War Photographer

At the beginning of the “War Photographer” video, it seemed as though Jim was very disconnected from his subjects. The manner in which the video was filmed made it seem as though there was an invisible barrier between the photographer and the subjects that he was shooting. At first, it was hard for me to understand how someone could put themselves into situations of starvation and genocide and intense pain and seemingly feel nothing about the people that are his subjects. I also thought that he may have been standing further away from the people than the video camera angle made it seem. He seemed to be right in front of them in a really emotional moment, and they didn’t even seem to notice him.

As the video went on, I learned that as he stated, “In times of war, normal codes of civilized behavior are suspended. It would be unthinkable to document people grieving in normal times.” But because the times that he is photographing in are far from normal, these people have come to trust him to document the hardships that they are going through. He is far from distant (as I had originally thought.) He is the voice of people who have become victims, and he is being trusted to share their story. He hopes to bring about change, and I thought that was very powerful.

Something that I found to be especially gripping about this video was the fact that looking at the pictures by themselves created a powerful image, but when I heard the story behind them they seemed to be turned into more for me. I read a book called “An Ordinary Man” about the genocide in Rwanda. It was the true story about the man who inspired the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” I think that often times someone can be told that “Between April 6 and July 4, when the Tutsi rebel army captured the capital of Kigali , approximately eight hundred thousand Rwandans were slaughtered. That’s eight thousand lives a day. More than five lives per minute.” Being told something like this is hard for someone like me to comprehend, but seeing the photos taken in Rwanda and thinking about the book made the tragedy that already touched me take a new life. The fact that his images are places in magazines alongside the stories of the people in them is very powerful to me. I also thought that the fact that Jim took photos of the people that had been massacred and then weeks late took photos of the people who most likely did the killing dying themselves was also very interesting.

When Jim started talking about the photos he had taken of people dying of starvation in Africa, I found this to be the most gripping portion of the video. For a larger part of the video I wondered how someone could witness this much pain and need without getting lost in the desire to do something about it. It wasn’t until almost the end of the video that I realized he is doing something about it. Jim is bringing attention to topics and people all across the world in countries including our own. He is creating an awareness that needs to created, and he is providing images that make something that is incomprehensible—something that people can begin to wrap their heads around. He spoke of the starvation in Africa. As he did so, he made a point of saying that people need to know that the people being photographed are the ones that are receiving aid. They are not simply people who are starving that are photographed and then walked away from. I think this fact was supposed to provide comfort to the viewer, but walking away from this video I feel haunted by that fact. The people in these photographs were receiving aid and food, but they looked like skeletons shrouded in skin. There was an image of a toddler who was lying next to what looked to be a family member who had died. If this is what the people who are in feeding centers look like, what condition is everyone else in? Jim said that, “famines are the oldest weapon of mass extermination and one of the most effective.” I am left with the images of these people, and I think I will be for a long time to come.