View Full Version : War photography.....
http://www.banksy.co.uk/indoors/images/media.jpg
I find this one excellent!
And I know from some sources that it's often quite for real...
35mmdelux
08-14-2008, 14:43
Jim Nachtwey
williams473
08-15-2008, 07:01
Wow - could you be any more cynical? Funny all you could find is a cartoon. I think this cartoon would be more accurate to show a civilian in a free country happily consuming the image of the wounded child before turning from the image to carry on with life. Actually, I think most war correspondent’s experience is closer to that of say, Fadel Shana - a Reuters war correspondent killed by an Israeli tank while filming it...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3764160.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3764160.ece)
Perhaps you would prefer to have no images at all of war? I get it - the "joke" - but perhaps your cynicism is rooted in the fact that war correspondents continue to make image after image of the dispossessed, terrorized, wounded and dead victims of war, because our world leaders continue to go to war again and again and again. It's a sad commentary that such images are so commonplace.
That's a propaganda poster by those who wish that no one sees the suffering that war causes on civilians... Embedding anyone?
This is a war image and its a masterpiece:
http://andreacioffi.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/1964-don-mccullin.jpg
You all remember Kevin Carter?
---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter
I find this highly offensive as a working journalistic photographer. Not only because there are some out there that would do something like whats in this image to get ahead for themselves, but also because this also gives a bad image for photographers like me. We already have enough problems trying to dispel the f'ing paparazzi crap, censorship by the US government (and others), and sharply decreasing salary. All we need is this...
michaelbialecki
08-15-2008, 08:59
To be honest....I could write a lot about how I feel on the picture above and share my thoughts with the members of this forum......but at this point, I would rather not, because my thoughts seem to be conflicted on this topic right now, and I would rather think about it a little more.....but I will say this.....Being in a situation like that, or something similiar (where death and destruction is all around you) and you are a photographer......it is not easy to take shots and not think about what you are showing in the midst of the chaos....I am speaking from personal experience and I would never wish that experience on anybody, but when and IF it ever happens to you (like it did to me)....I think that the photographer has to wrestle with their emotions and think about what they are showing (shooting)........sh@t, I knew this would not come out the way that I want it to....anyways...here are three photos that are immediately after a terrorist bomb blast.....sometimes when I look at these photos, I can't believe that i took them....
India, New Delhi
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2097/2232399065_fca4ca1175_b.jpg
another one
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2236/2232311976_6d6a4429c7_b.jpg
last one
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2191/2232243087_3b595e94cf_b.jpg
..........I will try to put something together more coherent when I can think better...
cheers, Michael
I find this highly offensive as a working journalistic photographer. Not only because there are some out there that would do something like whats in this image to get ahead for themselves, but also because this also gives a bad image for photographers like me. We already have enough problems trying to dispel the f'ing paparazzi crap, censorship by the US government (and others), and sharply decreasing salary. All we need is this...
US government's censorship is incredibly liberal compared to China so lets keep things in perspective.
Btw, you called the Tibetan boy in my picture "not quite Tibetan enough" and yet you're taking a high moral standing over this issue of freedom of the press. http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62384
Your reply in that thread makes your post in this one sound quite ironic.
Sorry to have gone a little off topic but yes, there are photographers who hope for something terrible to happen so they can photograph it. And there are a lot of predatory war photographers; however, the core of war photographers are still comprised of highly idealistic individuals who wish to convey a message that war is never the answer and war causes incredible suffering.
... And I should also add that war journalism in the traditional sense is pretty much dead, video has taken its place.
Photographs taken as a result of a photographer "being there" are IMHO completely different from those taken by photographers specifically flown in by the news agencies. I am reminded of the ethics used by natural history film makers who do not intervene when filming an animal "in extremis" as this would be interfering.
I am sure many photog's do help the people they "shoot" as I assume that, like me, they are human beings first and photographers second. But there are others...
Similarly I am uncomfortable with the notion of us (in the West generally speaking) flying in photog's, camera crews, sound men, writers and painters for Christs sake - look up Peter Howson and his Bosnian adventure... this really annoys me - when we could (should?) be spending that money giving respite to the victims of these conflicts.
I do realise that without these news organisations reporting on such situations I would be living in an even more insulated "Pleasant Valley Sunday Status Symbol Land".
What to do..what to do.
US government's censorship is incredibly liberal compared to China so lets keep things in perspective.
Btw, you called the Tibetan boy in my picture "not quite Tibetan enough" and yet you're taking a high moral standing over this issue of freedom of the press. http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62384
Your reply in that thread makes your post in this one sound quite ironic.
hah, as you wish :rolleyes: but you might want to take another look at what I wrote in that other thread and really think about what is going on in that photo. I say this only from experience dealing with these things, nothing else...
Photographs taken as a result of a photographer "being there" are IMHO completely different from those taken by photographers specifically flown in by the news agencies. I am reminded of the ethics used by natural history film makers who do not intervene when filming an animal "in extremis" as this would be interfering.
I am sure many photog's do help the people they "shoot" as I assume that, like me, they are human beings first and photographers second. But there are others...
Similarly I am uncomfortable with the notion of us (in the West generally speaking) flying in photog's, camera crews, sound men, writers and painters for Christs sake - look up Peter Howson and his Bosnian adventure... this really annoys me - when we could (should?) be spending that money giving respite to the victims of these conflicts.
I do realise that without these news organisations reporting on such situations I would be living in an even more insulated "Pleasant Valley Sunday Status Symbol Land".
What to do..what to do.
That's an interesting perspective.
Also, how could a photographer sell pictures of dead people and women crying? or for that matter hang them in a gallery later on where people stare at it while sipping on wine.
I guess, photography is still a very young medium and its ethical boundaries are still not defined well-enough.
But one thing is for sure, we need photos as documents otherwise what is not seen is forgotten.
That's an interesting perspective.
Also, how could a photographer sell pictures of dead people and women crying? or for that matter hang them in a gallery later on where people stare at it while sipping on wine.
I guess, photography is still a very young medium and its ethical boundaries are still not defined well-enough.
But one thing is for sure, we need photos as documents otherwise what is not seen is forgotten.
There is so much I can comment on about this, especially since the Sichuan earth quake, but I will have to restrain myself because I would not be saying very nice things to you right now. Lets just leave it at...there are many things that happen behind the scenes that never make the news. Because things are one way in one place does not mean things will change somewhere else where the ways are completely different. This is the way things work if you want to play the game.
Everyone, go and borrow Shooting Under Fire (http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Under-Fire-World-Photographer/dp/1579652158/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218824369&sr=8-16) in your local library. Get at least to know what people you dissing came through.
The greatest of all war photographers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0vicK63fFA
jan normandale
08-15-2008, 20:40
US government's censorship is incredibly liberal compared to China so lets keep things in perspective.
... And I should also add that war journalism in the traditional sense is pretty much dead, video has taken its place.
For your reading interest regarding the "US Government's censorship is incredibly liberal"
reporters banned by Pres Bush
http://www.google.com/search?method=and&matchesperpage=25&sort=score&restrict=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rsf.org%2F&domains=rsf.org&sitesearch=rsf.org&lr=lang_en&q=reporter+banned+by+bush&OK=OK
journalists jailed in the US
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=journalist+judith+miller+jailed&btnG=Search
banning of photos of caskets of returning soldiers
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dead+us+soldiers+returning+not+photographed&btnG=Search
control of media by US corporations
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+concentration&btnG=Google+Search
control of media by US government agencies
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+and+government+controls+&btnG=Search
US media concentration
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+concentration&btnG=Google+Search
PATRIOT ACT
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=patriot+act+and+public+surveillance&btnG=Search
regarding video taking place of photojournalism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/default.stm
For your reading interest regarding the "US Government's censorship is incredibly liberal"
reporters banned by Pres Bush
http://www.google.com/search?method=and&matchesperpage=25&sort=score&restrict=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rsf.org%2F&domains=rsf.org&sitesearch=rsf.org&lr=lang_en&q=reporter+banned+by+bush&OK=OK
journalists jailed in the US
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=journalist+judith+miller+jailed&btnG=Search
banning of photos of caskets of returning soldiers
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dead+us+soldiers+returning+not+photographed&btnG=Search
control of media by US corporations
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+concentration&btnG=Google+Search
control of media by US government agencies
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+and+government+controls+&btnG=Search
US media concentration
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+concentration&btnG=Google+Search
PATRIOT ACT
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=patriot+act+and+public+surveillance&btnG=Search
regarding video taking place of photojournalism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/default.stm
:D Nice... there are a couple on there I have not seen before, great stuff. Yeah....well anyway, hm.....yeah I guess there is not much to say after that.
For your reading interest regarding the "US Government's censorship is incredibly liberal"
reporters banned by Pres Bush
http://www.google.com/search?method=and&matchesperpage=25&sort=score&restrict=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rsf.org%2F&domains=rsf.org&sitesearch=rsf.org&lr=lang_en&q=reporter+banned+by+bush&OK=OK
journalists jailed in the US
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=journalist+judith+miller+jailed&btnG=Search
banning of photos of caskets of returning soldiers
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dead+us+soldiers+returning+not+photographed&btnG=Search
control of media by US corporations
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+concentration&btnG=Google+Search
control of media by US government agencies
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+and+government+controls+&btnG=Search
US media concentration
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+media+concentration&btnG=Google+Search
PATRIOT ACT
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=patriot+act+and+public+surveillance&btnG=Search
regarding video taking place of photojournalism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/default.stm
The irony of Jan's posts like this is that they show the opposite of what he suggests. The first two, for example, mention only one US reporter: Judith Miller. She was jailed not by the Bush administration, but by a grand jury established by political opponents of the Bush administration to investigate a leak about CIA activity which benefited it (the leak of course, not the activity itself). Furthermore, the New York times was tacitly complicit in Ms. Miller's jailing.
Of course, there are other reporters mentioned, Daniel Pearl not least among them. The places in which these reporters are being jailed, murdered, or otherwise censored is instructive: Somalia, China, Russia.
I'm sure Jan has a great deal of valuable insight to share about many aspects of photography, but the relative levels of censorship between the US (and the Bush administration) and say, China, is not one of them.
In my opinion the caricture fault is that it makes a stereotype of war photography. From the war photographers i have met or read about - all these folks share nothing in common. One can be a human life concerned guy, and another a money seeking photo adventurer.
Now, for the comentaries of Jan about the US press. In my opinion it is neither free nor authoritarian. It is time/dinamyc. The scope of its liberalism depends basically in the level of agreement or disagreement about a specific issue in the heights of power.
On foreign issues when consensus is overwhelming, any disagrreing photo series will be seen as weird.
But as soon as disagreement injures the hearts of poicy owners - then there is a wide umbrella for all kinds of controversia; material.
Cheers,
Ruben.
newspaperguy
08-16-2008, 09:06
Gentlemen,
There is no joy in war photography.
None.
Korea 1951 & 1953
Indo Chine 1952
Believe me - No joy!
Nh3, are you the author of this "masterpiece"? You don't say who took the photo.
Oh, its a famous war pictures taken by Don McCullin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McCullin
The photo is of a Turkish woman in Cyprus mourning her husband who has been killed.
jan normandale
08-16-2008, 21:56
The irony of Jan's posts like this is that they show the opposite of what he suggests. .....
I'm sure Jan has a great deal of valuable insight to share about many aspects of photography, but the relative levels of censorship between the US (and the Bush administration) and say, China, is not one of them.
MCH, Miller was jailed. She was a member of the press. I think the event is relevant, the politics are not. If this happened under Clinton or Bush Sr, it would still be jail. The PATRIOT Act, corporate policy, government controls, and media concentration, also exercise constraints on the media. The corporate media owners restrict the media through editorial and corporate policies and the US government also does through legislature and government agencies. The point is, there is media intervention in the US. It's something that seems to be overlooked by the US public and I'm not sure why.
I'm sure you also have insights to share about photography.
What about Nick Ut?
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng2.htm
Nick Ut recalls that Kim Phuc screamed "Nong qua, nong qua" ("too hot, too hot") as he photographed her running past him. When the girl had stopped Nick Ut and ITN correspondent Christopher Wain poured water from their canteens over her burns.
Kim Phuc's relatives gathered around her and the reporters. Nick Ut heard her saying to her also injured older brother Phan Thanh Tam, "I think I am going to die." (Tam is seen in Ut's award winning picture, running alongside her, at left).
Kim Phuc's parents were still hiding inside the Cao Dai pagoda.
Urged on by Kim Phuc's uncle, Nick commandeered his car, and being one of the few reporters able to communicate with the injured villagers he took over and carried Kim Phuc into the car. Then other members of her family - her younger brother Phan Thanh Phuoc (5), her older brother Tam (13), her uncle and an aunt rushed into the car. Ut climbed aboard the now overcrowded minibus last and ask the driver to speed towards the provincial Vietnamese hospital in Cu Chi, halfway to Saigon. "I am thirsty, I am thirsty, I need water" Kim Phuc continued to cry. When the van moved Kim Phuc screamed out loud, obviously in great pain and then lost consciousness. Nick, beside her, tried to console her saying "don't worry, we will reach hospital very soon."
They reached the hospital within the hour. The doctors and nurses there had seen and treated burn and shrapnel wounds for many years. Even in situations when the hospital's emergency wards were suddenly overcrowding with war injured an atmosphere of quiet medical professionalism prevailed rather than panic and confusion. Nick Ut knew very well that the doctors would attend first those whose lives could most likely be saved, and put others, who were expected to die, aside for later treatment. It was a battlefield experience Nick Ut had often shared with soldiers and civilians alike.
He pleaded with the doctors and nurses to take care of Phan Thi Kim Phuc - and they did. Ut told them what he had seen on Route-1, what he had photographed and that he expected his pictures to be published everywhere.
Only when Kim Phuc was on the operating table did Nick Ut leave the hospital and head towards Saigon, to bring his film to the AP.
When a newsman later de-briefed Nick Ut for a by-line story of what he had experienced on Route-1, Nick did not mention that he helped Kim Phuc.
It was 28 years later, in London, that Kim Phuc said in front of the Queen: "He saved my life."
lorenbliss
08-17-2008, 00:39
I am, and have been nearly all my adult life, a journalist, working both in photography and text. First therefore let me disclose not only my bias but my huge anger -- even fury -- at the grotesquerie that opened this thread. Originally it stunned me speechless. I do not come here expecting someone to spit in my face, but that is precisely what it does: it spits on every one of us -- past, present and future -- who has ever struggled to inform a stubbornly ignorant or (as in today's United States) moronically truth-resistant public.
The image of the journalist obstructing medics is an especially outrageous falsehood -- particularly insulting to those men and women who have been murdered, or who have been injuried (as I have), or falsely imprisoned (as I have) in the quest to transcend ignorance and lies. Indeed the illustration equals the toxic force of the slanders found in KuKluxKlan pamphlets and Nazi Party rhetoric, so much so that each time I view it I feel the need to go bathe, as if I could somehow cleanse my eyes of its obscenity.
Nevertheless I am glad it was presented here. I think we -- those of us who are media workers -- need to know not just how thoroughly we are despised but also the magnitude of the venom that fuels the ongoing effort to suppress our findings and the extent to which our enemies will go to see that, in the end, we are silenced forever: that is until humanity itself is extinct. Nor is this hyperbole: the economic system that now rules the world cannot tolerate genuine disclosure, whether of its atrocities (both human and environmental) or of its ever-more-obvious intent (survival of the looming New Dark Age by re-imposition of manorialism -- serfdom and slavery -- in modern corporate high-tech form: think not "1984" but "Uncle Tom's Cabin," with video surveillance replacing Simon Legree and the fazer taking the place of his whip).
As to censorship in the U.S., as a media insider with a half century of experience I can attest it is at least as oppressive as Jan Normandale asserts and in many less-obvious ways far worse.
But it was not always so.
For example, until Big Business took over U.S. newspapering, the vast majority of U.S. newspapers were locally, independently owned, and their editorial policies reflected the same magnificent diversity of opinion as the nation itself. Since there was no real money there -- it has long been true that to get rich in America you either go into Big Business or Organized Crime (not that there’s any real difference) -- newspaper people of the pre-monopoly era (and I am one) typically came from the same blue-collar/lower-income/hard-times environment that produced the most radical priests, the best cops and the most competent professional soldiers.
We went into journalism for a variety of reasons -- the newspapermen and newspaperwomen of my generation were as infamous for our fierce individuality as we were notorious for our skepticism -- but there was one common principle that united us all: our recognition that journalism was the only realm in which a working-class person might actually acquire the power to make things a little better for the other folks down at our end of the table there below the salt. Not coincidentally, most of us were fiercely pro-union too.
But now unless we all became world champion liars, there’s not a one of us could get hired by a major daily newspaper today: the Big Business bosses regard us as entirely too dangerous.
And the bosses -- with their personnel office tools of industrial psychology and personality testing and background investigation and polygraphs -- are genuinely omnipotent. That’s why today’s newsrooms are staffed by dullards so vindictively conformist they reflexively add the suffix “gate” to every new government scandal, then denounce as “censorship” (or worse) any critical suggestion that overuse wore the "gates" of corruption down to trivia decades ago. Conformists -- drones loyal only to their paychecks and motivated only the mandates of acquisitiveness and net worth -- do not expose genuine graft or true subversion of liberty: they merely “gate” us with distractions.
And these circumstances are no accident: Big Business hiring policy has been the focus of entire academic departments for longer than I have been alive -- and as a consequence the nation’s newsrooms are now very deliberately peopled by the same sort of back-stabbing, brown-nosing sociopaths you find in any other corporate office: exactly the kind of people who -- if they thought even for a second it might advance their careers or add to their income -- would indeed commit the sort of outrage depicted by the visual assault that opened this thread.
Which is yet another reason I find it infuriating: it is like watching a former but still beloved lover seduced into prostitution and so ruined -- the fact that journalism under corporate mastery has deteriorated to such a slimepit Josef Goebbels low, Chikne’s curiously unsigned offering might actually depict some dreadful present-day truth.
But if it is truth, I damn well never witnessed it, nor did anyone I ever met.
Roger Hicks
08-17-2008, 00:51
In my opinion the caricture fault is that it makes a stereotype of war photography. From the war photographers i have met or read about - all these folks share nothing in common. One can be a human life concerned guy, and another a money seeking photo adventurer.
Dear Ruben,
Absolutely. And those are only two possibilities. There are plenty of others. Propagandist. There more-or-less by accident. Escaping a bad marriage/job/home life. Adrenalin junkie...
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
08-17-2008, 01:05
I am, and have been nearly all my adult life, a journalist, working both in photography and text.
Your comments about old-style newspapers remind me of an ancient truth:
The best way to make a small fortune in publishing is to start out with a large one...
But the picture is quite complex. If the girl were injured, the medics might quite properly knock the film crew down. On the other hand they might just think that by holding back for a second or two, then helping the child, they'd help end the conflict sooner.
Yes, I know that's being absurdly generous to an incompetent propaganda shot, and that it would have been vastly better without the medics being held back. And, personally, with the same background as you (though I have never covered a war, or even a riot, thank God), I can't imagine either the journalists or the medics doing this, and I've known plenty of both. The medics would, as I say, be perfectly justified in sending the sound recordist (or whatever she is) flying -- IF something like this happened, which I don't think it would.
Cheers,
R.
If the picture is a low resolution scan it falls under fair use category and its not copyright infringement.
Roger Hicks
08-17-2008, 06:36
I have been challenged here for citing this rule again and again.... sadly, the mods essentially ignore this rule unless someone (a squeaky wheel) complains. Why have the rule then?
I have had my photos - low rez scans - stolen and used inappropriately many times. Is that "fair use" ?? Seems like a good rule to me.
Seconded. Some people even think it's a compliment, and that you will be pleased when they tell you they've stolen something of yours.
Posting without credit is NOT however fair use.
Cheers,
Roger
I am, and have been nearly all my adult life, a journalist, working both in photography and text. First therefore let me disclose not only my bias but my huge anger -- even fury -- at the grotesquerie that opened this thread. Originally it stunned me speechless. I do not come here expecting someone to spit in my face, but that is precisely what it does: .
i echo Pablito in thanking you lorenbliss for your expresive post. you come across as a jurno with old fashion integrity and values that as you elude to, one is less apt to find nowadays.
i think that picture in the opening post was crudely meant to elict the emotional effect it had on you, and to all that see it (although i suspect the artist didnt give much thought to photographers or journalists but possibly is comming from a wider negative social aspect of living in todays world). At least that seems to be a theme in his greater body of work on the web site it comes from...a great deal of it is very distasteful, vulgur, controvercial, occaisionaly amusing and every now and again an interesting thought provoking ilustration
Pablito it appears that chikne probably isnt infringing on any copyright as it seems the artist allows the pictures to used so long as they arnt used to make a profit. however at the very least it would have been better to anounce where it came from so RFF readers could veiw it (and perhaps dismiss as a serious war photographer statement) within the context of the artist general porfolio of work (if you call it that--is quite skilled though). frankly i find OP such as this --time wasting and give them little credance; a picture posted without an accompaning comment or frame of referance, unless you count the 2 words on the title. obviously it is placed to illicit emotion from everybody else on a picture without a context and without contribution himself..i think there is a word for it on forums
http://www.banksy.co.uk/shop/index.html (the OP picture was in the indoor section i think)
As a soldier who has served in a number of war zones, including Iraq, I can honestly say that I've never seen journalists and news teams behave in the way depicted in the original propagandist cartoon. Furthermore, I would add that any news team doing so would be lucky to escape with their lives.
I can't imagine what the message of the cartoon is supposed to be... it is very reminiscent of the kind of images which used to appear in 'Der Sturmer' and other Nazi propaganda but where has it come from? Peculiar and disturbing.
35mmdelux
08-18-2008, 07:27
David Griffin, [I]Vietnam.[I]
censorship by US government -- show me a nation that does not do this -- does not make it right. May try China, Russia, maybe IRAQ under Hussein. They do it because they can.
War? Its not the group that marshall the war so much, but the people who support the people who marshall the war. Mostly, we lay the war at the foot of certain individuals, missing the fact that the people who support them are the ones who are truly responsible-- and so the story of history goes on. If one reads history going back to ancient times, it is a story of war(s).
35mmdelux
08-18-2008, 07:31
David Griffin, [I]Vietnam[I].
censorship by US government -- show me a nation that does not do this -- does not make it right. May try China, Russia, maybe IRAQ under Hussein. They do it because they can.
War? Its not the group that marshall the war so much, but the people who support the people who marshall the war. Mostly, we lay the war at the foot of certain individuals, missing the fact that the people who support them are the ones who are truly responsible-- and so the story of history goes on. History back to ancient times is a story of war(s).
35mmdelux
08-18-2008, 07:31
David Griffin, Vietnam
censorship by US government -- show me a nation that does not do this -- does not make it right. May try China, Russia, maybe IRAQ under Hussein. They do it because they can.
War? Its not the group that marshall the war so much, but the people who support the people who marshall the war. Mostly, we lay the war at the foot of certain individuals, missing the fact that the people who support them are the ones who are truly responsible-- and so the story of history goes on. History back to ancient times is a story of war(s).
I am stunned, but not surprised, that working, professional photojournalists would be offended about someone accusing them of being mere puppets for state-sponsored propogandists. That fact is, despite the honest, hard-working nature of most professionals in the field, the nature of who they work for (or who they sell the images for consumption) - multinational corporate media (for the most part) - are to varying degrees embedded within circles of power in government, military and intelligence organizations. That's just the nature of western culture and global capitalism in this present time in history; to deny the nature of global media's intercourse within circles of power (both covert and overt) in government is to be merely naive.
I applaud the bravery, both physical and emotional (and spiritual) of working photographers who are willing to risk it all to deliver images which purport to tell 'the truth' about a conflict. But let's not get romantic about the purposes of image-making within our culture. Iimage-making, since man first drew pictures of animals on cave walls, has been about the aquisition and maintenance of power in culture.
~Joe
I applaud the bravery, both physical and emotional (and spiritual) of working photographers who are willing to risk it all to deliver images which purport to tell 'the truth' about a conflict. But let's not get romantic about the purposes of image-making within our culture. Iimage-making, since man first drew pictures of animals on cave walls, has been about the aquisition and maintenance of power in culture.
Hello Joe,
You definitely need to elaborate more on that paragraph, especially the second half of it.
I'm curious to know the relationship between images and "acquiring and maintaining power in culture."
MCH, Miller was jailed. She was a member of the press. I think the event is relevant, the politics are not. If this happened under Clinton or Bush Sr, it would still be jail. The PATRIOT Act, corporate policy, government controls, and media concentration, also exercise constraints on the media. The corporate media owners restrict the media through editorial and corporate policies and the US government also does through legislature and government agencies. The point is, there is media intervention in the US. It's something that seems to be overlooked by the US public and I'm not sure why.
I'm sure you also have insights to share about photography.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, Jan.
You're right, Miller was jailed. But not for anything she said - she was jailed for what she didn't say - that is, for not revealing her source to the Grand Jury. If there was any censorship at all in this case (and I don't believe there was) it was in her refusing to share information about the source of her knowledge about Valerie Plame.
Now there is a real concern by journalists that, in being forced to disclose sources, future sources will naturally be more hesitant in coming forward, depriving citizens of important information. This is why the whistleblower laws have been passed to protect sources within US industries. These laws don't apply to the government, however, and certainly not to information about the CIA.
Miller in my view showed a great deal of integrity in standing up not only to the Grand Jury, but also her employer, the New York Times. But one cannot call this censorship, since the journalist was able to print all the information about the case she wished to. The second order concern about inhibiting sources is a valid one, but is limited by law. That, in any event, is beyond the scope of this discussion.
It is not my view that censorship is not an important topic, nor that it does not occur. On the contrary, it is and does which makes it all the more important that we address it with precision and truthfulness. Attempting to establish some kind of equivalency between censorship in the US and China fails on both those counts.
chikne is not the author unless he also goes by the name "Banksy"
Nope :).....
[i]t [the work opening this thread] spits on every one of us -- past, present and future -- who has ever struggled to inform a stubbornly ignorant or (as in today's United States) moronically truth-resistant public.
As to censorship in the U.S., as a media insider with a half century of experience I can attest it is at least as oppressive as Jan Normandale asserts and in many less-obvious ways far worse.
But it was not always so.
For example, until Big Business took over U.S. newspapering, the vast majority of U.S. newspapers were locally, independently owned, and their editorial policies reflected the same magnificent diversity of opinion as the nation itself...
[J]ournalism under corporate mastery has deteriorated to such a slimepit Josef Goebbels low, Chikne’s curiously unsigned offering might actually depict some dreadful present-day truth.
I applaud the bravery, both physical and emotional (and spiritual) of working photographers who are willing to risk it all to deliver images which purport to tell 'the truth' about a conflict. But let's not get romantic about the purposes of image-making within our culture. Image-making, since man first drew pictures of animals on cave walls, has been about the aquisition and maintenance of power in culture.
In the thread about Zoriah Miller's accusations of censorship, I questioned what appeared to be a general assumption that the purpose of photojournalism was to truthfully inform its consumers. That assumption was explicitly stated by Zoriah on his website, where he hoped that his images of the aftermath of a suicide bombing would shock (western, and American) people into the realization that it was their foreign policy which drove such brutality and that they should therefore end it.
Lorenbliss here reiterates much the same kind of thinking. It is the public which is stubbornly ingorant and indeed moronic, needing to be informed by those in the media - at least those who are allowed to do so free of the inevitable corporate interferance. In fact this corporate interferance has so censored the media's ability to inform this ignorant public that censorship in the US is now far more oppressive than in China, representing little more than the fascist propaganda of Goebbels.
Lorenbliss then looks for evidence of this fact in a very strange place: in asserting that there is less ideological variety in the media today. This is a very odd thing to say in a medium which allows an extremely wide array of differing perspectives to be not only consumed, but produced by all manner of the ignorant public. The very medium which allows this message to be stated disproves it, in my opinion.
(This is to say nothing of the fantasy of a once-honorable journalistic profession, in which Walter Durantys didn't exist - because Walter Duranty did exist. The profession is as full of honor and avarice as it ever was.)
But one suspects that the real problem isn't one of a variety of voices, since this would not at all address what Jane Smiley once called the unteachable ignorance of the red states. The real issue is that the moronic public does not agree totally with the informer in question.
Joe's comment is important here because on one hand it shows the impossibility of total agreement (the truth is only 'the truth'), and on the other exposes the desire for total agreement as the maintenance of power.
Zoriah Miller stated his intent to shock his audience into agreement with his ideology. In my view his work, while containing facts, is a profound, even monstrous, distortion of the truth. Is there any real difference between it and the image with which Chikne opened this thread?
I watched the documentary War Photographer with James Nacthwey again because of this thread and this time I noticed some peculiar and quite ironic scenes in the movie.
For example he goes to all these places and photographs people in incredibly tragic situations and yet in the end its all about patting in the back, gallery with media and awards and people sipping on white wine while looking at his photos.
I find that quite shocking, how could you sip on wine and look at photos of a genocide survivor walking on four limbs and with machete scars on his face...
How could Nactwey himself serve people wine and show them tragic and horrible images, the schadenfreude factor of all of this makes me sick and i find a sort of perverted voyeurism to look at images of people suffering while sipping on wine.
At least Don McCullin is honest when he speaks and says that some of the photos he took, are almost like committing a crime.
I watched the documentary The War Photographer with James Nacthwey again because of this thread and this time I noticed some peculiar and quite ironic scenes in the movie.
Indeed.
Nachtwey an co. are war profiteers.
Indeed.
Nachtwey an co. are war profiteers.
When this thread was posted I disagreed with the image and I still do because its exaggerated, but the more I thought about this and watched War Photographer the more I realized that war photography is basically making a living on other people's misery and suffering - I mean how could one photograph dead kids and then sell those pictures?
The more I thought about this the more it has become apparent that the whole war photography is nothing but selling of other people's misery in the rest of the world to the people in the west and in a way make them feel good about themselves.
The more I thought about this the more it has become apparent that the whole war photography is nothing but selling of other people's misery in the rest of the world to the people in the west and in a way make them feel good about themselves.
I'm not sure I agree with this. There are certainly journalists who revel in war and destruction and seek to translate it into profit for themselves but, in my experience, they are very few and far between. McCullin, for example, was - for most of his career as a 'war photographer' - a staff photographer on the London Sunday Times; his salary was modest and, while he retained his copyright and was able to mount a few exhibitions and publish some books, he only made good money when he did advertising shoots 'off the clock'. Having met him a few times, he seems to be very ambivalent about the work he did back then. He's certainly not a ghoul and I think that what he and many of the other war photographers of that era did was hammer home the reality of war. Nobody seeing McCullin's pictures from Biafra, or Nick Ut's famous picture of the burnt girl in Vietnam would 'feel good about themselves' IMHO.
The image in the first post is taken out of context, what Banksy's original idea was when he drew this most probably differs from my interpretation.
Nonetheless, photographers such as James Nachtwey, Christopher Anderson etc...are, IMO. war profiteers. I think it was in "war photographer" where Nachtwey is seen documenting the life of a poor Indonesian family. Eventually the photographs made it to magazines and the family's received help following this coverage. So how much did Nachtwey get in comparison?
Next, these guys are so full of themselves because of where they go, how dangerous and so on. Soldiers do this all the time, the only difference is that they shoot with something else. Sure you've got to dodge bombs and bullets, but hey it's your choice! And the photography in all this? Well I believe it's easier than it looks, there are corpses, people crying and running all over, blood, weapons so no need to be too ingenious.
This isn't to say there shouldn't be any coverage of wars or disasters but, as Nh3 mentioned, having a high class gathering and showing off those photographs while drinking champagne is over the limit.
Don McCullin is definitely in a class of his own and his the standard in war photography but as he speaks in this documentary about his contact sheets (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0vicK63fFA) he clearly breaks through the hypocrisy and makes no pretenses.
But then again I recently bought his book which is full of some of the most graphic and Goya-like images of war I have ever seen, and I did paid for the images of dead people - and he sold it to me in way.
This is just a really nasty ethical Pandora's box...
Roger Hicks
08-19-2008, 08:30
What photography isn't exploitation? Even the swans-and-sunsets genre exploits the terminally sentimental.
Some people try to change the world with their photography. Let's stick with war, poverty, starvation, exploitation, oppression. The photographer has to eat, finance the trip, pay for equipment and materials. Most who do this sort of thing live pretty simply, because photography is what they do. Everything else is just feeding the habit. White wine at the gallery opening? Sure, if that's part of what it takes to get the pictures in front of people.
Cheers,
R.
What photography isn't exploitation? Even the swans-and-sunsets genre exploits the terminally sentimental.
I think that's an excellent point, and one that's true of all art.
So, as an artist (be it photographer, writer, painter), how does one avoid exploiting either the audience or the subject?
I think that can be accomplished only by challenging oneself, and therefore the audience as well. This is certainly what Goya did in his illustrations of the peninsular war, and later in his iconographic images. There is a formal aspect to this, evident particularly in the "evolution" of painting but also in literature.
There is also a subjective aspect to this - one should challenge one's own understanding of the subject, and that challenge should be formally represented as well. I am reminded here of Sebald's "On The Natural History of Destruction" or of early modernist photography.
If we fail to challenge ourselves as artists in these ways, do we not become, in a way, propagandists?
Celebrating cultural success gained from photos of tragedies is certainly unseemly, if not outright profiteering.
Joe Brugger
08-19-2008, 09:58
Nonetheless, photographers such as James Nachtwey, Christopher Anderson etc...are, IMO. war profiteers. I think it was in "war photographer" where Nachtwey is seen documenting the life of a poor Indonesian family. Eventually the photographs made it to magazines and the family's received help following this coverage. So how much did Nachtwey get in comparison?
Next, these guys are so full of themselves because of where they go, how dangerous and so on. Soldiers do this all the time, the only difference is that they shoot with something else. Sure you've got to dodge bombs and bullets, but hey it's your choice! And the photography in all this? Well I believe it's easier than it looks, there are corpses, people crying and running all over, blood, weapons so no need to be too ingenious.
This isn't to say there shouldn't be any coverage of wars or disasters but, as Nh3 mentioned, having a high class gathering and showing off those photographs while drinking champagne is over the limit.
Sorry guys. There's little profit in this sort of thing. Not much of a living any more. Getting into print is difficult. Networks aren't interested.
If a book is eventually published, it might run 5,000 copies and break even.
If you learn most of these photographers' stories, they are there because they care about people and the hope in the back of their mind is that the photos they make will make enough people horrified enough to stop the violence. But unless the fighting is in their front yard, most people no longer pay attention.
No great reputations are being made and no one is getting famous. Of the few pictures coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan these days, most are coming from local contract photographers -- read the bylines.
Take a look at digitaljournalist.org.
Funny how some posts get deleted here...
lorenbliss
08-19-2008, 18:47
Chikne wrote: "And the photography in all this? Well I believe it's easier than it looks, there are corpses, people crying and running all over, blood, weapons so no need to be too ingenious."
Easy, Chikne? Ask Gerda Taro how easy it was to be crushed to death by a tank. Ask her lover Robert Capa, who never stopped missing her, how easy it was to be blown to bits by a mine.
And where/how do you draw the line in portrayal of the human condition? Is there any difference between the victims of war and the victims of oppression? Are you suggesting that the victims of U.S. capitalism as photographed by Dorthea Lange or Walker Evans are somehow more appropriate subjects than the victims of fascism (which after all is merely the ultimate fulfilment of capitalism) that Taro and Capa photographed in Spain?
I have never covered a war (though I photographed its lingering aftermath while serving in Korea c. 1961-62), but I know people who have covered wars, and I myself have surely covered riots and disasters aplenty. Nowhere -- and my journalism career began in 1956 -- have I witnessed or ever heard of anything like what is portrayed in the image with which you maliciously slander journalists and journalism.
As to patronage by the ruling class -- "having a high class gathering and showing off those photographs while drinking champagne" -- it was ever thus, in China 4,000 years ago, in Rome 2,000 years ago, in Manhattan today. The ruling class views a photograph (or any other work of art) as a mere trophy, a betokenment of wealth and power: either that or something too dangerous to be shown, as with the suppressed photography of Iraq.
Ah, Chikne -- you were born years too late. You'd have been a valuable assistant to Josef Goebbels in his campaign against intellectual freedom. Now you are merely another voice raging against disclosure, barely audible in a rising chorus of self-destructive hatefulness that, I fear, will eventually terminate forever the human right of inquiry.
I can't believe the kind of things people say about Nachtwey here. Are you mad? Yes, he made a name for himself among other photographers, but it took decades of determination, hard work and risking his life so we can see what war does to innocent people.
When I met him, he was one of the most humble and kind people I've ever spoken with.
And when he was asked a question if he was still capable of loving after all of the horror he has seen, his answer was that his photography is an act of love for humanity.
The picture in the original post is an insult to great many PJs. It needs to depict the corporate editors who butcher the work of the photogs to please the public to get the ratings.
lorenbliss
08-21-2008, 22:08
I have been troubled by the vague familiarity of Chikne's assertions -- "it's easier than it looks, there are corpses, people crying and running all over, blood, weapons so no need to be too ingenious...having a high class gathering and showing off those photographs while drinking champagne is over the limit" -- ever since I posted my initial response. But finally my sense I had heard all this before came into sharp focus: these are exactly the claims the Seattle-area Ansel Adams cult (and especially its zone-system sycophants) use not just to trash photojournalism but to denounce any/all social documentary photography as “exploitation.”
Claims such as Chikne’s therefore have an interesting -- and telling -- genealogy.
They are a hybrid, derived from at least three sources: (1)-the savage anti-intellectuality of the McCarthy Era (the notion that thinking -- and especially thinking about socioeconomic or political issues -- is definitively subversive); (2)- the elitist aesthetics developed by the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1940s in service to the McCarthy-Era effort to destroy the (politically dangerous) school of American painting known as social realism and replace it with (politically safe) abstract expressionism (the culturally pivotal notions that “true” art has neither socioeconomic nor political implications, and that even the implied presence of such implications clearly defines a piece as non-art); (3)-the metastasis, whether accidental or induced, of such notions into the aesthetics of photography, thereby (reductio ad absurdum) creating a unique but wholly artificial conflict between the capabilities of photography and their application (rather as if house-keys were henceforth to be used only as decoration rather than for locking and unlocking one’s private dwelling).
All of which is protected from disclosure or even adequate exploration by the postmodern shibboleths that the contents of human consciousness are determined exclusively (and to the exclusion of all else) by the mandates of power and that meaning itself is therefore meaningless. Hence not only the ultimate anti-intellectual question (why bother to analytically examine anything?) but the ultimate rejection of anything evocative of emotion (exactly as Barbara Bush -- our modern-day Antoinette -- said so infamously of the victims of Katrina: “why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?")
Alas, the Chiknes of the world (and the Antoinettes) are winning. The ruling class already regards cameras as far more dangerous than firearms and limits their ownership accordingly. In some jurisdictions this is done by price alone; in others the restrictions imposed by price are bolstered by requirements for permits and registration.
This thread is at turns fascinating and disturbing on several levels.
When I first looked at the image that started all this, it wasn't clear to me the sound engineer was holding back the medics, because they seem so patient and unhurried. Then, of course, the image is somewhat flawed as far as biting media commentary, because the truth is that the television news footage would be much more powerful if it included the medical rescue people.
It's helpful to know that this image was created by a London grafitti artist and provocateur (with several books and a fine-arts following) named Banksy -- so, of course, Banksy is profiting fairly handsomely from his images. See the Wiki-entryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksey.
I rather like this quote on his Wiki entry:
"The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
Here are more examples of his work:
http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/images/landscapes/camera-girl-4.jpg
http://www.banksy.co.uk/drawing/images/applause3.jpg
Perhaps the most arresting image on his site is linked below:
http://www.banksy.co.uk/indoors/napalm.html
Concerning some of the emotion in this thread directed toward the perceived voyeurism of war photography, it was my experience when I was journalist that people in crisis want their stories told ... it is human nature that if we feel wronged we want others to know about it. There can be nothing quite so empty in the human experience than to have lived an unrecorded life, then died a premature, unnoticed death. I took some of these sorts of photographs (using rangefinder cameras) and honestly do not believe the world is a worse place for having taken them.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=62844&stc=1&d=1219603317
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=62845&stc=1&d=1219603541
I found this work addictive but, like most, put it aside to raise a family. Most of the war photographers who have built a lasting body of work have demonstrated an extraordinary depth of compassion for humanity. I'm thinking of Capa and Gene Smith and Nachtwey and David Seymor Chim. Two of them died photographing war and a third, Smith, probably had much of his inner self destroyed by the artistic drive he brought to his work.
I don't think war photography will end wars or suffering. But that doesn't mean wars and suffering should be taken for granted or ignored. Wars and suffering are part of the human condition, and, as in the time of the cave painters, we still look to the storytellers of our tribes to provide the context and meaning, to celebrate the heroic, mourn the fallen, and to help us to understand ourselves by recognizing ourselves in others.
Roger Hicks
08-24-2008, 11:24
I have been troubled by the vague familiarity of Chikne's assertions -- "it's easier than it looks, there are corpses, people crying and running all over, blood, weapons so no need to be too ingenious...having a high class gathering and showing off those photographs while drinking champagne is over the limit" -- ever since I posted my initial response. But finally my sense I had heard all this before came into sharp focus: these are exactly the claims the Seattle-area Ansel Adams cult (and especially its zone-system sycophants) use not just to trash photojournalism but to denounce any/all social documentary photography as “exploitation.”
Claims such as Chikne’s therefore have an interesting -- and telling -- genealogy.
They are a hybrid, derived from at least three sources: (1)-the savage anti-intellectuality of the McCarthy Era (the notion that thinking -- and especially thinking about socioeconomic or political issues -- is definitively subversive); (2)- the elitist aesthetics developed by the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1940s in service to the McCarthy-Era effort to destroy the (politically dangerous) school of American painting known as social realism and replace it with (politically safe) abstract expressionism (the culturally pivotal notions that “true” art has neither socioeconomic nor political implications, and that even the implied presence of such implications clearly defines a piece as non-art); (3)-the metastasis, whether accidental or induced, of such notions into the aesthetics of photography, thereby (reductio ad absurdum) creating a unique but wholly artificial conflict between the capabilities of photography and their application (rather as if house-keys were henceforth to be used only as decoration rather than for locking and unlocking one’s private dwelling).
All of which is protected from disclosure or even adequate exploration by the postmodern shibboleths that the contents of human consciousness are determined exclusively (and to the exclusion of all else) by the mandates of power and that meaning itself is therefore meaningless. Hence not only the ultimate anti-intellectual question (why bother to analytically examine anything?) but the ultimate rejection of anything evocative of emotion . . .
Elegantly phrased, and unanswerable.
Cheers,
R.
I have been troubled by the vague familiarity of Chikne's assertions -- "it's easier than it looks, there are corpses, people crying and running all over, blood, weapons so no need to be too ingenious...having a high class gathering and showing off those photographs while drinking champagne is over the limit" -- ever since I posted my initial response. But finally my sense I had heard all this before came into sharp focus: these are exactly the claims the Seattle-area Ansel Adams cult (and especially its zone-system sycophants) use not just to trash photojournalism but to denounce any/all social documentary photography as “exploitation.”
Claims such as Chikne’s therefore have an interesting -- and telling -- genealogy.
They are a hybrid, derived from at least three sources: (1)-the savage anti-intellectuality of the McCarthy Era (the notion that thinking -- and especially thinking about socioeconomic or political issues -- is definitively subversive); (2)- the elitist aesthetics developed by the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1940s in service to the McCarthy-Era effort to destroy the (politically dangerous) school of American painting known as social realism and replace it with (politically safe) abstract expressionism (the culturally pivotal notions that “true” art has neither socioeconomic nor political implications, and that even the implied presence of such implications clearly defines a piece as non-art); (3)-the metastasis, whether accidental or induced, of such notions into the aesthetics of photography, thereby (reductio ad absurdum) creating a unique but wholly artificial conflict between the capabilities of photography and their application (rather as if house-keys were henceforth to be used only as decoration rather than for locking and unlocking one’s private dwelling).
All of which is protected from disclosure or even adequate exploration by the postmodern shibboleths that the contents of human consciousness are determined exclusively (and to the exclusion of all else) by the mandates of power and that meaning itself is therefore meaningless. Hence not only the ultimate anti-intellectual question (why bother to analytically examine anything?) but the ultimate rejection of anything evocative of emotion (exactly as Barbara Bush -- our modern-day Antoinette -- said so infamously of the victims of Katrina: “why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?")
Alas, the Chiknes of the world (and the Antoinettes) are winning. The ruling class already regards cameras as far more dangerous than firearms and limits their ownership accordingly. In some jurisdictions this is done by price alone; in others the restrictions imposed by price are bolstered by requirements for permits and registration.
Pure gibberish nonsense.... You might also like the Ten commandments.
The image of the journalist obstructing medics is an especially outrageous falsehood -- particularly insulting to those men and women who have been murdered, or who have been injuried (as I have), or falsely imprisoned (as I have) in the quest to transcend ignorance and lies. Indeed the illustration equals the toxic force of the slanders found in KuKluxKlan pamphlets and Nazi Party rhetoric, so much so that each time I view it I feel the need to go bathe, as if I could somehow cleanse my eyes of its obscenity.
.
Really? I mean....seriously? It's a hysterical cartoon, for someone crusading against ignorance you're pretty short on sense of humor. Try taking yourself a little less seriously, you just compared a car·toon–noun 1.a sketch or drawing, usually humorous, as in a newspaper or periodical, symbolizing, satirizing, or caricaturing some action, subject, or person of popular interest, to propaganda that lead to the genocide of 12 million people, chill pill man.
I'm 20 and have been working as a PJ for 3 years now while going to school, and to be honest, if there was another war in the next few years, I'd sign up with the Marines as a combat photog in a second. I'm sure I lack the vast majority of experiences you've accumulated in your years as a PJ, but get a grip.
Roger Hicks
08-26-2008, 14:26
the genocide of 12 million people, chill pill man . . . get a grip.
You might do well to take your own advice to get a grip, especially if you find the cartoon 'hysterical'. .
Which genocide had you in mind?
While I know it's hard for a 20-year-old to understand that old men may have more (and more relevant) experience, bear in mind that we have been your age. You have not been ours -- yet.
Cheers,
R.
... and to be honest, if there was another war in the next few years, I'd sign up with the Marines as a combat photog in a second. I'm sure I lack the vast majority of experiences you've accumulated in your years as a PJ, but get a grip.
No need to wait, there are two really good wars going on right now for a brave, gung ho, aspirant combat photojournalist such as yourself.
J J Kapsberger
08-29-2008, 10:38
Several have taken offense to the cartoon, seeing it as slanderous to photojournalists. Could it be that they've grabbed the wrong end of the stick?
Wouldn't it be more correct to view the cartoon as an indictment not of photojournalists but of the mainstream media industry and how it's turned even serious and important news into a form of entertainment (be it humorous, shocking, frightening, enraging, etc.)? Mainstream media, especially television, aren't so much interested in truth (their stories even in so-called investigative shows or features are far too shallow for any truths to be revealed) than they are in delivering slickly packaged entertaining stuff that draws in viewers, readers, and listeners in order to sell advertising.
Part of delivering the slick package is ensuring the right shot is achieved. I've seen war images which would never be shown on television or in the newspapers. They're simply too horrific I guess. Mainstream media offers only relatively sanitized images. If you agree with that then perhaps you have to agree with the idea that mainstream media cynically exploit thier photographic opportunities.
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