See also
"Iconic War Images"
"Iraqian Frontline: Images from Moblogging Soldiers II"
"Photography, War, Iraq, Iconic Images and the Future of Photojournalism"
The Category "Iraq|War: Photos + Reports"
The Category "Iraq|War|Photography: The Meta Level"
We like to draw your attention again to the images of the "Tired and Dirty Soldier" delivering images from a soldier´s life in Iraq to his Moblog.
After reviewing nearly all the pictures from him and his fellows we like to point out that this is from our point of view definetely a turning point, a land-mark.
Although we do not know if there is only one person hidden behind this alias (he complains to be male; "in iraq just want you people to know what people like me do on your behalf so you can sleep at night i will be constantly puting new pictures on here and removing the old ones please tell people about my page thanks"), our tired and dirty soldier is sometimes not too very far away from being excellent in writing and in shooting. He is delivering more insight than all the mainstream crap of the embedded journalists we had seen in the past for months on TV; it´s the first small beginning of a real news coverage (of course without the background, he´s a soldier, not a journalist). This is what his professional colleagues promised to deliver and failed (mainly because of the restrictions).
On the other side there at least two pictures which raise questions what kind of equipment he is using; there are some photos not taken with digital consumer equipment. Is he real? An avatar posting images of various soldiers, speaking with various voices?
Anyway. Thinking of Gilles Peress, David and Peter Turnley, James Nachtwey and all the others, his images do not try to illustrate and express the so called (painful expression) "Art of War Photography" but they do definetely cover some parts of the News Section of War Photography.
Consequently The Associated Press asks: "Digital Photos Change Iraq War Perception, Digital Cameras and Speed of Internet Change How Iraq War Is Perceived in U.S., Around World". Former director of photography for Life magazine, Peter Howe, tells AP "the iconic images coming out of this war may be the amateur photographs of Iraqi prisoners." The article deals mainly with the Tami Silicio story (1; 2) but the message is obvious: "During World War I, the army would execute soldiers who took photographs, Howe said."
Poynter.org states "Digital Cameras & Photo Phones Indeed Might Revolutionize Photojournalism." That´s a nice headline but the content of the article is only a clumsy repetition of the AP report with lots of "Uhm" and "Ah" and no new insights.
And we partly disagree with the APAD people ("The end of the professional?"): "We had a short discussion on the APAD list on Friday, where it was said rather simply that "a notepad and pencil has been around for a lot longer than digital cameras and for a lot less money." And with that I think we could probably end the discussion."
No. That´s not the point. The discussion has just started. "Let's be clear here, there will always be a place for the professional photographer." Sure, no question, but the situation has somehow changed fundamentally. Talk to some photo editors. It´s not about replacing. It´s simply about a new source entering the news world with new and otherwise or formerly unseen content.
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More images from the tired an dirty old soldier (some have been posted earlier):
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2
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[Addendum]
Read also: "The icons of this war..." (Zone Zero, by Pedro Meyer)
I don't think it's too far fetched to assume that the main icons of this second US war in Iraq in 2004, still in process, will be the amateur digital pictures of the tortures performed on Iraqui detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
In spite of the tens of thousands of pictures produced by professional photographers during this war, these amateur images are the ones that I believe will mark this period in history.[...]
It will then have turned out to be that digital cameras became for the Bush administration what the tape recorder was for the Nixon White House. [...]
If the most emblematic images from this war were photographed by amateurs, if agencies are able to send out people to take photographs who have never taken pictures, but have access to certain places, and if we are into a tidal wave of imagery coming in from all the digital cameras that are flooding the world; I am sure that traditional photojournalism as is being taught today in schools all over the world, better have a second look at reality and be prepared to tell their students that things are no longer how they used to be and therefore need to adjust their expectations.
The same thing might also prove to be of interest to all those active photojournalists today, who are seeing their bread and butter documentary images being displaced by pictures of celebrities and movie stars.
[Update July 10, 2004: It turned out that finally some/most of the images presented by one or more moblogging soldier at Yafro as an image taken by himself/themselves, were probably stolen; very often from professional photojournalists. Explanation here. We tried to assign a proper copyright to all photos of doubtful origin. Origin of the images: David Leeson/Dallas Morning News. Images No. 12 and No. 15 MIGHT be personal images, so consider them to be images of doubtful origin]
