Welcome to Spring Term 2024

Welcome in new term. During the semester break, while I was in Poland, I watched a movie called The Hurt Locker. It presents the war in Iraq and how it looks like from the perspective of an American soldier. As I served in the army a few years ago, and my nephew and brother are serving now, it forced me to reflect. I personally know many people who were there, including my brother, who saw the horrors of the war with their own eyes.

"The Hurt Locker"

One of the most famous photographers of the Iraq War is Christopher Anderson.

He is the first photographer-in-residence for New York Magazine. He worked for Agency VII, for which he took photos, among others, in Iraq. Over the next two decades, Anderson would rise to the status of one of the world’s top war photographers, chronicling Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine (Seymour, 2021).Since 2005 he has been associated with one one of the biggest and most influential cooperatives in the world: Magnum Photos.

Christopher Anderson Soldiers wait out a sandstorm listening to BBC

He spent a very large part of his life in a war zone and he was very involved in his work.Ordered to the world’s far corners on contract for Newsweek and National Geographic, the Canadian-born, Texas-raised photographer had spent years lensing conflict and national upset – instilled with a responsibility to capture people he doesn’t know and sometimes can’t relate to, to visually journal their bitter stories for the sake of reportage (Pistachio, 2022).

The risk Anderson took was enormous because it is very easy to get injured or even die in a war zone, even if you are just a reporter. Many journalists were injured or killed, such as Waldemar Milewicz, a Polish war journalist who died in the shelling of a convoy from Baghdad to Karbala. This shows the risk photographers take to show the world the truth and report events from anywhere in the world, even the most dangerous ones. 

Photography is not only about sessions of models and celebrities, but also about risk and showing the truth, even the uncomfortable one. Even though these photos are terrifying, they are also necessary. Beautiful war photographs may seem like a moral oxymoron. Can something so ugly be depicted with beauty?(Lubow, 2022)

It is a mission that few people undertake, but from the perspective of history it is the most important.

References

Bayley, B. “The Way Christopher Anderson Sees the World Is Amazing.” Vice.com, Vice, 21 Mar. 2013, www.vice.com/en/article/9bn748/christopher-anderson-interview. Accessed 8 Jan. 2024.

Matthews, K. “Fair Game: An Interview with Christopher Anderson — GUP.” Web.archive.org, 21 Jan. 2018, web.archive.org/web/20180121000019/www.gupmagazine.com/articles/fair-game-an-interview-with-christopher-anderson. Accessed 8 Jan. 2024.

Pistachio, G. “Christopher Anderson: The War Photographer Who Turned His Lens to Family.” AnOther, 16 Nov. 2022, www.anothermag.com/art-photography/14522/christopher-anderson-marion-interview. Accessed 8 Jan. 2024.

Seymour, T. “Industry Insights with Le Book: Christopher Anderson on Understanding Why You Take Photographs - 1854 Photography.” Www.1854.Photography, 13 Oct. 2021, www.1854.photography/2021/10/industry-insights-with-le-book-christopher-anderson-on-understanding-why-you-take-photographs-studio/. Accessed 8 Jan. 2024.

Lubow, A. “Has War Changed, or Only War Photography?” The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/arts/design/war-photography-addario-capa-icp-sva.html. Accessed 8 Jan. 2024.