Update to these stories:
"WHO DELIVERS THE ICONIC WAR IMAGES - PROS OR AMATEURS?"
"Iconic War Images"
"Iraqian Frontline: Images from Moblogging Soldiers II"
"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."
...writes Pedro Meyer in Zone Zero: "The icons of this war..." and continues:
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. [...]
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.
[via Jay]
