that shows a young Iranian woman dying from what we now know is a gunshot wound.
I haven’t watched the film, nor do I intend do. I know that its just going to upset me and make me feel helpless. More helpless.
Over on BURN someone has commented about the situation in Iran
‘TWITTER 5 PHOTOJOURNALISM 0′.
As if it really matters?
Its really not a competition between the two.
If you want to watch a woman dying then you can see that on youtube but if you want to find out why and how she died you’ll probably have to go to the BBC, or some other reputable news source, or even blog.
And I’m sorry but in years to come we won’t remember Iran through TWITTER but through people who have carefully documented what happened, through news reports, photographs, videos, testimony and yes, social media. History is patched together through a myriad of sources, and prejudices, some more obvious than others.
Don’t be hanging up your camera just yet. It was a photograph of the Iranian woman’s face that I found staring out at me from the news-stands this morning.
Shocking.
REPSONSE
Stan B reflects:
I don’t usually do “these” videos. It had a graphic warning, but this time, for some reason, I unwittingly ignored it. And there was no amount of violent Hollywood desensitization that could have possibly prepared one. In seconds, the brutality of death overwhelmed the fragility of beauty, the promise of youth, and finally, the very thought of hope itself. It left no time for moral or meaning.
In an age when images rarely shock or move us, this one will forever haunt me. And when I again accidentally gazed upon the opening still later the same day, I realized why. She stares directly at us, knowingly or not, she confronts us and demands we bear witness to humanity’s long history of depraved indifference.
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I don’t usually do “these” videos. It had a graphic warning, but this time, for some reason, I unwittingly ignored it. And there was no amount of violent Hollywood desensitization that could have possibly prepared one. In seconds, the brutality of death overwhelmed the fragility of beauty, the promise of youth, and finally, the very thought of hope itself. It left no time for moral or meaning.
In an age when images rarely shock or move us, this one will forever haunt me. And when I again accidentally gazed upon the opening still later the same day, I realized why. She stares directly at us, knowingly or not, she confronts us and demands we bear witness to humanity’s long history of depraved indifference.