Aug. 16: Week in Photography
Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs. 📸 MOST POWERFUL PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📸  Carolyn Kaster / AP Images This week, Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate for the Democratic Party presidential ticket, after much speculation that he would do exactly that. Harris was seen as Biden's biggest threat during her own campaign for president, and has proved a tough person to stereotype.
This colorful image by Carolyn Kaster is a departure from traditional VP pick photos, but appropriately captures the unity of the new running mates and the surreal impact of the coronavirus on the election.
 📸For Your 👀 Only: A LOOK AT THE NEW ALEXIA FOUNDATION BOOK Thirty years ago, tragedy struck when Alexia Tsairis, a promising young photographer, was killed while returning from a semester abroad. Her family started a photo foundation in her honor, which awards a grant each year to a student and professional photographer for documentary storytelling. The foundation produced a book, "The Alexia: 30 Years" reflecting on the work produced over the past three decades, and we had an opportunity to talk with Mike Davis, a faculty member at Syracuse University and one of the administrators at the foundation, about the book.
 Andrew Renneisen CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK? There are five main themes that form the chapters of the book, three primary written components and a representation of all grant recipients at the end of the book. Aphrodite Tsairis, cofounder of The Alexia Foundation, wrote an intro essay about who Alexia was, and an essay about what she has always valued as the type of work that has been awarded, what she calls the Alexia photographer. Peggy Peattie, who was the first recipient of the grant, wrote about the effect of the grant, and summarized what she learned over the course of her own project. She also includes the thought of other grant recipients.
WAS THERE ANY PART OF THIS PROCESS THAT WAS SURPRISING? I’ve edited about 40 books but I haven’t been as involved with the publishing aspects until this book. It was surprising how difficult it was to determine the most efficient approach, to keep from spending more to produce the book than its sale would likely bring in — we are a nonprofit effort with limited budget. And, as with any major project, the number of details that you have to make sure happen well was again surprising.  Rena Effendi WHAT ARE KEY THINGS THAT YOU WOULD LIKE THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW? I hope that there is an awareness that grants are more than people giving out money. They can exist for a higher calling. Aphrodite and Peter Tsairis saw this, from day one of the creation of The Alexia, as a way to help people to produce compelling work that they might not otherwise and doing so in the memory of their daughter, Alexia, who was killed in 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. She was returning from a semester in Syracuse University’s London program.
 Sarah Blesener And it’s important to recognize that every image represents so much investment of the creator’s time, its importance and connection to what really matters. This type of work in our profession is one of the most important things that we do, because topics addressed and people represented tend to be underrepresented and all of the projects are deeply connected and often collaborative and meaningful beyond their creation
I think that it will evolve into being more connected to what is being addressed and to increasingly involve the people being photographed in the process of storytelling. Typically, with a social documentary approach, the image maker enters whatever settings and creates photographs and the images represent what was happening. Text then presents the informational aspects of the setting to bridge the gaps between what is shown and explaining why that’s important. We are seeing more story forms, more media, more approaches that are more interactive, to be able to represent a greater range of matters. I think it’s exciting that there are increasingly more platforms and places employing and publishing this type of work, and a greater range of this type of work. I’ve always bridled against being put in a box — I would rather expand the guidelines of how work is produced to be able to address a greater range of expression instead of following rules that restrict or keep us from telling stories that should be told, with equality and representation as critical considerations. Our goal is to make the grants ever more inclusive and international going forward.
 Ryan Henriksen  📸THE WEEK'S PHOTO STORIES FROM BUZZFEED NEWS 📸 This week, we're getting ready for the conventions and taking a look back to summers past. Check out these stories from our archive.
Find more of the week's best photo stories here.
THE DEMOCRATIC NATiONAL CONVENTION OF 1968 WAS HARROWING  Julian Wasser / Getty Images
SUMMER IN THE '90s  Getty Images
📸SOME HOPE 📸  Tony Karumba / AFP / Getty Images "That's it from us this time — see you next week!" —Gabriel and Kate “Today everything exists to end in a photograph.” — Susan Sontag
📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Gabriel Sanchez is the photo essay editor based in New York and loves cats. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. You can always reach us here.
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