War Photographer

The images that the photographer captures are so full of emotion and sadness but I do not know how he does it. He talks about how he has to gain the trust of his subjects in order to photograph them at such a difficult time and it is apparent that he has. When photographing them you would never be able to tell just by looking at the images that someone were that close to them. I found myself being annoyed at first thinking he was intruding on these peoples lives. It was so difficult to understand how someone could just stand there and photograph people who were obviously going through a devastating loss. To just stand there and snap away seemed insensitive to what these people were experiencing. As the video progressed I found my opinion starting to change and see that what he was doing may not be as horrible as I had originally thought.


After hearing him speak I began to understand him more. Even though he was given permission by these people to document such a difficult time in their lives I think it would still be hard to capture these moments. I would find myself wondering constantly if this is the right thing to do and I am not positive that I would be able to handle what I was seeing. I feel as if I would find myself emotionally attached to the people and I am not sure if they would help my work or take away from it. He mentioned in the video that during times of war things change. If this were any other time he would not be able to just go into someone’s home and photograph them dealing with their loss. I am not sure that I completely agree with him. I feel like in times of war it may be easier because these people are experiencing such devastating loss that they don’t notice as much the things that are going on around them. At this point they are just trying to survive. I am not saying experiencing a loss in any circumstance is easy but I feel like things dramatically change if you are still surrounded by the very things that caused your loss to happen in the first place.

Some of my favorite images were the ones of poverty in Indonesia. It blew me away seeing how these people live everyday right along side of the train tracks. There was one particular image of a little girl sweeping the tracks with a broom that really made me think about their living situation. This is their home and they are making the best of it. In the video they talk about how these people are not drug addicts but they are families who are trying to provide for one another and not having to pay rent will help them even more. It is not that I haven’t experienced seeing poverty before, because I have, but never of the magnitude that he photographed in Indonesia. It really opened by eyes up to what they have to live through everyday and they still seem to have a positive outlook on life and are grateful for the little that they do have.

Toward the end of the video they show him talking about pain. He compares it to asking a marathon runner if they feel pain. He replies, of course they do but its all about how you can handle that pain that matters. By hearing this it made me realize that he does care about the people and the situations that he chooses to photograph. After doing it for so long he has come to find a place that helps him deal with all the horrible things he witnesses. After watching the whole video and hearing him speak I really have a great respect for those who put their lives and sanity on the line to document such horrible things such as war.