Shooting War

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Conflict photographers are visual historians, bearing witness to stories that must be told. The images they produce seize our attention and moved by what we see, troubling questions come to mind. Look anew at Don McCullin's iconic photograph of the shell-shocked marine. What became of him when his war was over? Or what about those young Kosovar women photographed by Alexandra Boulat, smiling as homes burn in the background? Did they survive the war? Or shift your attention to a Serb paramilitary, cigarette in hand, surreptitiously captured for eternity by Ron Haviv, as he puts his boot into dead Bosnian civilians, erstwhile neighbors and ask yourself how human behavior can turn so quickly? Question such as these are given added urgency by the emotion of the moment, for photographs generate powerful feelings. Pair a thought with a strong emotion and the thought takes on a particular salience, a greater gravitas, making it harder to forget when we leave the gallery or put down our book. This is surely what conflict photographers aim for, using their skills with a camera to capture an image that not only moves us, but more importantly, gets us thinking. The aim of Shooting War has been to harness these thoughts, but shift them in a different direction, by asking a new set of questions--ones that may not have come to mind when first confronted by the image. What of the person taking the photograph? What might the photographer experience? One does not have to go far in search of the answer. Joao Silva and Tim Page grievously wounded, Ron Haviv marked for assassination, Chim Seymour killed at Suez, Corinne Dufka blown up in her armored vehicle, Don McCullin wounded multiple times, Sebastian Salgado incapacitated by physical and emotional exhaustion, and Ashley Gilbertson brought down by guilt to give but a few examples. For some, PTSD has proved crippling. "Shooting War" provides a unique understanding of what the profession of conflict photographer entails. When you next come across photographs of war or conflict and you marvel at the content, or recoil from it depending on your sensitivities, pause for a moment and reflect on the men and women behind the lens and what it has taken to get the images before you.