Can You Ever Find Balance In War?

Photographers assigned in war zones and conflict areas grapple with the question of balance on a daily basis, finding it difficult at times to stay unbiased and objective in the grim realities of the bloody battles.

Deputy editor Diane Smith of the British Journal of Photography says war photography is a difficult field in which it’s sometimes hard -and maybe not even right – to remain objective. But it’s much better to see emotive images that prick our otherwise lazy consciences than to see nothing at all and forget, she said.

Smith wrote down her thoughts in reaction to the article “Under Fire” by BJP’s seasoned war photographers Stanley Greene and Bruno Stevens in which the latter stated, “The majority of photographers who covered the conflict were in a state of rage because it wasn’t a war, it was organized massacre,” referring to the recent Israel-Lebanon war.

[Via: BJPonline.com]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.