Our selection today is an interesting piece in the Guardian that discusses the real story behind a particular iconic photograph and how the photo has been co-opted to support narratives that are not always in line with the real story.

Photograph: Jimmy Sime/Getty Images

This highlights one of the most fascinating aspects of photography - the idea that a framed shot of a moment in time merely provides evidence of possible narratives - the viewer being free to construct their own narrative based on a combination of the evidence and their own assumptions and interpretations.

Our pick today is a short article from the Guardian: New Topographics: photographs that find beauty in the banal.

Presidio, Texas, Feb 21st 1975 by Stephen Shore

The article introduces William Jenkins’s 1975 exhibition which “rewrote the rules of landscape photography” and serves as a brief, but useful primer for anyone discovering the ‘New Topographics’ genre for the first time.

There is a book about the ground breaking exhibition.

The Haiti crisis is generating a great deal of excellent photojournalism, including this piece on ‘Lens’ from the NY Times by Damon Winter:

© Damon Winter/NY Times

There’s also a piece at Foto 8 from Michael David Murphy discussing photojournalism and the Haiti crisis.

A ‘Highly Commended’ entry from the CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year 2009 competition:

Photo by Pornrutai Lohachal.

More featured in the Guardian.

The Telegraph looks back at ten photographs that “have had a profound impact on the way we live today”.

1855 Valley of the Shadow of Death by Roger Fenton

This particular photograph, featured in the article, is one that I find particularly impactful. The absence of any human casualties only serves to imbue the shot with even greater metaphorical resonance.

The Telegraph is featuring some images from ‘The Londoners Through a Lens’ exhibition at The Getty Images gallery.

The image below is particularly striking:

Apparently it shows a “wire cage which East Poplar borough council in London proposed to fix to the outside of their tenement windows, so that babies could benefit from fresh air and sunshine”.

It seems that attitudes towards child care and health and safety were so very different in 1934!

William Eggleston, one of photography’s most influential names, is the subject of the latest episode in the BBC’s Imagine series.

Programme time is 22:35, tomorrow (Tuesday 14th July) on BBC1. Not to be missed!