We've all heard the worn-out clich: "a picture is worth a thousand words". It may be an overused expression, but when you see a great photograph, it's impossible to argue with. Photography can be a truly powerful medium, both when it is used purely as an artistic tool, and when it is used to document important events taking place in the world. It is the practice of photojournalism, however, that has produced the most profound, insightful and emotive images. The most powerful shots crystallise moments in history and either open the eyes of the world to suffering and injustice or symbolise hope for the future.
Photographers who work in warzones or other scenes of human misery such as natural disasters often find themselves in a complex moral quandary. They are there in a journalistic capacity, and their job is to document what they see rather than involve themselves in the situation. The flipside of showing important images to the world is that photographers watch terrible things unfold without intervening. This may seem like a job for someone lacking in compassion, but photographers routinely risk their own lives, and many have been shot at, kidnapped and killed in the field.
The photo that perhaps best encapsulates the moral dilemmas faced by journalists, whilst also conveying the risks they take, was taken by Nick Ut in Vietnam in 1972. It depicts a group of Vietnamese children fleeing a US napalm attack, with a naked, screaming girl named Kim Phuc at the centre of the image. The photo made a global impact, graphically illustrating the suffering being caused at the hands of the American military, and further galvanizing the anti-war movement.
World-changing photos aren't only taken by journalists. In 1941, an SS soldier captured an image now known as The Last Jew of Vinnista. Discovered in one of his personal albums after the war, this sickening image shows a gaunt Jewish man sat on the edge of a pit of dead bodies, with a guard stood behind him with a gun to his head. All 28,000 Ukranian Jews from the city of Vinnista were killed during WWII.
Whilst photos like these derive their power from their brutal representation of humanity at its worst, images that convey the beauty and promise of the human condition can have just as much impact. Fast forward to the end of WWII, in which so many millions of lives were lost, and behold US Marine photographer Joe Rosenthal's iconic shot of four of his colleagues struggling to raise the American flag on Mount Suribachi in Japan. It was taken under heavy enemy fire, and perfectly conveys the courage of the soldiers fighting for a cause they were profoundly committed to. Whilst some may feel this image is tarnished by America's neo-imperial behaviour in recent times, it nevertheless shows what the ideal of freedom meant to the 4 individuals in the frame, as well as the man behind the camera.
Photographers who work in warzones or other scenes of human misery such as natural disasters often find themselves in a complex moral quandary. They are there in a journalistic capacity, and their job is to document what they see rather than involve themselves in the situation. The flipside of showing important images to the world is that photographers watch terrible things unfold without intervening. This may seem like a job for someone lacking in compassion, but photographers routinely risk their own lives, and many have been shot at, kidnapped and killed in the field.
The photo that perhaps best encapsulates the moral dilemmas faced by journalists, whilst also conveying the risks they take, was taken by Nick Ut in Vietnam in 1972. It depicts a group of Vietnamese children fleeing a US napalm attack, with a naked, screaming girl named Kim Phuc at the centre of the image. The photo made a global impact, graphically illustrating the suffering being caused at the hands of the American military, and further galvanizing the anti-war movement.
World-changing photos aren't only taken by journalists. In 1941, an SS soldier captured an image now known as The Last Jew of Vinnista. Discovered in one of his personal albums after the war, this sickening image shows a gaunt Jewish man sat on the edge of a pit of dead bodies, with a guard stood behind him with a gun to his head. All 28,000 Ukranian Jews from the city of Vinnista were killed during WWII.
Whilst photos like these derive their power from their brutal representation of humanity at its worst, images that convey the beauty and promise of the human condition can have just as much impact. Fast forward to the end of WWII, in which so many millions of lives were lost, and behold US Marine photographer Joe Rosenthal's iconic shot of four of his colleagues struggling to raise the American flag on Mount Suribachi in Japan. It was taken under heavy enemy fire, and perfectly conveys the courage of the soldiers fighting for a cause they were profoundly committed to. Whilst some may feel this image is tarnished by America's neo-imperial behaviour in recent times, it nevertheless shows what the ideal of freedom meant to the 4 individuals in the frame, as well as the man behind the camera.
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