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This Week in Photography: Creepy Victorian Moms, Remembering Mandela and an Insta Movie Collage

It was another glorious week to both revel in photography and complain about how it's used and appreciated -- from the White House back-handing the press, to a short film made of Instagrams, to the "top" photos of the year.
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White House Press Photos
It was another glorious week to both revel in photography and complain about how it's used and appreciated -- from the White House back-handing the press, to a short film made of Instagrams, to the "top" photos of the year. Above:

Press Photographers React to White House’s Attempts to Control Its Image

Since 2008, the news media has been accused of carrying on a virtual love affair with President Obama. The letter that nearly 40 of the nation’s leading news agencies wrote on Thursday was anything but a love note however, calling out Obama's White House for its refusal to allow public journalists into what it calls “private” presidential events. Meanwhile, the White House's own photographers have free reign to release shots of those very same events taken through their own, often rose-colored lenses. The complainants (which include reactionary right-wing rags like the AP, NBC, and the National Press Club) describe the practice as propaganda. Among the events listed as "private" were the president’s visit with Pakistani education superstar and Taliban survivor Malala Yousafzai, a meeting with Hillary Clinton and a discussion between Vice President Biden and Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. The press organizations claim the Obama White House’s policy is a threat to the spirit of the First Amendment, one in which decisions about what and how to photograph official government business was left to the government itself. Two of the organizations went so far as urging all press outlets to refuse to publish the White House’s “official” photos. The letter included also insisted on a meeting with White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, to work out a White House with a free press, rather than one free of the press. After the meeting, Carney chalked the disagreement up to typical bickering that makes the relationship between the press and the government a special one.. Photo: Obama greets children at the Kids' State Dinner in the East Room of the White House, July 9, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)