The Boston Globe's outstanding Big Picture blog offers up some recent images from Iraq.Myself an amateur photographer, I've always taken a strong interest in photo reportage and the imagery of war. A powerful photograph will burn deep into a persons memory and not only outlast the most salient of arguments, but transcend it.
The War of Terror has like Vietnam before it been defined by the the imagery of photo journalists. Now with the democratisation of comment and ready access to tools such as camera phones, we also have the advent of the citizen journalist. This has given a striking new aesthetic to photo reportage from the worlds trouble spots, whether it be a US soldiers photographs of the Abu Gharib torture or a suicide bombers final words. This development is to be celebrated for imagery is essential in human understanding, especially in the complex psychological environment of war. But make no mistake, there will still always be space for the stark beauty and silent commentary which only the 'magic eye' of the photojournalist can generate and detect.
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