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Victor J. Blue

@victorblue

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Ohio based photographer and educator, Graduate Director of @viscomohiou Running around Brooklyn, Guatemala, Afghanistan, and North Carolina.

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Former President Barack Obama
campaigns for Gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Senatorial candidate Sherrod Brown in Cleveland, Ohio, Saturday October 24, 2026.

Honored to work alongside fellow @viscomohiou alumni @zanderavery @dustin_franz @jeffswensen

Shot for the @nytimes. Big thanks to @tara_god and @fstopping for the editing and support. by @victorblue

What guides the stories we choose to tell? @PhotoWings spoke with EAW Red Team Leader @VictorBlue about following your interests and letting your values shape your work.

Filmed and produced by our educational partner, @photowings, at the Eddie Adams Studio in downtown Jeffersonville. by @victorblue

Prairie Progressivism for Harper’s Magazine- Kansas.

In July I criss-crossed the great plains alongside writer @kpaoletta to photograph the efforts of Democrats to claw back political power in this huge region that has in recent years become a bastion of pro-Trump sentiment. But plummeting approval for the President’s second administration due to rising gas and fertilizer prices, and war with Iran has created an opening for Democrats this midterm election. Some hope to capitalize on the disaffection by appealing to an older progressive strain in midwest politics- one pioneered by figures like William Jennings Bryan and invoked by calls to support union workers, bring down healthcare costs, and fight inflation- in other words, to address this country’s affordability crisis.

In Kansas, candidates new to politics are bringing energy and attention to what were considered unwinnable races. Don Coover is a veterinarian, a former Army aviator, and a cattle rancher running for Congress in Crawford to save farmers facing ruin due to surging prices. Adam Hamilton in Kansas City is a pastor and founder of a Methodist mega church. Neither have held office, both were recruited to run against entrenched Republican encumbents in races that have not been competitive for years. But in this dynamic and shifting political environment observers believe they have a fighting chance.

1- Don Coover rides his Harley in the 4th of July parade in Crawford KS.

2- Pastor Adam Hamilton tours a low income housing development in Kansas City, KS.

3- Coover talks with voters at a town hall in Leavenworth, KS.

4- A statue of John Brown stands in the Quindaro neighborhood of Kansas City.

5- Local Democratic county office, Leavenworth, KS.

6-7- America’s 250th Anniversary, Crawford, KS.

8- Coover rounds up his cattle on an ATV at his farm.

9- Hamilton talks with constituents at a retirement home, Overland Park, KS.

10- Emily Walters and other members of the Crawford County Democrats watch 4th of July Fireworks.

Made with the leadership and incisive editing of @kathrynhumphries who always elevates every story she touches. Thank you. by @victorblue

Gilberto Camey and his brother Francisco, both immigrant workers from Guatemala, lived in the woods in the Hamptons because they couldn’t afford a room in an apartment. On a snowy morning in February Francisco left their white tent and froze to death close to a nearby park, where Gilberto found him hours later. They worked as landscapers, along with hundreds of other Central American immigrants, maintaining the multi-million dollar estates that pock the gilded towns of Southampton, Bridgehampton, and Easthampton- some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

This spring I worked with the talented and intrepid @callimachir to understand the circumstances around Francisco’s death and the challenges the brothers faced living so many years in such precarity. We followed Gilberto as he navigated this difficult dynamic, as he worked to support himself, and as he buried his brother. We met many other immigrant workers and listened to their stories as they described a brutal existence in this place of extreme wealth. Shame is too weak a word to describe the feeling this disparity left us with.

For the @nytimes with expert editing by @nycjessie.

1-3- Gilberto in his camp in the woods in the Hamptons. Inside their tent, he and Francisco slept side by side.

4- Gilberto works remodeling the bathroom of a mansion in Southampton.

5- Estates line a shoreline in Southampton.

6- Gilberto walks across a makeshift bridge over a stream that borders his camp.

7- Sunset in Riverhead.

8- Marit Molin, founder of @hamptonscommunityoutreach that provides assistance to local immigrants, comforts Gilberto on the morning of his brother’s funeral.

9-10- Ms. Molin rented hotel rooms and hired barbers so Gilberto and their friends could clean up, and bought them new clothes for the funeral.

11- Ms. Molin carries a flower arrangement into Francisco’s funeral, an example of her dedicated engagement with the most vulnerable residents of the Hamptons.

12-14- Gilberto and his brothers say goodbye to Francisco at his funeral.

15- Gilberto walks home by @victorblue

Game 4. A 99.6% chance of losing. The New York Knicks beat the odds and broke a 53 year championship drought. Ticker tape and joy on a historic day in NYC.

For the @nytimes with the ever excellent leadership of @eve_edelheit . She is more responsible for these pictures than I am. Congrats NYC. by @victorblue

History made. Knicks in 5.

For @bloombergbusiness by @victorblue

The value of returning

Two weeks ago I sat down with World Press Photo winner @victorblue in Amsterdam.

Victor has spent more than two decades working on stories in places like Guatemala, Afghanistan, Syria and New York. Stories that often begin long before they reach the headlines and continue long after the world has moved on.

As I listened to him speak, I found myself thinking less about photography and more about time.
The time it takes to gain someone’s trust. The time it takes to understand a place. The time it takes for a project to become what it is meant to become.

So much of our culture revolves around speed. Ideas are expected to prove themselves quickly and projects are often judged before they have had the chance to fully unfold. Yet the work that stays with us rarely emerges from urgency. It grows through attention, patience and a willingness to return again and again, even when the outcome remains uncertain.

At one point Victor said:
“Every photograph is a picture of time.”

I have been thinking about that sentence ever since because it says something about photography AND because it says something about almost everything that matters. The projects we care about most, the relationships we build, the questions we keep exploring and the work that slowly becomes part of who we are, all of it asks for time.
Perhaps much more time than we would like.

🎧 My conversation with Victor J. Blue is now live on the podcast. Comment PODCAST to receive the link. by @victorblue

@victorblue has spent nearly two decades covering news and international stories. He first came to EAW as a student in 2006. Now he’s back on the other side, leading the Red Team this fall to help the next class slow down, stay patient, and trust that the work adds up.

Applications close May 24. Link in bio to apply. by @victorblue

Soldiers of the 11th Airborne Division conduct Arctic warfare training during the JPMRC, or Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Exercise, at the Yukon Training Ground near Fairbanks, Alaska, in February, 2026. The 11th Airborne Division, a legacy unit reactivated in 2022, is the US Army’s only arctic fighting force.

Last month I spent a couple of days with the Arctic Wolves to understand how US forces are learning to fight more effectively in unforgiving polar conditions. Thanks to the men and women of the @11thabnangels and to @usarmy Chief of Staff Randy George and his staff for letting me tag along. Made with the excellent editing and leadership of @mountainlion6 for @bloomberg . by @victorblue

🚨 UPDATE: This event is now sold out.

⚠️ Rescheduled — Now May 18

Join us for a conversation with photographer and editor @cengizyar and photojournalist @victorblue on Yar’s debut monograph 'This Alabaster Grave'.

The book examines the human and architectural toll of war in Mosul, Iraq, through photographs made between 2015–2023.

🗓 Monday, May 18 • 6:30 PM
📍 614 Courtlandt Ave, Bronx
🎟 Free — RSVP at link in bio

#cengizyar #victorblue #photobook #artisttalk by @victorblue

Dolores Huerta, American icon. 2008, 2018, 2024, in Stockton, El Paso and Chicago. One of the most incredible women I’ve ever had the honor to meet. At 96, still showing us the way to a better country.

“I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor- of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property or things to control.

I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here.” by @victorblue

Mohammad Iqbal sits in his car in El Cajon, CA, in January, 2026.

In today’s print version of the @nytmag, the story of the Zero Units, the CIA shadow force that fought a clandestine war over the 20 years of the American conflict in Afghanistan. @mattaikins and @weslysmorgan unravel the mystery of these classified Afghan units that remained unknown to most Americans until last November when one of them shot two Army National Guard soldiers in DC, killing one of them, Sarah Beckstrom, 20. In the wake of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, as many as 10,000 of these fighters were airlifted to the US with their families, a point of pride for many CIA officers, who saw the effort as a debt owed the Zero Units for their dedication and bravery. But after the DC shooting, first President Trump then CIA Director John Ratcliffe declared the members of the units dangerous unknowns- a shock to their CIA counterparts, who know the degree to which these soldiers were vetted and trusted. Now many live in limbo, afraid of deportation as they wait for normalization of their status, or seizure by immigration authorities.

According to Matt and Wes’s story, “Although intended as a covert program, the Zero Units expanded into a sophisticated standing army controlled by the C.I.A., its allegiance well known to both the Afghan government and its insurgent foes. Although the units were dogged by allegations of abuses and labeled by some critics as death squads, U.S. commanders came to consider them their most effective and trustworthy local assets. But public understanding of who the Zero Units were, and how they ended up in the United States, has been impeded by the C.I.A.’s habitual secrecy, even about programs that have operated in plain sight for years.”

Many thanks to Iqbal, who bravely agreed to speak with us and let me photograph him in the daily life he has built here in America. I’m honored to continue to tell the story of the war in Afghanistan with Matt and now Wes, and of course with The New York Times Magazine. Thanks, as always to @j_dims and @shannonsimon for their vision and leadership on this story.

Captions continued below- by @victorblue