Almost everyone has taken a photo they wished later hadn’t happened. Maybe it was on a drunken spree with friends, or a vacation where it didn’t seem to matter. Perhaps you were caught making a funny face as you sneezed. There are a lot of embarrassing pictures floating around all over the Internet. We tend to laugh at them and move on.
Other pictures might have seemed okay when they were taken but didn’t age well. For example, those intimate pictures of you and your spouse felt loving and romantic when you took them. The day after the divorce is finalized, though, the pictures feel offensive. I’ve gotten take-down requests for such pictures multiple times over the years and, most of the time, I reluctantly oblige.
Life isn’t so simple for a photojournalist, however. They don’t have time to “set up” a shot. They don’t get to choose better-looking “models.” They don’t get to wait until the light is better, and they never have a full crew hanging around to make sure everyone looks their best. Photojournalists take the shot that’s in front of them. That’s all. They don’t run the subject past an editor first. They don’t have time to get permission from everyone involved. The moment happens, you take the shot. That’s the job.
Such appears to have been the case on October 7 last year when amateur photojournalist Ali Mahmud took a picture that won the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism‘s Photo of the Year. Nikon and the Associated Press jointly sponsor the award. In the midst of Hamas’ attack on a music festival being held in Israel, Mahmud snapped a photo that includes an image of the corpse of a German-Israeli citizen killed by Hamas terrorists. The image’s content is horrible, frightening, and offensive. However, the photographic quality is on point. The image provokes emotions and captures the reality of war. War is not pretty.
Plenty of people are upset that Mahmud won the award. They claim the photo dishonors the memory of the young woman killed. Some are protesting both the school and the sponsors of the award. Their opinion is that he is taking advantage of a person who was killed in this act of war.
Director of Photojournalism at the Missouri School of Journalism’s Reynolds Journalism Institute, Lynden Steele defends the decision: “The Reynolds Journalism Institute and Pictures of the Year strongly condemn the Hamas attack on October 7, and we continue to mourn the loss of innocent lives and human suffering that is occurring in the ongoing conflict. Reactions to the team Picture Story of the Year express the greater emotions related to that conflict. This year and every year, the photos in the competition are selected by a panel of professional journalists tasked with identifying compelling representations of the significant news events of the year. While we understand the reactions to the pictures, we also believe that photojournalism plays an important role in bringing attention to the harsh realities of war.”
Now, to be fair, there is some reasonable concern that Mahmud and those he was with (including a videographer) may have only been in the position to capture the photo because they had advance knowledge of the attacks. If they did have advance knowledge of the attacks, they had a responsibility to report those attacks. There’s not a lot of question on that matter. However, Mahmud denies having any such knowledge. He was just there, part of the crowd, as these horrible things happened in front of him.
Here’s the thing: war is offensive. From its start until its final cease-fire, there is nothing about war that is acceptable. To illustrate war with benign images of explosions from high above, pictures of warplanes flying in the sky, or even soldiers hiding safely behind a wall, is immoral because it removes the danger, the disregard for life, the utter destruction, and the gut-wrenching reality of war’s horrors. There is no way to adequately, honestly, sufficiently capture war without showing crushed, broken, bombed, shot, hung, and dishonored naked bodies of innocent people who didn’t ask to be involved in the conflict.
We don’t want photos of war that are so watered down that we can’t see the war. We need to be offended by war lest we accept it as a normal part of life. We need to be angry about those who initiate and those who perpetuate war. We need to be disturbed that there are people among us who find these detestable conditions acceptable. Anything less is immoral and makes us accessories after the fact to the murder and destruction taking place.
Yes, the photo makes my stomach turn. No, the young woman didn’t deserve what happened to her. Yes, this is a photo we need. We need to see what really happened. Words are not enough. We need the photo and it deserves the award.
No, I’m not going to show it to you.
Morning Update: 06/28/24
Before you bother asking, no, I didn’t watch the debate. I never do. There’s little point. First, there was no question from the beginning that the lies were going to be flying everywhere and by all accounts they were. Here is the AP list of lies. It’s not comprehensive because many of them were repeated in different forms throughout the night. Second, we have YouTube and other video sources now, so we don’t have to sit through all the punditry and pedantry of a live broadcast. From what I’ve seen this morning, President Biden looked a lot like Ronald Reagan did in ’88. The Orange Felon looked orange and spoke felonious. Third: Most people have already made up their minds and there’s little, if anything, that will change them. In that regard, the debates are merely moments of malarky. Are we good with that? Yes, I have my concerns, but they’re more at the state and Congressional level, not presidential (just yet).
If you’re wondering how my day went yesterday, I slept a lot, which wasn’t surprising at all given Wednesday’s fun activity. I woke up thinking I might be able to power through it, but by 7:30 I was back in bed and snoring. Nonetheless, the kids did finish mowing the yard and the construction crew finished enclosing the new house next door.
The moment of disappointment for the day came when there wasn’t a USPS morning scan email. In case you weren’t already aware, you can sign up to get an email notification of the mail expected to be delivered each day. This really helps when you’re expecting something valuable and/or important, such as a debit card. Unfortunately, there was no email yesterday which meant we didn’t have any new mail. No debit card. This is a problem because it has been 10 days since the card was ordered.
The letter containing the PIN for that card gave me the number to call and report the card missing. Of course, a missing card is a big deal. So, they had to cancel that card and issue me a new one. Fuck. Another wait. This time, they put a rush on the processing, so it should go into the mail today and be here by Monday. They kindly waived the standard rush fee since it’s already been 10 days and the other card never arrived. I’m sorry, but that means it will likely be Tuesday or Wednesday of next week before I can show you the pictures we took Wednesday.
What was entertaining is that the customer service person I had was quite happy. One of the first things she told me was that my name made her smile. She proceeded to call me “Mr. Let-Us-Be-Better” for the rest of the call. If that’s what shows up on my card, I’m not changing it. 😊 She hummed while she typed, and once was even singing along with a song I assume was playing either in the background or in her earbuds. Her positivity went a long way toward calming my anxiety about not having access to my funds, as meager as they are.
Reuters was kind enough to tell me that Fourth of July cookout costs in the US have risen by 5% this year over last year, and 30% over 2019. Meat and lemonade are the biggest factors there. I was able to catch a rack of ribs on sale earlier this month, so that’s sitting in the freezer. Hopefully, the few other things we’ll need won’t cost too much more, especially since it will likely just be me and the kids. It’s going to be too loud and chaotic in the neighborhood for Kat. In fact, I wouldn’t blame her if she ran and hid for the whole week. Our neighbors tend to start “celebrating” early.
Processing this morning’s picture reminded me that it’s been 14 years since I was last out on the West Coast. This lack of travel thing is starting to get to me. Wednesday’s adventure was fun and really hit at my inert wanderlust. I’m ready to go trekking into whatever wilderness, urban or jungle. Yet, flying with chemo is apparently a problem and Social Security gets upset if I’m out of the state for more than two weeks of the month. I’m sure there’s a solution out there somewhere, but my brain is too addled to think of anything that isn’t filled with prohibitions. Feel free to help me out there.
There’s rain in the forecast. The skies to the West looked dark and menacing when I took the dogs out earlier. Storms are in the forecast for Sunday as well. That will make for an interesting start to “Blow Your Brains Out” week. The rain might prevent houses from catching fire, but it won’t do much to keep digits from being blown off. We’ve been doing the whole fireworks thing long enough you’d think folks would have learned by now that black powder and stupidity don’t mix well. Yet, every year, emergency rooms fill up with too many examples of “watch this” syndrome and “we didn’t expect that” disease.
My stomach wants me to eat but it’s another hour before I can check my glucose. We don’t really have anything for breakfast, anyway. We’re out of bread, bacon, and cereal. Eggs by themselves don’t cut it. Maybe I’ll just eat leftovers from the other night.
Feel free to amuse me.
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