The refugee crisis in black and white
After they’ve survived a harrowing trip across the Mediterranean in a crowded rubber boat, fleeing war and violence in the Middle East and Africa, many refugees do something anyone might do when they reach a safe harbor — they take out their cellphones and capture that once-inconceivable moment. To Maciek Nabrdalik, a Polish documentary photographer and 2017 Nieman Fellow, it’s a simple, natural reaction. But as refugees came ashore on the beach of Lesbos, Greece, late last year, it was the angry reaction of another photojournalist that captured Nabrdalik’s eye. For him, it exemplified the stereotypes now rising in European Union countries. “A photographer working for one of the biggest wire services, talking to two volunteers, said ‘When I see those people jumping out of the boat and taking selfies I’m so [angry] I don’t even take my camera out,’” Nabradalik said at a program last Wednesday at the Harvard Ed Portal...