Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/01/20

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Real War
From: Adam Bridge <abridge@mac.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 15:34:04 -0800

On 1/20/03 Jeffery L. Smith  wrote:

>Are they the enemy, or is the idiot that is sending them out to get killed? 
>I think they are pawns. That you find their slaughter entertaining does not 
>surprise me a bit.

I had a rather different take on the meaning of his reply and "entertaining"
doesn't necessarily fit. It's possible not to be repelled by the photographs, in
fact it may be the normal reaction to them - images of dead on the battlefield
seldom convey the natures of their death. In that way they become a "cool"
medium not well suited.

I've seen enough photos of violent death that WERE repellent. Some of us from
the Vietnam era remember them all too well.

Normally I find Peter Turnley's work to be often be much more involving than the
set of images posted on "The Digital Journalist".

Curiously though I never thought of the Gulf War as being a "nintendo war." I
think, like the name Star Wars for the ABM effort, it is a cheat - dumbing down
a concept to make it an icon easy to manipulate.

Hopefully there will not need to be pool coverage of a war with Iraq but if such
coverage should be needed I hope it is done better. Perhaps it might be, if what
I heard on Nightline last Friday night is a good indication.

Adam Bridge
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