War photography: why we don't want to see it

[johnastovall]

What happens to the horrific images of war that don't appear in the media? Where does war photography end and art begin? Two new exhibitions raise provocative questions, as Ruby Russell discovers.....

Suggested related reading, Regarding the Pain Of Others

[C!LLY]

I have been subscribing to Michael Yon for about 4 years now and he is a great photojournalist. He gets some of the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of the war. He's been to Iraq and Afghanistan and has done a very good job. He's basically been involved in this since close to the beginning of the wars.

I've seen photos that my husband has brought home from Iraq and they werent flattering by any means, but they didnt bother me any, but blood guts and gore dont bother me any.

[timbertoes]

These images, they are in books. Some of the books may be in a different language. Never have the more gruesome or depressing photos been a part of mainstream media. mainstream media is a propaganda outlet for War, and has always been. The media is an outlet for those who want a few seconds of information, so they can form a disastrously bad and ignorant opinion.

And what of these Modern Munitions that are spoken of ? ah, but there is no difference in old and new.

How many of you would stare at the pics for a long time.
how many will be offended. How many would make the images, a part of your life, in the way that you behave towards others, or to make consideration of how others treat you. How will you change your view of the world and politics


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Obviously, there is nearly a thousand men taking shelter in this cave that defies the largest shells. And the oozing water, the urine, the excrements, all that constitutes this wretched mud in which they splash and flounder, and in which perhaps, resigned, they will lie down very soon. With the smell of this ordure, adds the pharmaceutical odor of the bandagings.

But anyway ! under the tunnel, we feel protected and the noise of the gunning comes deafened."

"Les Suppliciés" (Verdun 1916, the Tunnel of Tavannes) - Naegelen



"However, broken down, I think : my sweetie, is it possible that, transposed by your poor small brain, the formidable earthquake that just shook up the old world is reduced to this cackling ! So you do not know that this hell is only at one hour of car drive from here, in the campaigns where we walked together, and that I arrive from there, and that I will return there ?

I have pictures in my head that could make you fall down in faint, memories to go insane. I have seen my opened comrades smoking in the air beside me. I have charged, death in my mouth, with this single thought: that something must be smashed, them or me, their mass or my flesh ! And here we go ! And burst those ****ing eyes, hit those bastards with the heels, gun those rotten bellies and throw that stick in their bloody faces …

I want to tell you that. I want to, in your pretty morning-room"

"La Guerre, Madame" - Paul Géraldy







Imagine if you can, a statistic, that if taken as a "averaged daily" would be 586,000 Artillery shells shot, everyday, 365 days a year, for 4 years.