november 29--14:00 to 15:00 (darkroom)

[zyzyly]

2:08 pm--in the darkroom, shortly before watching a film on how photojournalists covered the Vietnam war. Here is what I learned--the way Vietnam was covered is nothing like the way this current war is covered. Maybe Iraq wouldn't seem such an abstract thing to most Americans if photojournalists were allowed to document it as it really is, and not be restricted to tightly controlled and sanitized "photo ops". Do you ever wonder why that is?

Comments

[lavidamd.livejournal.com]

Very interesting picture. I looked at it for a long time.

[lowflyingsquab.livejournal.com]

the interesting thing about it for me (other than that I actually was able to take a picture in the darkroom), is that there are 3 other people in there with me, and they were all pretty much oblivious to the fact that I was taking a series of pictures.

[aboutlooking.livejournal.com]

yes

[lowflyingsquab.livejournal.com]

me too.

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't wonder why that is. Viet Nam was the first war where television was a dominant force in our daily life. Photographs of war and battlefields have been around since Matthew Brady's images from the Civil War. However, seeing bodies moving -- or not moving when they should be moving -- was bad enough. Seeing it all in your living room night after night after night was just too much.

The president knew he'd lost the war when he'd lost Walter Cronkite. That was the power of the new medium.

It was also a serious loss of control that the military was unwilling to lose control over again.

As such, in every war/conflict/police action since, the media has been very, very tightly controled. It's the military's way of attempting to control the types of messages that get out.

It's also exactly what a Democracy does not need.

(excuse me while I step down from my soap box now)

...

[fried-pearl.livejournal.com]

I know exactly why that is. Same reason they don't allow the press at Dover when the fallen soldiers come in.

[purple7luv.livejournal.com]

i do.

[brendamom.livejournal.com]

I love the mysterious look of the photo and the fact that it is what you do.

[cianxylona.livejournal.com]

i think that its pretty much the way that bush has run everything surrounding himself. like during the last election campaign only supporters were allowed to his speaking events etc. i seem to remember people wearing t-shirts protesting the war were summarily thrown out.

bush sees only what he wishes to see...and he hopes the same for us. it's what scares me the most about him...well, and that his "i'm so righteously right how can i ever be wrong"...attitude.

[daily-in-la.livejournal.com]

ooh, did you see some of his work?

Philip Jones Griffiths

[(Anonymous)]

I’m not sure there is enough coffee out there to cover all the faucets of the conversation this inspires. This is an amazing shot. I thought about it all day. Your commentary called up memories of a conversation I was fortunate enough to have years ago with a well known photo journalist of WWII. His take was that, though a huge part, it wasn’t just the government’s restrictions that were the problem. At the time (Gulf War era) he felt that many of the then current batch of photojournalists looked for more marketable opportunities. They had lost sight of their purpose for taking the picture in the first place. Sensationalism sells, disturbing does not. Those who want to push the envelope, who are compelled to record what is really going on and push past government controls– will. ~A