War Photography--A Vanishing Art?

[John Cole]

Why has it vanished? Just asking.

[Wake up CALL]

If you mean still photos you must just be missing a lot of news. They are everywhere.

[John Cole]

But they all look the same. Where's the real stuff?

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
But they all look the same. Where's the real stuff?

[/ QUOTE ]

If by "real stuff" you mean pictures that would be damning to the administration just give Dan Rather some time to have them fabricated. Don't worry they will show up just about election time 2006.

[John Feeney]

John -- I've noticed this too. I seem to remember photos with real impact coming out of Viet Nam. I don't remember many from the Gulf War. I'm not saying I haven't seen photos of some of the horrible results of war, just that few, if any, have stood out as noteworthy photos. I have no idea why.

[ACPlayer]

Perhaps the greater prevalence of color photography rather than B/W. Seems like with color you "see" the landscape and with Black white you "see" the moment. The ability to capture the moment of the war was prevalent in the pictures from Vietnam.

[Cyrus]

If by "real stuff" you mean pictures that would be damning to the administration just give Dan Rather some time to have them fabricated. Don't worry they will show up just about election time 2006.

Why is it that any time you get involved in a thread, it suddenly veers towards irrelevancy? You must be on some kind of mission.

[Cyrus]

Why is good war photography on the wane, you ask? I think the answer is pretty simple, actually, IMO. It's because those on assignment (or those editing the pix for publication) make an effort nowadays NOT to be controverial. They don't want the photos to appear to be "making a statement". They want their photos to be appreciated as ...well, just photos!

Which is the very antithesis of good war photography. (Hint: it's not just about a beautifuly sunset in China Beach.)

Think back at the great war pictures that instantly come to mind, the classic ones: the falling Spanish soldier in the 1936 Civil War; the naked little girl fleeing crying a napalmed village in Vietnam; the apprehensive faces of the shore-bound soldiers on D-Day inside the landing boats; etc. They all meant something! And they were shot by photographers who were rarely, if ever,"embedded" ("in bed") with the powers that be; those folks were daring photographers, in more ways than one. War reportage, as a whole, was like that.

We have today, in a sense, gutted out war photography, is what we've done.

(It's the liberal media that's gone and done it. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img])

[Zeno]

Perhaps less people have the 'eye' for photography or less people with the required acumen and instinct to get those great photos. Reasons:

1. Too much instantaneous in our current culture.

2. Related to the required patience to find the right place, time, framing, etc to take excellent photographs.

3. Color dominates. Color may intensify but it also overwhelms and will, paradoxically, flatten the photograph and it takes less professionalism and vision to 'get the interesting shot" and less use of light and shadow.

4. Photography is even more just an 'information service' than ever before and not an art form.

5. Editors and journalism decisions makers are even more a bunch of hacks than in the past.


6. Less people study, enjoy, or even look at not just past great photographs but, perhaps more importantly, great paintings.

-Zeno

[nicky g]

Might have something to do with the fact that journalists and photographers are being killed in Iraq at something like ten times the rate they were in Vietnam.