I’m a big fan of the blog Photography Lot, not least because its mainly written by the British photographer Tom White who is a thoughtful and perceptive writer. I don’t know about you but it always makes me feel better about life just to sense that there are people like Tom about.
The golden rule of blogging is never write anything longer than your index finger but turning to Photography Lot tonight there’s an epic post called ‘Gaza‘.
What has touched me is Tom’s thoughts on this, now famous image:
‘Among the many photographs of dead or wounded children this one stopped me in my tracks. Not the most explicit of pictures, it is instead a very calm if morbid scene.
My initial reaction was that this may be a hospital so overstretched that this man has to lay his wounded children on the floor of a room also storing shrouded corpses. It is only when I read the caption, stating that these small children were killed in Israeli attack
that it hit me.
The serenity of the scene, and the fact that the man’s face is hidden, concealing from us any grief he might be displaying while bending over his children is more unsettling than any bloodied body being rushed by on a stretcher.
Even more disturbing to me is the fact that the boy in the middle is wearing an outfit almost identical to one my son owns. My boy is not yet two years old, and many of his clothes are a little oversized on him, just like the two boys in this photo. For me, this image became one of the most haunting of the whole conflict. If I was living there ‚Äì I thought ‚Äì that could be me.’
I agree with Tom, this was the most powerful image because it resonates with my life, it connects with my world.¬† You do need to show gore and blood to touch people, infact its probably better if you don’t.
Who can not look at this image and think fucking bastards? You are drawn in, not forced to look away.
I urge anyone who is interested in the way that war is photographed to vacate the duckrabbit premises quick (before I swear again) and spend some time down the Photography Lot.¬† You won’t be disappointed.
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Thanks Benjamin. I appreciate it. If you’re in the mood for some truly great writing on Gaza, check out this article by Noam Chomsky: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20316
It’s a fantastic read.