A Pulitzer for Jacob

If you didn't see the picture on the front page of today's NYTimes, you need to check it out. If you saw it, but didn't really look, you need to really look. It was taken by an AP photographer named Jacob Silbersomething—berg or or son (full disclosure: I don't know this guy, I can't even get his name straight).

Anyway, compositionally, it's right up there with the best of Cartier-Bresson. Testimony to the way accident can display what looks like divine arrangement. But substantively—ah, all the body language, the exprssions on the faces, the disposition of everday implements in the neutral light of just another day—this picture does more than register the tragedy of this invasion, it registers the tragedy of all invasions. And it does it without showing any overt violence. In fact, they captioned it something like "a moment of peace."

Check it out.