tech titan as a firm "trailblazing in global commerce".

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WTO backs Australia over plain cigarette packets

The landmark decision on plain packaging laws is likely to have global implications.

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Get me out of here!

How instant feedback software and AI bots could make meetings more interesting and productive.

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Get me out of here!

How instant feedback software and AI bots could make meetings more interesting and productive.

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Best gaming laptops: Know what to look for and which models rate highest

Elders Gerrit W. Gong and Ulisses Soares talk about their calling as new apostles of LDS Church

The newest two apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke to the media Thursday following their first three months of service in their new assignments.

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Man killed in crash after running red light identified

A man killed in a traffic accident Wednesday after running a red light has been identified.

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Salt Lake City considering $87M bond to improve city streets

Salt Lake City residents may have an opportunity to vote on an $87 million bond aimed at repairing or rebuilding roads across the city.

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Orem man accused of fatally shooting rival gang member takes plea deal

A fourth person has taken a plea deal in a botched, gang-related robbery that ended in the shooting death of a 24-year-old man.

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Utah first state to be named 3-star destination by international travel guide

Utah is a top destination to visit, according to the publishers of the Michelin Guide for travelers. In fact, it’s the very first state to receive a three-star rating from the organization.

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Utah mom shares benefits of meal prepping for families

With school out for the summer, it's easy for kids to grab whatever they can find in the pantry and veg in front of the TV. One smart mom is prepping meals for her family to stay ahead of the game.

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UDOT gets creative with its messaging on overhead highway signs

During Utah's "100 Deadliest Days," UDOT is trying to remind drivers to avoid the five deadliest driver behaviors.

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Colorado man arrested in death of woman whose body was dumped in Utah

A Colorado man was arrested Wednesday after authorities say he killed a woman and dumped her body in Utah.

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Beyoncé And Jay-Z Present A Unified Front On 'Everything Is Love'

The Carters, who married in 2008, celebrate their union with a heavily autobiographical new album. Critic Ken Tucker is impressed by the record's easy shifts between hip-hop and R&B.

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Reporter Covering Immigration Warns Government Is 'Ill Equipped' To Reunite Families

New Yorker writer Jonathan Blitzer has been in El Paso, Texas, reporting on immigration and family separation. "I've been meeting women who are crying so violently they can barely speak," he says.

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With Gonzo Flair, A New Graphic Novel Kills Hitler

Anthony Del Col's gung-ho tale of a convoluted plot to bump off Hitler is jam-packed with beret-wearing Resistance fighters, frosty female spies and epic car chases — plus the dictator's secret son.

(Image credit: Image Comics )

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Preliminary report doesn't find Wyoming glider crash cause

A preliminary investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board has not found any obvious cause for the fatal glider crash that killed two people earlier this month in Grand Teton National Park.

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Live updates: Wildfires threatening structures throughout Utah

Four new wildfires sparked Wednesday, and with red flag warnings issued throughout Utah, those fires are threatening structures across the state.

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Conquering the Circle of Confusion for Photography

Click the title of the article to read this post on Improve Photography, which includes all media files mentioned.

It is likely that there has never been a term that is more aptly named than the circle of confusion. Through an understanding of the Circle of Confusion will come a mastery of depth of field. A mastery of depth of field will dramatically enhance every photo you take. If you’re like most people, when ...

The post Conquering the Circle of Confusion for Photography appeared first on Improve Photography.

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Convicted killer among 5 charged in prison stabbing

Five documented gang members, including a man who was sentenced to prison just three months ago for murder, have been charged with stabbing another inmate.

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Deep Fitbit Surge, Beats Studio3 discounts today could add style and smarts to your workout

Amazon to buy online pharmacy PillPack

Shares in healthcare companies slide as the online retail giant expands into the sector.

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Gun industry noticing new trend affecting their business

A tougher gun sales climate isn’t so much because of the constant gun debate in America. It’s more because corporations are now getting involved, specifically banks.

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Studio 1854 wins The PPA Great Leap Forward Award

Studio 1854, our rapidly growing visual content agency, was awarded The Great Leap Forward Award at last night’s Professional Publishers Association Awards.  “The brave decision to redirect Studio 1854 away from advertising has allowed all other areas of the business to develop,” said the judges, “it was a unanimous choice.” Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief at Vogue, and GLAMOUR Beauty Club were among the seven others shortlisted for the prize.

The Professional Publishers Association is the primary media industry body in the country; the Awards were judged by an impressive panel of editors and media owners. 1854 Media has won three prizes at The PPA Awards over the past two years. In 2016, British Journal of Photography was named Consumer Media Brand of the Year, and our Portrait of Britain exhibition received Digital Innovation of the Year. In 2017, 1854 Media was awarded the Publishing Innovator of the Year Award.

“2017 was a pivotal year for our business,” says Marc Hartog, CEO, 1854 Media,“ it culminated in a complete rebrand from Apptitude Media to 1854 Media, a multi-platform digital media business, and the launch of our new visual content agency  – Studio 1854.” With advertising as we used to understand it – interruptive, heavily branded and in your face – effectively over, 1854 Media made the bold leap to transform its commercial arm into a visual content agency. “We had to risk everything,” continues Hartog, “we revisited not just what we do and how we do it, but also the very essence of why we exist. This culminated in the re-brand, and a new manifesto to clarify our vision and reboot our focus.”

By partnering with major clients and brands, Studio 1854 creates paid opportunities for its community of photographers, while also generating compelling content for its digital readership. Recent projects include Separation: What does Brexit mean for love? – a series of portraits by the award-winning photographer Laura Pannack that explore couples forced to contemplate separation in the wake of Brexit, supported by Affinity Photo – and The DJI Drone Photography Award – a competition calling for photographers across the world to submit ideas for creative, drone-shot projects, supported by DJI.

“Taking a risk worked,” reflects Hartog, “1854 Media now exists to curate the best contemporary photography for an international audience; to provide a platform to help photographers succeed, and to help brands create standout visual content.” Despite being just five years old, 1854 Media has continually innovated in what is a rapidly evolving media landscape within a sector facing increasing pressure. “Without question, 2017 represents our boldest year yet: pivoting away from our traditional model and launching Studio 1854 – our greatest leap forward yet.” 

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Utah Highway Patrol cracks down on distracted drivers with undercover operation

The Utah Highway Patrol conducted an operation Wednesday to spot and pull over drivers suspected of being distracted by their cellphones.

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Purported cult leader wanted to grow old with 8-year-old girl he abused

A purported doomsday cult leader from Cedar City told a judge Wednesday he hoped to have a family and grow old with an 8-year-old girl he considered his bride.

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21-year-old man dies in early-morning crash on I-15 near Cedar City

A 21-year-old man died after an early-morning crash on I-15 near Cedar City Wednesday, officials said.

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Lafarge cement giant in terrorist funding probe

French cement giant Lafarge is under investigation over allegations of funding a terrorist group in Syria.

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Newegg's got an MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti for well under $450 with rebate

Steffi Klenz’s lively still life Staffages

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, painters sometimes included ‘staffages’ in their work – human and animal figures that weren’t the primary figure, but which added life to the work. ‘Staffage’ means ‘accessories’ or ‘decoration’ in German, and was used to describe figures that had no specific identity or story, but which were included for compositional or decorative purposes.

It’s the name German-born artist Steffi Klenz has chosen for her latest series, which was commissioned by Tunbridge Wells Museum & Art Gallery and features objects from its collection. Researching the museum’s collections catalogue, Klenz got interested in museum theory – the idea that objects are given equal status through the way an institution registers, describes, displays and cares for them, and gain their value through the way they represent our shared stories.

Each curator or artist who works with the objects displays them in a different way, the idea goes, and therefore shifts our perception of them; by putting the objects into another, radically new situation, Klenz’s images toy with our idea of their worth.

Mounted print from the exhibition Staffages © Steffi Klenz

Graduating from the prestigious Photography MA at the Royal College of Art in 2005, Klenz’s work plays with architecture and our perception of space, though never in a direct way. For this project she was given access to all the collections and buildings in the museum plus its adult education centre – which, along with the library, are soon to be redeveloped into a Cultural & Learning Hub.

“At this exciting time of change and to celebrate the uniqueness of our collections and spaces, we wanted to capture a snapshot of the collections, buildings and the people working in and using these spaces before the evolvement into the new Cultural Hub,” commented Suzie Plumb, the exhibition curator.

www.steffiklenz.co.uk Staffages is on show until 08 September at Tunbridge Wells Museum & Art Gallery, Civic Centre, Mount Pleasant, Tunbridge Wells TN1 1NJ www.tunbridgewellsmuseum.org

From the series Staffages © Steffi Klenz

From the series Staffages © Steffi Klenz

From the series Staffages © Steffi Klenz

From the series Staffages © Steffi Klenz

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Facebook and Google use 'dark patterns' around privacy settings, report says

Consumer watchdog the Norwegian Consumer Council says the firms give users "an illusion of control".

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Mother and daughter go from homelessness to independence with gifted car

Darlene Lefevre and her daughter, Sophia, lost their home in March. On Wednesday, several companies worked together to donate a refurbished car to the little family in need.

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2 teen gang members charged in violent 6-hour crime spree

Two teenage gang members are facing charges in juvenile court in a violent six-hour crime spree in Magna that including a shooting, an armed robbery and an attempted carjacking.

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Tobacco giant Imperial Brands invests in medical cannabis

Imperial Brands invests in a biotech firm as pressure to allow marijuana products for medicinal purposes grows.

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Cobra Drive HD Dash 2316D review: Dual cameras, neat features, poor night video

CO2 shortage: Pubs promise not to spoil the party

Despite the CO2 shortage pubs say there will be plenty of beer to enjoy England's World Cup game.

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Utah's 4 House members disappointed immigration bill fails to pass

Utah's four U.S. House members all expressed disappointment Wednesday over the failure of a compromise immigration bill that President Donald Trump joined other GOP leaders in backing shortly before the vote.

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A million couples miss out on tax break

The Marriage Allowance is worth up to £238 a year, and backdated payments of up to £662 could be available.

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Ticketmaster 'warned of hack attack in April by Monzo'

Digital bank Monzo claims it warned Ticketmaster that data had been compromised three months ago.

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'Dancing baby' YouTube copyright case settled after 11 years

The clip of baby Holden, now aged 12, has been viewed more than 1.9 million times.

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New Fortnite practice mode quickly taken offline

The new mode, called Playground, let players practise their skills in the popular video game Fortnite.

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Against the Grain: Skate Culture and the Camera

In 2020 skateboarding will become an Olympic sport for the first time, joining the Games in Tokyo alongside surfing, karate and sport climbing. It’s big step for a sport that’s always been associated with the counter culture – with, as a new exhibition of skate photography puts it, going Against the Grain.

Including images by photographers such as Spike Jonze, C. R. Stecyk III, and Glen E. Friedman, Against the Grain: Skate Culture and the Camera traces the history of skateboarding, from the empty Californian pools of the 1970s to the now world-famous Palace Wayward Boys Choir – a London-based crew whose member Lev Tanju founded a wildly successful skateboard and clothing brand.

The exhibition also includes archive material from magazines such as SkateBoarder, Thrasher, Transworld, R.a.D [Read and Destroy], and Sidewalk, which, say the organisers, were “essential to circulating information about skateboarding and contributed to the international force it is today”.

Palace Skate Team (Lucien Clarke, Chewy Cannon, Blondey McCoy, Jack Brooks, Danny Brady), Tottenham Hale, 2016 © Mike O’Meally

And in doing so, Against the Grain also hopes to make a case for skateboarding photography – arguing that, although it’s “often dismissed for solely capturing the decisive moment or ‘peak action trick’, this wide-ranging genre of photography has expanded to many documentary and artistic styles and continues to exist through its own decree”.

Against the Grain: Skate Culture and the Camera opens in London before travelling to North America in 2019 and Tokyo in 2020, focusing in on aspects of the skate community and history of each location. In London it kicks off with an Art Night run in association with Hayward Gallery, for example, tracing South London skate spots critical to the Palace story – and fundraising for Long Live Southbank, the campaign to restore and save the outdoor skatepark underneath the public gallery.

Against the Grain: Skate Culture and the Camera is on show from  07-22 July at 15 Bateman Street, Soho, London W1D 3AQ https://atg-exhibition.com

Chuck Askerneese and Marty Grimes at Kenter Canyon, 1975 © Glen E. Friedman

Hanging at Adolph’s in Holmby Hill after school, 1977 © Glen E. Friedman

Grandma, Thrasher, 1984. Swansea © Skin Phillips

Palace Originals, Lucian Hendricks, Crystal Palace, 1985 © Dobie Campbell

Bones Brigade, Chin Ramp, 1987 © J. Grant Brittain

Todd Swank, Push, 1987 © J. Grant Brittain

Video Days, Jason Lee and Mark Gonzales, 1989 © Spike Jonze

Aloha, Mark Gonzales, 1998. Stadtisches Museum, Koln, Germany © Skin Phillips

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New £50m JCB factory in Staffordshire to create 200 jobs

The firm says the factory, which will build cabs to go on its machines, will open in 2019.

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BA owner IAG expands budget airline Level to short-haul routes

IAG's Level airline will compete with EasyJet and Ryanair with short-haul routes out of Vienna.

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Elon Musk accused of stealing farting unicorn image

Technology entrepreneur engages in a fresh Twitter argument over pottery of a mythical animal.

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Elon Musk accused of stealing farting unicorn image

Technology entrepreneur engages in a fresh Twitter argument over pottery of a mythical animal.

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AT&T Watch: All the channels, details, and gotchas

After buying Time Warner, AT&T is giving away TV with unlimited wireless service, but some caveats apply.

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Windows 10's big Insider build showcases Skype, a font maker and Task Manager tweaks

Cashing-in pension pot 'may be costly'

People need a "wake-up" pack at the age of 50 to help with retirement income choices, the regulator says.

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AI India

India's vast engineering workforce and burgeoning start-up scene are among the advantages it enjoys.

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China hits back at US investment rules

China is worried about US move to expand the powers of its foreign investment watchdog.

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Dr Dre hit with $25m bill for Beats headphones

The rapper and his business partner Jimmy Iovine lose a case over headphone royalties.

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Dr Dre hit with $25m bill for Beats headphones

The rapper and his business partner Jimmy Iovine lose a case over headphone royalties.

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BP buys UK's largest car charging firm Chargemaster

The oil giant follows rival Shell and hedges its bets by buying UK car charging network Chargemaster.

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10 quick ways to clear space on an overstuffed Android device

Physics Is a Never-Ending Puzzle

Physics rarely yields finite answers, but that doesn’t deter scientists.

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Jurassic World is Wrong

Jurassic World relies on ancient dino DNA to resurrect dinosaurs. But that's not possible.

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Separation and a Child’s Brain

Even brief separations can impair the brain development of a young child or infant.

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Microsoft's Classic Intellimouse updates 2003's iconic mouse for the modern era

Castillo wins Utah Democratic House primary to face Bishop

Social worker Lee Castillo has won the Democratic primary to challenge eight-term Republican Rep. Rob Bishop in November.

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Hide My Ass Pro 4 review: A noticeable upgrade with great speeds

Fox-Disney merger cleared, but sports networks must be sold

Competition regulator has given the deal the go-ahead, but regional sports networks must be sold.

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Charges: Nephi man assaulting wife stabs man who intervened

A man who tried to help a woman being assaulted by her husband was stabbed multiple times, according to police.

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Joe Jackson, Strict Manager And Father To Pop Royalty, Dead At 89

The patriarch helped take his legendary family from Gary, Ind., to global stardom, though the disciplinarian streak he used to get them there proved controversial later in life.

(Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

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Ticketmaster admits personal data stolen in hack attack

Up to 40,000 UK customers may have had data stolen, the BBC understands.

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Ticketmaster admits personal data stolen in hack attack

Up to 40,000 UK customers may have had data stolen, the BBC understands.

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Google insists its Duplex AI-powered voice calling is real and will prove it, umms and all

Utah teachers speak against proposal to cut AP History timeline in half

The company that sets curriculum and testing for Advanced Placement courses announced earlier this month that they’d cut the time periods covered in AP World History in half.

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Police need help identifying man responsible for nearly 20 SLC burglaries

The Salt Lake City Police Department closely examined nearly two dozen burglaries in the downtown Salt Lake area before determining they were all related.

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DirecTV Now review: Hard to resist, despite its flaws

DirecTV Now comes cheap with AT&T wireless service, but odd design choices and feature limitations hold it back for everyone else.

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China lifts ban on British beef exports

Ban was first introduced more than 20 years ago after the outbreak of mad cow disease.

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Sim Chi Yin investigates the Fallout

Four years ago, when we first featured Sim Chi Yin in our talent issue, she was a relative newcomer to the photography scene, though her resumé was already looking impressive. Tipped by Sarah Leen, director of photography at National Geographic, she seemed an assured bet, destined to do great things with a camera.

Fourth-generation overseas Chinese, she was born and grew up in Singapore before studying history and international relations at the London School of Economics on a scholarship. Returning home, she spent her twenties and early thirties on the road, working fiercely hard as a foreign correspondent for The Straits Times, Singapore’s respected daily, rising to become the paper’s Beijing correspondent.

“Plenty of people warned me it was crazy to throw away a decade-long career as a foreign correspondent,” says the 39-year-old, speaking from her home in the Chinese capital. And the move into photography was, from afar, a seamless transition. Her first major work, The Rat Tribe, a documentary series detailing the lives of blue-collar workers in Beijing, was shown
at the 2012 edition of Rencontres d’Arles, while her coverage of the Burmese Spring was exhibited by Oslo’s Nobel Peace Center later that year.

A third series, Dying to Breathe, which explored Chinese gold- miners living with occupational lung disease, was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and triggered a nomination for the 2013 W Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. After inviting her to be part of their mentoring programme, VII photo agency made her a full member (although she left in 2017).

The major news organisations quickly came calling. She gained assignments for publications such as Le Monde, National Geographic, The New York Times, and Time. She was almost constantly on the road, working feverishly. She recalls an English friend asking her how her career was going. “I’m juggling spinning plates,” she said. “I think you’re mixing your metaphors there,” he said. “I know,” she responded. “I mean to.”

It’s disconcerting to think how years of work and effort, of countless hours spent practising and honing a skill, can be wrenched away from any of us in just a few minutes of misfortune. It’s also, for any of us used to good health, troubling to consider how reliant we are on the basic functionality of our bodies. A photographer, for example, needs to be able to hold a camera, to have the strength to frame a shot and time the click of the shutter in the heat of the moment. Shorn of that basic ability, what are we left with? Early one morning in May 2015, Sim had to face that exact question.

She was on assignment for a French newspaper, travelling to the Tumen Economic Development Zone, a government-owned complex of Chinese factories on the edge of the border with North Korea. Tumen employed North Korean labourers who, with state sanctioning, would be sent to live and work in the economic zone. The brief was to capture how North Korea and China trade. This place seemed like the perfect microcosm for that complex relationship – the makings of great pictures.

Entering Tumen with her driver and colleagues from Le Monde, she failed to spot a sign that read: “No smoking, photography, or practising driving”. As they approached the factories, the car passed a small group of women in black jumpsuits, knelt by the roadside picking weeds from the ground. Sitting in the driver’s seat with the window wound down, Sim instinctively raised her camera and fired off a couple of shots. “Almost immediately, the women turned around, ran towards the cab, and reached into the car,” she wrote in an article for ChinaFile, recounting events.

“My hand, with fingers on the camera grip and shutter button in shooting mode, was stretched outside the car window. We were now surrounded by the women workers. Six or seven of them were pulling on my camera… The strap [was] wound around my thumb, making it impossible for me to release the camera…”

She can remember the thumb on her stronger right splitting in two places. Blood was pouring from the wound, yet the women would not give in. “For a second, I locked eyes on one of the women pulling my camera… She was consumed by a fury that I had never encountered before, a blind hatred, an uncompromising determination. I wondered, what drove these women? What were they thinking?”

By the time the camera had been wrested from her grasp, Sim’s thumb had been ripped from its socket, her ligaments turned to spaghetti. From there, the situation didn’t get any easier. The women were North Korean. Sim expected them to smash her camera, but they instead, “with great discipline, handed it immediately” to a frowning, official-looking man who had arrived on the scene. When the police arrived, the camera was dutifully turned over, and Sim entered a vortex of suspicion, indecision, bureaucracy and misdirection.

From Fallout, 2017. Left: A factory, perhaps making cement, continues production into the night in Manpo, Chagang Province, North Korea, photographed from across the Yalu River from close to the northeastern Chinese city of Ji’an, Jilin province. Right: This was the desk of a launch commander in a control center which could fire a Titan II Missile tipped with a 9 megaton thermonuclear warhead – the largest warhead ever deployed on an ICBM by the United States. There was a “No Lone Zone” rule here, meaning there were always at least two members of the crew present. If they received orders to launch a missile, they would each have to turn a launch key at exactly the same time. Once their keys were turned, the missile took 58 seconds to launch and 25 to 30 minutes to reach its target which could be 9,700km away. Crew members were never told where the missiles were targeted at. That launch order never came. This site, operational from 1963 to 1982, is now a museum. © Sim Chi Yin/Magnum Photos

Deprived of ice to ease the swelling or water to clean the wound, her thumb ballooned to twice its size as a gaggle of policemen and exterior officials – evidently from China and North Korea – gathered at the police station, trying to work out how to handle a situation that involved a Chinese-Singaporean photographer, a French reporter and North Korean workers at a Chinese-run factory.

As Sim waited for news, she noticed her attackers – who studiously ignored her – pass around a small red badge engraved with the bust of Kim Il Sung or his son, Kim Jong Il. She observed one of them take it to a corner of the room and seem to talk to it – as if she were talking to Kim himself.

When she eventually made it to the local hospital, Sim Chi Yin was told a man had visited the industrial park a month previously. He had taken pictures with his mobile phone and was also attacked. A chunk of flesh was bitten from his hand. Returning to the police station, she says it was made clear they would not be let go unless they promised not to press charges. Giving in, she was on a flight back to Beijing two hours later, where a doctor ordered an MRI scan.

“As I waited for the results, one of the policemen from Tumen called. ‘Hello, Journalist Sim,’ he said. ‘We hope your hand is better. It’s best if you don’t get surgery.’”

She did have surgery, twice, followed by physiotherapy that continues to this day. Le Monde’s insurance only covered the initial costs of surgery, leaving Sim to pay the rest of the expenses. All in all, she estimates she lost 12 months of earnings, and it took her a full two years before she felt confident and capable enough to work again. But, however traumatic the event, and however painful the aftermath, that day on the border with North Korea has allowed Sim to realise parts of her life, and her photographic practice, that might otherwise have remained veiled.

“It was a very stressful and painful time for me,” she admits. “But I decided to see it as a wake-up call. It allowed me to think carefully about how I was spending my time, where I was going, what I was contributing. The injury coincided with me becoming aware of my age, and I thought to myself, ‘There’s only so many more creative and productive years you have left’. I decided I wanted to work differently, to find a new visual language – a slower, more patient, more deliberative style of photography.”

It’s a theme she expounded on in May this year at an awards event in New York commemorating her as the seventh winner of the Chris Hondros Award, an accolade created in memory of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who died alongside Tim Hetherington in a mortar attack in Libya in 2011. She used her acceptance speech to thank “the mentors whom offer moral support as I stumble and shuffle along this path that is not straight, paved or breadcrumbed. And the dear friends who talk me through heartache and cheer me on as I fight through the confusion of a self-directed life.”

Yet she also used the speech to recognise that her work, and her life, are at a crossroads. “Even in the seven quick years I’ve been a full-time photographer, the way images are being consumed has changed significantly,” she said. “A photoessay I spent much of a year working on runs online and seems to be consumed and spat out in two hours. How do we be useful photographers any more? How do we speak in a very noisy and distracted room – and be heard? And having got their attention, how do we make people care?”

From Fallout, 2017. Left: A factory continues production into the night in Manpo, Chagang Province, North Korea, photographed from across the Yalu River from close to the northeastern Chinese city of Ji’an, Jilin province. Right: Two floors below ground level Inside an anti-ballistic missile defence radar facility, North Dakota, November 2017. This anti-ballistic missile defence site – the only one to be built in the US – was designed to detect and intercept attacking nuclear warheads from Soviet missiles coming over the North Pole. Nuclear-tipped Sprint and Spartan anti-ballistic missiles were deployed at the site to shoot down the incoming Soviet missiles. The facility, built in the early to mid 1970s at a cost of US$5.7 billion, near Langdon, North Dakota, was fully operational for only a day in October 1975 before Congress voted to shut it down. At the time, it was one of the most advanced radar systems and had among the most powerful computers in the world. With its deterrent effect, it is seen as having been a bargaining chip for the US in the SALT treaties. © Sim Chi Yin/Magnum Photos

She pointed to the influence of Hondros and Hetherington, noting how they adopted a more thoughtful approach, “fluidly multidisciplinary and experimental”. And with that in mind, Sim’s new focus is on creating works with an emphasis on “impact over reach”. The foremost example is the series she made for the Nobel Peace Prize, illustrating in her own voice the work of the 2017 winner, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

It was the first major commission Sim had taken on since her thumb was ripped, and having been awarded the assignment before the winner was announced, she’d anticipated photographing the work of an individual, and was planning accordingly. To hear the prize was awarded to a diffuse, multinational organisation, one mostly made up of volunteers working out of more than 100 countries, presented a clear and obvious issue. “To be frank, the organisation is mostly campaigners with banners and placards,” she says. “It’s people writing emails, or newspaper columns, or going on Twitter.”

How could she photograph such an abstract thing – a weapon that could cause genocide in an instant – in a meaningful, thoughtful manner? What’s more, how could she take on the issue without being seen to take sides, or by hectoring people about who was in the right and who in the wrong? It is estimated that North Korea has tested nuclear weapons on six separate occasions over a decade, while the US – the only country ever to use the weapons – carried out more than a thousand similar tests between 1945 and 1992.

“Who gets to call who a rogue state, and who decides how many warheads are too many?” she asks. “I decided that if I was to invite people in, I had to create a suspension of moral judgement, and that meant creating a suspension of place.”

With what could be regarded as beautiful serendipity, an image of the North Korean borderlands taken the day before she was assaulted provided the eureka moment for her remarkable study of the pervasive threat of nuclear weapons on our collective psyche. Sim had been invited to Oslo to try and agree on a unified conceptual approach to the exhibition. During her preparatory research, she recalls looking at archival military pictures of the scarred and pockmarked landscape of America’s largest nuclear test site in Nevada. A little later, she decided to revisit the photographs she had made on that fateful trip to Tumen.

She honed in on an image she had photographed of the North Korean landscape, taken through barbed-wire fencing on the Chinese side of the border. The image was incidental, a momentary snapshot she had never had cause to seriously consider before. Yet two years later, she placed the screen of her mobile alongside the image of the Nevada test site on her desktop.

“And they looked similar,” she says. “There was a parallel there, a sense of a continuity between the way both places looked. An idea was there, a meaning emerging. I decided I would look for parallels – both visual and symbolic – between these landscapes.”

The series, which she titled Fallout, saw Sim and two producers drive more than 6000 kilometres along the China-North Korea border and through six US states in the space of two months. In Asia, she searched out locations closest to North Korea’s nuclear test sites, missile-manufacturing facilities and munitions bases, photographing the landscapes that surround them. “I travelled back to the place where I had been attacked,” she says. “I had to confront those traumas.”

In America, she photographed from the snowy wilderness of North Dakota, where a pyramid like military radar complex looks out from a high vantage point, to the cratered nuclear test site in the Nevada desert. For the resulting exhibition, which launched at the Nobel Peace Center museum in Oslo, Norway, after the Peace Prize ceremony in December (and continues until November), she placed the images from the two countries side by side, creating a series of diptychs that seem to mesh and tessellate with each other. “Which is America, which is North Korea? The answer is not always obvious,” she says.

From Fallout, 2017. A Titan II Missile in its silo at a former intercontinental ballistic missile site in Arizona, now the Titan Missile Museum. The Titan II was the largest and heaviest missile ever built by the United States. The missile was 31.3 m long and 3.05 m wide. It weighed 149,700kg when fully fuelled and had a range of 15,000km. This is the last of 54 such missiles that were clustered in Arizona, Arkansas and Kansas during the Cold War; the rest have been destroyed. © Sim Chi Yin/Magnum Photos

Meanwhile, Sim has various long-term projects on the go, including Shifting Sands, focusing on a natural resource for which demand is rapidly outstripping supply. Her homeland, the small
but populous island of Singapore, is the world’s leading importer of sand. “Its thirst is mainly driven by its appetite for land reclamation,” she explains. “It has created almost a quarter of its territory [more than 50 square miles] out of the sea over the decades.”

She began photographing the project last year, on the back of a New York Times Magazine assignment, and a residency with the Singapore-based Exactly Foundation. “With rapid urbanisation and massive land reclamation around the world, there is now a growing global shortage of sand – a resource that, almost counter-intuitively, is finite,” she writes in her statement. “What does that mean for cities like Singapore going forward? How should we view this piece of global story?

“In this highly lucrative sand trade (so attractive there are sand mafias), rich cities are developing at the expense of their poorer neighbours – the growing global income gap writ large. Seen another way, the wealthy are buying bits of territory and moving it where they want it.”

Sim has overseen another exhibition earlier this year, one of much more consequence to her own life. Opening at the Jendela Gallery during Singapore Art Week, she showed for the first time a series titled One Day We’ll Understand, an exploration of the Malayan Emergency of 1948 to 1960, “a 12-year war in all ways but name, as the British fought against Malayan communists.”

From Shifting Sands, 2017-ongoing. A family takes a walk and goes fishing in an area in southern Malaysia now covered with giant sand dunes. The Danga Bay area is earmarked for a massive residency and commercial development, with much of the land reclaimed. Mangroves nearby appear to have been drowned by sand. The world is running out of sand as Asia’s rapid urbanisation is driving up demand like never before. © Sim Chi Yin/Magnum Photos

The exhibition, which was part of a group show alongside Bangladeshi photographer Sarker Protick and Vietnamese painter and video artist Thao-Nguyen Phan, explored the contemporary impact of colonial legacies. Sim travelled to China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia to interview and photograph people from her grandfather’s generation who had experienced and survived the Malayan Emergency, photographing their treasured personal items and finding the landscapes they recalled in their stories – “landscapes of trauma and conflict”.

“On the trail of ghosts in the jungles of Malaya,” is how she terms it. But the photography Sim showed is, in fact, only a small part of a much larger, more complicated and ongoing family history series – one which centred around the shrouded story of her grandfather. In 2011, Sim’s mother showed her a photograph of him, a gentle-looking man called Shen Huansheng, dating back to the 1940s. Wearing a white cotton shirt, he smiles towards the lens, and from his neck hangs a camera. “I was very struck by it,” she says. “I had never known there was another photographer in the family.”

Indeed, Sim knew little of her grandfather, because he was barely mentioned by the family. He had been purposefully forgotten, his life an unspoken taboo. She began to dig, and discovered her grandfather, a former businessman and editor of a left-leaning newspaper, who had been imprisoned and then deported from Malaya by British colonialists, returning to Gaoshang, his ancestral village in Guangdong province, South China.

That same year, at the beginning of her career as a dedicated photographer, she decided to retrace her grandfather’s steps, travelling to Gaoshang and connecting with relations who she had never met before. There, she began to piece together her grandfather’s story. A month after arriving, he had joined the Chinese Communist Party – an act that would have been seen as a terrible crime in Malaya – before being captured and executed by Nationalist forces in 1949, just a few months before the Communist Revolution swept the country.

From One Day We’ll Understand, 2011-ongoing. An investigation of a hidden chapter of the Cold War in Southeast Asia. DIY prosthetic leg that the Malayan Communists used in their 41-year guerrilla war against the British and then the Malaysian state. The jungle that borders Malaysia and southern Thailand was littered with land mines. Artefact of museum at Peace Village, Banlang, Thailand. © Sim Chi Yin/Magnum Photos

Titled For This My Grandfather Died, Sim’s photographs of her ancestral village are remarkable, capturing in unsentimental terms the demands of living in this simple, isolated farming village – a possible road not taken in her own family history. But she also captures how her grandfather is, to this day, remembered and revered as a martyr. She photographed a six-foot tall obelisk that marks his grave, and a faded, barely visible official portrait she discovered – maybe the last photograph ever taken of him.

Throughout the series, an unofficial history starts to quietly emerge, like the faded marks of a palimpsest. “He had died for communism,” Sim says. “But the family never accepted it. The family was ordered to forget him.”

Returning home, she showed her photography to her father, uncles and aunt. It sparked a reconciliation. After some soul-searching, the family returned to their ancestral home to pay their respects to the man they were forced to forget. And if anything exemplifies the power of photography, then this is it. Yet Sim is continuing the series, after revisiting its roots at an artist residency with Docking Station in Amsterdam last year.

“It has become a research, archival and visual project delving into trauma, memory, representation and historiography,” she says. “The project spans photographs, oral histories, archival material, artefacts, film, song, text, and will take me some time yet to finish.”

With her newfound deliberative, meditative approach, it seems likely Sim will create something very special. It’s difficult to say what those North Korean women had in their mind that May morning three years ago – did they feel obligated to attack Sim in such a way, or did they just feel a hatred towards a woman so curious and free, creative and ambitious? Either way, her defiant reaction demonstrates a remarkable resilience from a prolific talent.

chiyinsim.com Fallout is on show at the Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, until 25 November as part of its Ban The Bomb exhibition nobelpeacecenter.org It is also showing at Cortona On The Move, 12 July to 30 September cortonaonthemove.com and will be installed as a solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore from 20 July – October 2018 under the new title Most People Were Silent. This article was first published in the July 2018 issue of BJP.

From Shifting Sands, 2017-ongoing. A sand hill sits amid a tropical landscape in Singapore in a yard for construction waste. The small island state of Singapore, the world’s largest importer of sand per capita according to the UN Environment Programme, has reclaimed more than 20 per cent of its territory. Land reclamation, along with rapid urbanisation especially in Asia, has led to a global shortage of useable sand. © Sim Chi Yin/Magnum Photos

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