Category: War

Ron Haviv’s Bosnian War Images As Evidence in War Trials

Photography in the Docket, as Evidence

Ron Haviv hoped images of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in 1992 would stop the killings. They did not, but were recently used as evidence against commanders charged in the genocide.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/photography-in-the-docket-as-evidence/

On a cool spring day at the beginning of the Bosnian war in 1992, Ron Haviv watched Serbian paramilitary soldiers pull a middle-aged Muslim couple from their home in Bijeljina. Shots rang out, and although members of the Arkan Tigers militia had warned him not to take photographs, Mr. Haviv stepped behind a truck and squeezed off a few frames.

April 2, 2013
An Expansive Exhibit of War Images at the Annenberg Space in Los Angeles

From Combat, Compassion

An ambitious exhibition on images of war and its aftermath captures a complex set of emotions, from sorrow and grief to compassion and even joy.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/from-combat-compassion/

“It gets to be a push-pull situation for the viewer,” said Anne Tucker, curator of photography for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where the show originated. “You are horrified and attracted at the same time.”

April 1, 2013
George A. Strock’s Iconic World War II Image

Photo That Was Hard to Get Published, but Even Harder to Get

An iconic World War II image nearly went unseen because the Pentagon wouldn’t allow photos to be published of American war dead. The image also was nearly never taken, because of the danger the photographer put himself in.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/a-photo-that-was-hard-to-get-published-but-even-harder-to-get/

One of the most significant war photographs in American history is routinely taken for granted.

March 28, 2013
An Iconic Image from the Invasion of Iraq Wasn’t What It Seemed

Toppling Saddam and a War’s Coverage

The gripping footage of a Baghdad throng toppling Saddam Hussein’s statue was hardly the turning point of the war. If anything, it symbolized the problems covering the conflict.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/toppling-saddam-and-a-wars-coverage/

“I saw this for what it was — this wasn’t Iwo Jima,” Gary Knight said. “It was probably the most trivial thing I had seen in five weeks. And I recognized what the press, the live TV cameras who had been starved of a story, were making of it. But I thought to myself, I’m not going to flatter this by making it into something that I know it isn’t.”

March 21, 2013
Before and Before That: Alexandra Boulat and the Iraq War Ten Year Anniversary

Before and Before That: Alexandra Boulat and the Iraq War Ten Year Anniversary – Reading The Pictures

Because Boulat died in 2007, I’m curious what her reaction would be to the compare-and-contrast of Baghdad now and Baghdad as we broke it.

via Reading The Pictures: http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2013/03/before-and-before-that-alexandra-boulat-and-the-iraq-war-ten-year-anniversary/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Bagnewsnotes+%28BAGnewsNotes%29

A photograph that speaks for itself is a powerful thing. That’s the feeling I get from Alexandra Boulat’s series of photographs taken in continuous stream before, during, and after the U.S. began bombing the Iraq ten years ago yesterday

March 21, 2013
Iraq War’s 10th Anniversary: After the War

Iraq War’s 10th Anniversary: After the War

via The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/03/iraq-wars-10th-anniversary-after-the-war/100477/

Ten years later, we look back in a three-part series. Today’s entry focuses on the period from 2011 to present-day

March 20, 2013
Franco Pagetti: Flashback Iraq

Link: Franco Pagetti: Flashback Iraq | Le Journal de la Photographie

Pagetti arrived in Baghdad shortly before the war broke out. His movements were limited by the regime, but that was before the horror and violence that would kill more civilians than soldiers (like all modern wars) and that would force him to cover the rest of the war under the protection of the U.S. military

March 20, 2013
Iraq War’s 10th Anniversary: The Invasion

Iraq War’s 10th Anniversary: The Invasion

via The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/03/iraq-wars-10th-anniversary-the-invasion/100475/

Today’s entry focuses on the March 20, 2003, invasion of Iraq, and the weeks immediately following

March 18, 2013
A Decade of War in Iraq: The Images That Moved Them MostLightBox

LightBox | Time

Read the latest stories about LightBox on Time

via Time: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/03/18/a-decade-of-war-in-iraq-the-images-that-moved-them-most/#1

In the five years Baghdad was my home, I got to work (or just hang out) with some of the finest news photographers in the world: Yuri Kozyrev, Franco Pagetti, Kate Brooks, James Nachtwey, Robert Nicklesberg, Lynsey Addario, the late Chris Hondros… the list is as long as it is distinguished. Their immense talent and incredible bravery combined to make the Iraq war arguably the most exhaustively photographed conflict in human history. This selection doesn’t begin to capture the immensity of their collective achievement, but it is evocative of the horrors — and just occasionally, hope — they were able to chronicle.

March 18, 2013
A New Oral History of Documenting the Iraq War, ‘Photojournalists at War’

Photographers’ Oral History of the Iraq War

A new book, “Photojournalists at War,” is an oral history of the Iraq war from the perspective of three dozen photojournalists who documented it from the front lines.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/14/photographers-oral-history-of-the-iraq-war/

As the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war’s start approaches, Lens highlights “Photojournalists at War,” an oral history of the conflict as recounted by those who documented it from the front lines. The book, published this month by the University of Texas Press, was written by Michael Kamber, who covered the war for eight years for The New York Times.

March 14, 2013
Lynsey Addario’s Photos of Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis

Link: Lynsey Addario’s Photos of Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis – NYTimes.com

Lynsey Addario entered Syria this year on assignment for The New York Times to show a broader, more human aspect of the conflict there. Her work took her to Aleppo Province, home to Syria’s largest city and site of some of the fiercest fighting. In a phone conversation with James Estrin from London, Ms. Addario, 39, discussed her recent work. Their conversation has been edited.

March 13, 2013
United Nations report suggests Hamas may have killed Palestinian infant Omar Mishrawi

Link: United Nations report suggests Hamas may have killed Palestinian infant Omar Mishrawi

it turns out that, according to a new United Nations draft report from the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the explosive that killed Omar Mishrawi may have actually been fired by the Gaza-based militant group Hamas

March 12, 2013
Ten Years On: Photojournalists on War

Ten Years On: Photojournalists on War

“Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq,” by Michael Kamber, ambitious in both its breadth and depth, and published as we approach the …

via The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2013/03/ten-years-later-photojournalists-on-war.html#slide_ss_0=1

when I first went into Iraq, I was wearing jeans and T-shirt. I would photograph on the street as a Western woman and it was no problem. Then I had to start wearing an abaya all the time and I really had to try and disguise myself more. All of the women in Iraq did. It was sort of like watching the covering of a country

March 9, 2013
A Campaign to Underscore Risk of War Coverage

A Campaign to Underscore Risk of War Coverage

An initiative to raise awareness and encourage prosecution of those who target journalists.

via Media Decoder Blog: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/a-campaign-to-underscore-risk-of-war-coverage/?partner=rss&emc=rss

So, enough controversy for you this week? It’s been interesting watching the Pelligrin story evolve over the last couple of days, but as I sit here on Sunday evening I can’t help but think that it’s much ado about nothing

February 25, 2013
“A Day Without News?”: Raising Awareness of the Perils of Reporting

LightBox | Time

Read the latest stories about LightBox on Time

via Time: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/02/22/a-day-without-news-raising-awareness-of-the-perils-of-reporting/#1

The journalistic community is marking the anniversary of Colvin and Ochlik’s deaths with “A Day Without News?” — a campaign to raise awareness of the hostile and dangerous conditions that many reporters and photographers work under around the world, posing the question of what the world would be like if the risks became too great for anyone to try to uncover the truth and to live to bear witness to it

February 22, 2013
Is It More Dangerous than Ever to Be a Female War Reporter?

Is It More Dangerous than Ever to Be a Female War Reporter? | PDNPulse

In an interview with the Atlantic, author and former Reuters correspondent Anne Sebba makes several points about women war reporters that current female conflict journalists find insulting. Sebba, who is the author of a history of women reporters called B

via PDNPulse: http://pdnpulse.com/2013/02/is-it-more-dangerous-than-ever-to-be-a-female-war-reporter.html

Sebba, who is the author of a history of women reporters called Battling for News, told the Atlantic’s Emily Chertoff: ”A lot of these conflicts are now in Muslim countries, who see Western women wearing provocative—that’s their word, not mine—provocative clothes, and therefore, they feel, the West has to be taught a lesson, that they’re fair targets, fair game.”

February 22, 2013
DIY Weapons of the Syrian Rebels

DIY Weapons of the Syrian Rebels

via The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/02/diy-weapons-of-the-syrian-rebels/100461/

Mortar shell nose cones are turned on lathes and explosives are mixed by hand. Homemade grenades are launched by jury-rigged shotguns or giant slingshots in the urban battlefields of Aleppo and Damascus

February 20, 2013
Worth a look: Kalpesh Lathigra’s Anglo-Afghan War

Link: Worth a look: Kalpesh Lathigra’s Anglo-Afghan War | dvafoto

I first ran across Kalpesh Lathigra‘s series Anglo-Afghan War on tumblr, and was struck by the images. The work looks nothing like other coverage of the conflict I’ve seen. In the images, there aren’t explosions. There aren’t soldiers shooting. There aren’t locals kneeling or being interrogated. It’s a different view of the country and foreign militaries, and that got me intrigued. I asked Lathigra a little about the project, how it came about, and what the viewer learns from this approach to such a well-photographed subject.

February 7, 2013
Sunday Times tells freelances not to submit photographs from Syria

Sunday Times tells freelances not to submit photographs from Syria – Press Gazette

A British war photographer has been told not to submit his pictures from the Syria war zone to The Sunday Times because they “do not wish to encourage freelancers to take exceptional risks”. After submitting pictures from Aleppo this week Rick Findler was

via Press Gazette: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/sunday-times-tells-freelances-not-submit-photographs-syria

After submitting pictures from Aleppo this week Rick Findler was told by the foreign desk that “it looks like you have done some exceptional work” but “we have a policy of not taking copy from Syria as we believe the dangers of operating there are too great”.

February 5, 2013
Intense Battle Scenes from Damascus

Intense Battle Scenes From Damascus

via The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/01/intense-battle-scenes-from-damascus/100450/

Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic returned to Syria earlier this month, where he has been traveling the war-torn streets of Damascus with the Free Syrian Army. His past 24 hours were especially harrowing, as he accompanied an FSA group on an attack mission

January 31, 2013