Thursday, January 21, 2010

Beauty

What makes war photography so beautiful is its ability to freeze a moment in time forever. "Well isn't that what a picture is anyways?" you may ask. It is. But with war photography, I've found that there is a certain peace in the ability to stop one particular moment in war. It's an ability to look at this moment with discerning human eyes. I've never been in the midst of war, but from what I've seen, you're not exactly given time to stop and process the inhumanity, or as some would argue, the humanity, of it all.

It is our duty to see pictures like these, to know the plights of our fellow human beings in different parts of the world. This photography inspires, and brings about change in the world.
War photography lets us take these dramatic/traumatic moments in time and analyze them in stillness. Whether they are viewed from a grainy computer screen, a print newspaper, or in a studio gallery, this isolation of time and space sharply contrasts the tragedies of war with our mundane lives. Figuratively, it stops the war for a short moment. Beauty can be found in this peace.
It's not tragedy for the sake of beauty, it's finding beauty in the tragedy.



Photo by Jehad Nga

2 comments:

Kelsie Lynn said...

I agree that his stuff has some pretty high contrast going on..but its pretty wonderful yeah.

the audio with image part is also cool

[PROOF enough?!]

redneckzilla said...

Nice niiiice.

War photography is sweet because it's everything men like. Dust, smoke, blood, bullets, manliness, heart wrenching pain, injustice, and maybe some sex in there.

Plus tanks.