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In her essay “Regarding the Pain of Others”, Sontag talks about how war photographs and other forms of remembrance–such as war memorials and paintings–alter our wartime memories. In responding to Sontag’s complex meditation on modification of memory through objects of remembrance, writers from College Writing at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), used a perspective Sontag offers–such as, beauty in war photos, or the role of shock – to analyze, critically, her essay in the light of a specific context.
Sontag in one of her interviews states that no academic discussion on her writing is complete without an investigation into the photographs she refers to. So each writer incorporated in their response to Sontag’s writing, two to three pictures of a photographer whose work Sontag refers to in the course of her discussion on war photography. The student’s own analysis acted as a meeting ground that brought together the essay and the photographs, thereby, making each piece of writing an active dialog between Sontag, war photograph’s, and the writer’s own voice.
This process of inquiry illuminated the student’s understanding on war, memory, and writing, and pushed the boundaries of what an academic piece of writing can achieve. I hope you enjoy reading these pieces of art as much as my students loved putting them together.

Posted by Shaz at 7:54 PM 0 comments  

Although there are no official statistics, I can tell from experience that almost every American recognizes the events that took place on September the 11th 2001. Articles, documentaries, and textbooks help us remember the attacks against New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
In her essay Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag states, “Photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what a society chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about.” (261). So does society remember the attacks collectively by the picture of the World Trade Center being hit by a plane? The attacks harbored impressions so deep that at any moment most Americans, on being questioned about where they were when the towers were hit, will be able to answer with vivid description those everyday details otherwise forgotten or relegated to the background. Each person has a personal memory of the attacks, “individual and irreproducible dying with each person.” (261). “When the first plane hit I was at my desk, and like just about everyone else, I assumed it was an accident,”1 says New York construction worker Benjamin Levy, who witnessed the towers being hit by the planes. Others were not able to witness the attacks with their own eyes. Many have been cited as immediately feeling as if New York was attacked. Dawn Prince, a supermarket worker in the south recalls “some crazy…must have pushed the button somewhere and some kind of war has started.” 2 Many had not seen the footage of the attack. “I didn't believe them. C'mon, I mean what are the chances of a plane not seeing a huge towering building looming in front of it and then crashing into it?” 3
Sontag states that there can be no collective memory, but collective instruction. Society is ‘taught’ through dialogue and photography to perceive an event or person, and photographs when conjoined with a strong sense of personal emotion often give this learning a status of memory. What actually happens is an alteration of the personal memorscape; the members of society associate something personal in their lives with the more sweeping tragedy. Through this sort of associative remembrance collective memory extends into and influences personal memories. Interviews conducted on 9/11 as well as other American wars stand testimony to this transformation.
Only a third grade student when the attacks took place, I too can recall the day very vividly. The first picture I can see is of the speaker on the wall, where the unusually weakened voice of my principal came over the loudspeaker announcing indoor recess because of a swarm of bees on the playground. I came home to a picture on the television that remembered the death of pilot John Ogonowski whose plane had been overtaken and crashed into one of the towers. The screen was maroon, with a portrait of an esteemed pilot in the corner, a rolling white marquee of cursive white text honoring a national hero. Later that night, after my father told me about Osama bin Laden, I remember for the first time seeing the face of a villain. No crashes. No fire. What remained with me was a face that altered my memory of the day: the deflated voice of my principal, the picture on the television: all of it acquired meaning. Over my childhood and adolescent years, the media telecast of 9/11 and the news reports on the war in Iraq–the hunt for that face–continued to tweak my memories of the day. A reading of Sontag, and the photographs I researched, altered my personal memory of that tragic day, filling it with a previously absent sense of loss. This, to me, is a case of the fusion between the collective and the personal.
War causes displacement. And displacement both creates and disrupts history–a sentiment that Anne Michaels captures in her novel, “The Winter Vault”. When, Avery, the protagonist, builds a dam over the Nile, he displaces an entire village, relocates the centuries old temple of Aswan, and changes the ancient course of the river. His project is causing displacement, it is disrupting history, laments, Avery, for the history of humans is not the history of land, it is the history of water–civilizations in the past, Babylonian or Harappa, thrived along rivers. He adds6:

Each river has its own distinct recipe for water; its own chemical intimacies. Silt, animal waste, paint from the hulls of the boats, soil carried on skin and clothes and feathers, human spit, human hair…Looking out at the river, Avery was pained to imagine the force with which it would soon by bound…Each year, for thousands of years, swollen with waters from Ethiopia, the Nile offered her intense fertility to the desert. But now this ancient cycle would end…Instead there would be a massive reservoir reshaping the land…enough water would disappear into the air to have made fertile for farming more than two million acres…the (lost) silt, like the river, also had its own unique intimacies, a chemical wisdom that had been refining itself for millennia. To Avery, the Nile silt was like flesh, it held not only a history but a heredity. Like a species, it would never again be known on this earth.

Yet, that which is displaced survives and is remembered, through photographic accounts. Visual learning becomes the glue that unites societal perception of the attacks. “Ideologies create substantiating archives of images, representative images,” Sontag states, “which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts, feelings.” (259). In September 2006 the Huffington Post hosted a contest where anonymous writers shared their reactions upon visiting Ground Zero. One visitor from Australia writes, “Before this visit I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of the situation… it was all images on TV, photos.” 5

Umberto Eco in an essay describes how the accounts of Baudolino–a 12th century historian who traveled through Europe in its dark ages–have been condemned to the status of lies. His accounts were words. But a photograph, in the finite space of four corners, freezes a moment into truth – there is no denying the evidence a photograph provides. This leads me to wonder: how did documentation and historical evidence change after photography was invented? What was it like before the first photograph? Words from Winter Vault come to mind7: “The earliest churches were just enclosed spaces…I think what really changed Christianity was when someone first put a chair in that space. People no longer felt the ground when they prayed.”
Like the chair Michaels talks of, photography placed a first visual motif on the act of record keeping. This at times has the effect of removing viewers from the “ground”, Ground Zero, or the other realities the photographs chooses to aesthetically capture. It is in both keeping the chair and a feel of the ground – the elevated beauty and the humbling reality – that a war photographs achieves its dual purpose, as Sontag says, of artistic beauty and documentation; it fulfills its goals of eliciting an emotional response and adding to the collective consciousness.
Joel Meyerowitz, acclaimed photographer, was granted rights to unrestricted documentation of Ground Zero, only days after the attacks took place. Meyerowitz was born in New York and practiced street photography while he was still in his growing stages as a photographer, both of which led to his interest in documenting ground zero after the attacks. One landscape7 he captured shows just a stream of a hose feebly attempting to extinguish the smoke from the wreckage. Rubble stacks as high as some of the surrounding buildings while heavy machinery works to remove it. Yet in the background a taller building still stands, reflecting the sun’s light. Common belief is that the city was shut down following the attacks, represented by the photo’s foreground. As Sontag says, “the site itself, the mass graveyard that had received the name Ground Zero, was of course anything but beautiful.” (258) Yet the background provides a light, a hope for the future of the city. Former assistant secretary of state Beers says, “We needed to depict not in words, but in pictures—the loss, the pain, but also the strength and resolve of New York, of Americans, of the world community to recover and rebuild on the site of the World Trade Center.”4
Another photo8 shows an aging New York firefighter, ash lining his helmet and sweatshirt while he stops from his grueling job to pose quickly for Meyerowitz. Despite the grim nature of his job, this particular firefighter manages to muster a smile. Cloudy are the man’s eyes, unsure of how to respond to the situation; he does not expect to photographed, nor does he expect to be considered a hero. The day this photo was taken was just another day at work for this particular firefighter. These pictures, as Meyerowitz describes, portrays the “physical, more human” side of Ground Zero. Sontag claims that “photographs tend to transform whatever their subject; and as an image something may be beautiful.” (258). Indeed, until the firefighter stares into his own eyes in this portrait, he may never realize his heroism for his contributions to Ground Zero.

Montage
Three photos9: a staircase leading to nowhere, rubble covered over the prints of office sandals, shoes, and galoshes; a wrecked desk, the back of a chair looking over a broken window into melting buildings, those papers strewn on the desk, symbols of a work started, left unfinished; a mother tickling her baby even as, across the Brooklyn bridge, the World Trade Center smokes its way down to the earth.
An epitaph to these photographs, words from Winter Vault8
How much of the earth is flesh?
This is not meant metaphorically. How many humans have been “committed to earth”? From the emergence of Homo Erectus…or from the elaborate graves…in New South Wales, interred forty thousand years ago...Shall we being to investigate from before the last ice age…or with Cro-Magnon man, a period from which we have inherited a wealth of archeological evidence but of course no statistical data. Or, for the sake of statistical “certainty” alone, shall we begin to count the dead from about two centuries ago, when the first census records were kept? Posed as a question, the problem is too elusive; perhaps it must remain a statement:
How much of the earth is flesh.


Bibliography
Text
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. Other Words.

6-8: Michaels, Ann. Winter Vault. 2009, Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Interview snippets
1-3: Kelly, Alan. Levy, Benjamin. Prince, Dawn Gale. "Memories of 9/11." 2004. Barking Moonbat. Web. 10 October 2011.
4: Kennedy, Liam. “Photography as Cultural Diplomacy”. 21 March 2003. Wiley Online Library. Web. 10 October 2011
5: Anonymous. "9/11 Reactions." 10 September 2010. Huffington Post. Web. 10 October.

Photographs
7-8: Meyerowitz, Joel: “Aftermath: WTC Archive”.179-302. Web. Images. 2003-2006.
9: Time LightBox. “9/11: The Photographs That Moved Them Most”. 1-22. Web. Images. 8 September 2011.

Posted by Shaz at 1:44 PM 0 comments  

“When DaVinci gives instructions for a battle painting, he insists that artists have the courage and imagination to show all war in its ghastliness” (p.1). The idea of artistic detachment is a significant one throughout “Regarding the Pain of Other”. Sontag states that an artist must portray the reality of a situation in a manner that provokes the emotions of the viewers.
One major tool the author uses to make this point evident is the use of the word beauty. Many see beauty as it clearly is defined: something that is both stimulating and aesthetically pleasing. In the essay, Sontag goes against the grain and says that this beauty can be found in war photography, and makes some very valid arguments to support her thesis. It is true that beauty can be found in a war photo, and Sontag insists that beauty can also be found in other things that are not so obvious such as pain, suffering and grief. The events of 911, and Ground Zero are things Sontag stresses on to validate her point. “Photographs tend to transform, whatever their subject; and as an image something may be beautiful-or terrifying, or unbearable, or quite bearable- as it not in real life” (p.2). There is a clear effort here to make it palpable to the reader that things aren’t so black and white with photography; there is often a gray area involved.
A related example, although not stated in the essay, is one concerning religion. Certain religions find beauty in death as opposed to a feared view of it; they see it not as the end but the beginning of an even more beautiful journey, and this can be related to the images of death being captured in a photo, and then being called beautiful. In the Hindu religion, its believers practice of Dharma to be liberated from Samsara. In short, they look forward to death, in order to be liberated from this cycle of reincarnation, which is called Moksha. Here you can see that the followers of Hinduism are markedly trying to emancipate themselves from this cycle. With other religions, a common thread among Christianity, Judaism and Islam is that they all believe in an “afterlife” which is timeless, peaceful and is the ultimate goal as the result of living a moral life. Religion can epitomize that there is no right answer, view, outlook or feeling for someone to have in regards to death and Sontag does a great job of exemplifying this through her explanation of war photography. “That a gory landscape can be beautiful-in a sublime or awesome or tragic register of the beautiful- is a commonplace of images about war made by artists” (p.1). This quote relates directly towards religion; religion covers the topics that are sublime, awesome and tragic, and shows how in that the beauty is then found. Both war photography and religion are both conveyable to life so the connection between the two, although a few layers deep beneath the obvious, is a link worth uncovering.
More support for this idea would be a situation where a sacrifice is made. A not so common, but not unrealistic portrayal of sacrifice could be a husband jumping in front of a bullet to save his wife’s life, just out of pure love and affection. Beauty can be found because the love, sacrifice and devotion was there, and although the husband got hurt and sad feelings are in play for all parties, love and beauty will always trump sadness and grief.
Similarly, this essay talks about how “impact” and “shock” are major factors in regards to the pain of others. A very real portrayal of this is the section of the piece where she discusses smokers and cigarette boxes. This is a tricky one because there are a lot of factors psychologically that come into play: addiction, “shock”, guilt and neuro-marketing are just a few. “For photographs to accuse, and possibly to alter conduct, they must shock” (p. 4). When she talks about the study group of smokers that were exposed to cigarette boxes with images of cancerous lungs on them as opposed to just a verbal warning, 60% more of the people were inspired to quit. “But for how long, how long does shock last?” (p. 4) Sontag questions. This is where the difficulty comes into play, and the answers one may never know. It is certain, however, that images do shock and they do provoke a certain mentality~ regardless of the butterfly effect. So to elicit this message to its maximum potential, the photographer, or artist, must be one hundred percent detached so others can shock and grieve.
One man has taken it upon himself to fulfill that duty and that is he photographer Gilles Peress. He exemplifies war photography extremely well in the way of shock and could not seem to be more detached and heartless. In the album Nyarubuye massacre site in Rwanda, Africa, Peress’ photo album makes him seem callous as an artist. The first photo I chose is extremely graphic, repulsive and most importantly shocking. It shows two dead bodies lying curled next to each other, still partially clothed. The exposed parts are what make it really brutal. One’s bones are completely barren while the other’s still has visibly rotting flesh hanging off of it’s bones. They seem to be in a ditch, most likely thrown in there, where the ground is part mud and part puddle. Insects seem to be lurking and flying around which makes the viewer almost imagine the smell floating out of this ditch. This is photo is very important to support Sontag’s argument because every summer, my dad and I clean the pool for swimming enjoyment. Every so often we come across a dead rabbit, mouse, and always a bunch of frogs in the filtration system. The first time the smell was so rancid I almost yakked. Yet after doing it one time, after jumping that first hurdle, I found the cleaning to become as easy as blinking. The lucid smell remains in my head when the thought of dead flesh comes about, but its not something intolerable. Sontag says something similar in her essay: “Does shock have term limits”? (p.4). This is definitely a problem for many photographic artists today. Can their message really get across to people, and if they do, for how long? The point of them are to impact, and ultimately reveal beauty so the artist must be very picky and concise when it come to their work. Overall, the photographer does a careful job of being clear and prompts the viewer to make a connection of this sight with a smell, henceforth making the photo a shocking, relatable reality.
The second photo I chose is one that shows something less shocking, yet still is an image that provokes the viewer to have a certain emotion. This one, for me, helps me connect to what Sontag was talking about in regards to finding beauty in photographs. It has a very triumphant nature, and shows the people of Rwanda persevering and continuing life even in a time of war. Whether the people are doing daily tasks and retrieving water, or moving their location to a safe haven, what is important is that it shows peoples persistent nature and shows the best in human nature. This image reminded me of the part in the essay where it speaks about how people can take an image and find themselves in a portion of it. whether is be something they fear or something they like about themselves. I found this photo to be inspiring and evoking; It makes me want to persist and continue with whatever struggles I’m having in my life and I think that was the photographer’s intent.
Lastly, I chose and image of Peress’ that I found to be a very interesting combination of both shock and beauty. The image is that of a boy who has clearly been injured due to a fight, battle or beating, and has now lived on, recovered and found safe haven. At first you think the image to be a bit gruesome but within moments you can see the boy is alright and has survived. It makes me feel like it’s a horror story preceding the success story.
Overall I chose Peress’ photography because I thought he had an interesting mix of photos yet at the same they all had a common thread (they were all black and white and they were all from the same year, place and event). I felt his photography was (although seemingly heartless and detached as it should be) very left open for interpretation-which was a good thing. Artists must evoke the viewer to think and formulate an opinion of some sort. To describe Gilles Peress’ photography in a nutshell, he does it very well himself and puts it simply in his own words: "I don't care so much anymore about 'good photography'; I am gathering evidence for history". And that’s precisely what he’s done; he’s provided images as evidence for this horrid event, which we would not have necessarily known was horrid unless we had viewed Peress’ photos. His photos were heedfully taken and have a clear form of semblance about them; you can tell it’s not just a bunch of random photographs that anybody could have taken with a disposable Kodak.
The central message from both Sontag and Giles Peress’ photos were that regardless of the event, photo or purpose, a photo needs to do only a few simple things: they must have an effect, shock, be open for interpretation and display beauty of some sort. The main purpose of photography, similar to that of literature, it to have an audience and provide a certain central message or theme. The means by which an artist accomplishes this is up to them to decide; yet their work will not have purpose unless they can connect to their audience by shock and beauty, and all the while they must stay detached, as cold-hearted as it may make them out to be.

Posted by Shaz at 1:47 PM 0 comments  

Our mind is a vast space that enables us to store multitudes of things. One of the main things we accumulate in the brain are pictures. Pictures stimulate our memory allowing us to remember past occurrences. Photos leave the events captured still in time open to interpretation. Photos such as: the Nazi Death Camps, War in Bosnia or My Lai Massacre. They all can be described very vividly but the truth behind the photos is not entirely clear. Pictures are only a way to remember theses past events. As we advance further in our technology we are losing our ability to understand what the photos really mean and the truth of these events can become terribly misconstrued. “Regarding the Pain of Others” is a creatively crafted piece that has been extremely effective in teaching me how to not only remember through pictures but how to understand the background of pictures. The Nazi Death Camp, Bosnia War and My Lai Massacre photos evoke great emotion and I interpret them as horrible occurrences. Yet, I still need to look further into understanding the events captured in those frames; my interpretations alone do not tell the whole story.
Some of the World War II photos taken by Margaret White were of Buchenwald[*]. There are eighteen men young and old standing behind a rusty barbed wire fence with a myriad of looks on their faces. A few of the men look angry and others looked in a weird way, relieved. Behind the men there is a building that resembles a barn with the two front doors left open that stands on the same muddy ground as them. The men look fine to me, other than the fact that the barbed wire fence indicates they’re imprisoned. They must have done something wrong that would justify their imprisonment. On April 8, 1945 Margaret Bourke-White was with the General Patton’s Army when they liberated the Buchenwald and took this photograph. The eighteen men White photographed were all Jews. They were in fact all imprisoned, but for what? They were imprisoned because of the mere fact the they were Jewish; imagine being jailed and killed for who you are when there is nothing you can do to change your heritage. The Jewish men had done nothing wrong they were just rounded up, imprisoned and killed. The photos described by Sontag of the My Lai Massacre are just as confusing. When I looked at them I believed that the American soldiers attacked the enemy in an effort to win the Vietnam War. However, once I have read the real story I understand that the soldiers deliberately murdered 500 unarmed civilians. Also, Sontag wrote:
“They (the pictures) became important in bolstering the opposition to a war which was far from inevitable, far from intractable, and could have been stopped much sooner. Therefore one could feel an obligation to look at theses pictures, gruesome as they were, because there was something to be done, right now, about what they depicted(Sontag 263).”
The understanding of photographs adds a whole other dimension to their meaning. Apart from the description of what actually occurred there were larger effects because of the photos. The photos raised public outcry and prompted people more to join the fight to end the standoff Vietnam War. I could have never known this without that insight. Because I knew of the difficulty American soldiers had determining their enemy in Vietnam because of the thick bush and guerilla style warfare the Vietcong employed. In addition, I was not alive during the time period to experience the reaction to the gruesome photos. These descriptions shed light on what really happened and allow me to understand the injustice suffered that my eyes could not decipher. Otherwise, my eyes would have cheated me into thinking that the My Lai Massacre was a killing of the enemy that could be easily justified. And that all the Jewish people were jailed during a time of war for committing crimes or being held prisoners of war by the enemy.Night. The Jewish people are still there because they have nowhere to go and everything was taken from them; the devastation of war had destroyed everything they once knew. In addition, I read the description of a photo from the war in Bosnia. Sontag wrote,
“ The image is stark, one of the most enduring of the Balkan wars: a Serb militiaman casually kicking a dying Muslim woman in the head. It tells you everything you need to know(263).”
A description from the photographer does tell me everything; the photo was taken in Bijeljina in April 1992 in the first month of the Serb invasion; the militiaman is smoking out of his left hand; his rifle is in his right hand; his right is drawn back ready to kick the Muslim woman in the head. By just looking at the photo I could have never derived any of this information. I have never seen this photo but the image the description creates in my head of blatant disrespect and inhumanity is ridiculous. If I had a gun I might have aimed the crosshairs right to the militiaman’s forehead and blasted him into eternity. The description evoked such raw emotion and a sense of sorrow for the dying woman that I wanted to do something about it. However, these emotions and images I drew up in still tell me nothing about the story behind the picture. This allows me to say the second sentence of the quote is completely false. The photos cannot tell you everything because the photos are open to my interpretation. There are two finite detail given in the first sentence and they tell me only of what nationality the people are. Similarly the photo of the blockhouse only allows me to describe finite details of the people’s surroundings. There is now way for me to tell who or where they are, or what exactly happened to everyone in either photo.
“As Hannah Arendt pointed out soon after the end of the Second World War, all the photographs and newsreels of the concentration camps are misleading because they show camps at the moment the Allied troops marched in. What makes the images unbearable- the pile of corpses, the skeletal survivors- was not at all typical for the camps, which, when they were functioning, exterminated their inmates systematically (by gas, not starvation and illness), then immediately cremated them(261).”
Sontag’s words clearly illustrate how photos do not help us understand what happened at Buchenwald. I would not have comprehended that some of the buildings like in the last photo were actually used to gas and cremate Jewish people. Indicating to me that the people in the photos were not dying only because of malnutrition. However, the Germans were systematically killing the Jewish people in not just Buchenwald but similar camps like Auschwitz and Dachau. The photo only allows me to see the forefront of what happened at the Nazi Death Camps. When in the background something much worse and much more involved than what we already knew had happened.
Together if one looks at my photos without any description how much could they tell me? They could tell me their own interpretation of the events, which more than likely would mirror my thoughts. However, if gave them only the description of the photo they would then know everything about my photos and could create pictures of them in their head because they now understand what went on. Therefore, photos are easier to remember and they stay with us but they do not help us completely understand the story behind photo. When we look at war photos our emotions run high because of the shock the photos leave us with. Our emotions make us who we are but they make us irrational and hinder our ability to reason and understand.

Posted by Shaz at 1:54 PM 0 comments  

“Utter truth is essential and that is what stirs me when I look through the camera”. - Margaret Bourke-Whit
“ Essential truth” has been a much- debated factor of war photography and photojournalism since journalistic photography first became a genre. Photojournalism is seen as a type of documentation, a form of factual affirmation of history. However as pictures become less candid and more posed the argument arises asking when photojournalist images become less of a documentation photograph and more of a fine art piece . This is one topic explored by Susan Sontag in her essay “Regarding the Pain of Others”. Sontag explains that war photos are both factual and beautiful. She seems to believe that Photojournalism is both a fine art and a documentation of history all in one, there is beauty in the destruction and the misery that photographs capture. She defines beauty as emotion, something war photos evoke and display all at once. As Sontag says “Photographs that depict suffering shouldn’t be beautiful, as captions shouldn’t moralize. In this view, a beautiful photograph drains attention from the sobering subject and turns it toward the medium itself, thereby compromising the pictures status as a document. The photograph gives mixed signals. Stop this it urges. But also exclaims, What a spectacle!” (Sontag,258)
People rarely claim that War photographs are beautiful. This is because it is not seen as socially acceptable to call a war photo anything positive, these are photos of distress and havoc, war photography is of an ugly subject. Sontag explains this in a reference to the Ground Zero zone in New York City “The cite itself, the mass graveyard that had received the name “Ground Zero,” was of course anything but beautiful. Photographs tend to transform, whatever their subject; and as an image something may be beautiful –or terrifying, or unbearable, or quite bearable-as it is in real life” (528). But War photographs are beautiful in a way much different than the calendar art and school portraiture the average person views as beautiful. Sontag examines how the “sublime or awesome or tragic register of the beautiful”(259). But although the war – the subjects of the images – are not beautiful subjects they are still awe inspiring, they are still beautiful. Bourke-White took a photo in a Chinese concentration camp of a child being beheaded, this photo is so gruesome that it is impossible to look at and not feel raw emotions, not feel sadness. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxKKfbib-qibXUx80zBMPcJIzZFLdX_wtnJ6W2eq32gmix0hrnXf3Wl-YGMUndiuSKVmETAHZZhSaGxAY13tn_dmJ4mX7kMNlwoqmKzyhyphenhyphenvbsw3Hx1Bb8gFu6B9nf7tY36WIdYsrytuxA/s400/99.jpeg
Yet that’s what war photography does it transforms the most gruesome of events into art. Emotions lead to beauty and this is shown through images like this one. Yes the event is documented, but mostly it is captured both in spirit and in physical being.
Beauty evokes emotion from its audience, makes them look again, intrigues them. “A landscape of devastation is still a landscape”(257) says Sontag, and this is true. When one looks at a war photo by a photographer like Margaret Bourke-White, they will see that these images are bombarded by multiple emotions. Feelings of shock, depression and terror are turned on by these images. There is beauty in these feelings, there is beauty in everything that is art, because the emotions spurred by it make is beautiful. Take for example Bourke- White’s image of a bomb storage facility, the shading and contrast make it beautiful but when one looks closer they see that these are bombs, provoking a sort of shock emotion, making the image even more beautiful.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSs7t30mVqhL85ePIolxF3eATrg8Ex5nF-KA8UIPCtIH8XuBbthRPgQ1YIXmeWKCgMrZrBqsHGXBx1O5vrUWcsX5W8yq2uxEo5Fvn7N7vauU-JLmZ5C6iwamPcppI37J2MaIBI_Cc9nn2m/s400/1937+Skoda+Munitions+factory+Czechoslovakia.jpeg
When beauty is looked at in this way it makes it hard to decipher what is a better documentation of the war, a photo that provokes the true feelings of that war, or a less provocative, candid shot of war. Yes, the posed shot of war may not be exactly what was happening at the time, it maybe dramatized by the photographer, however the emotion is raw, the feelings projected through these photos are true factual feelings. Sontag brings up the example of war photos from Nazi war camps: these photos were of piles of dead prisoners inside the barb wire fences. However she brings up, that in these camps most people were murdered through gas showers and then cremated. They were not piled up, these where the people who died from disease and starvation near the end of the camps’ history. However photographers like Margaret Bourke-White captured images of the piles of dead prisoners, and these became the staple photographs of the terrors of concentration camps. http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/27/2762/OLETD00Z/art-print/margaret-bourke-white-burned-corpses-of-concentration-camp-prisoners-lay-near-barbed-wire-fence-of-number-3-erla-camp.jpg
http://www.learningfromlyrics.org/b-w_crimes%5B1%5D.jpg
These photos may not be factual as to what all the concentration camps looked like while they were running, however they are factual in the amount of terror within the camp. As Sontag explains “they show the camps at the moment the allied troops marched in. What makes the images unbearable – the piles of corpses, the skeletal survivors – was not at all typical for the camps, which, when they were functioning, exterminated their inmates systematically (by gas, not starvation and illness) then immediately cremated them.” (261) If Bourke-White had chosen to take photos of the empty showers, or of the cremation dust of those lost in the “showers” the images would in fact be more factual, but they would not be nearly as affective, or as moving. The piles of the dead prisoners next to barb wire fences are so devastating; these images capture the feeling of the camps and show the mass genocide that occurred. Pile of corpses create an image, and effect that nothing else could. The feelings and terror of these camps are documented in Bourke-Whites photographs.
Margaret Bourke- White shows Sontag’s ideas through her photos. They are beautiful in that they create a shock factor that is obvious and evoke emotions like no other style of photography. Bourke-White took most of her photographs during The Second World War however to this day they evoke emotions of sadness, terror and shock. If beauty is emotion, then Bourke-White has fully captured Beauty through her art.

Posted by Shaz at 1:57 PM 0 comments  

All people cherish their memories. A happy life is reflected through great memories. Memory, however, is not as simple as it seems. Although defined by Merriam-Webster as, “the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms”, the power to reproduce and recall is out of our control, only to be controlled by our extremely complex brains. Memory, as perfectly stated in “Waltz with Bashir”, by Ari Folman, is, “dynamic. It’s alive” (1). Photographs have major affects on people’s memories, as illustrated in “Regarding the Pain of Others”, by Susan Sontag, “to remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture” (Sontag 263). Sontag expresses some of the difficulties photographs can cause for our memories. All photographs, such as the captivating photographs created by famous photographer, Sebastiao Salgado, allow us to remember.
Photographs do more than just simply allow us to remember. They alter our memories, too. Photographs can even hinder our memories, as discussed by Sontag in “Regarding the Pain of Others”, memories of photographs are unproblematic until the photographs overshadow other memories, “the problem is not that people remember through photographs, but that they only remember the photographs. This remembering through photographs eclipses other forms of understanding, and remembering” (Sontag 263). Photographs’ interference with our memory is a captivating idea. Although it is impossible to detect, I am positive that certain pictures of my childhood have changed my memories of my childhood. I often try to remember the first house I lived in as a very young child, but all I can truly remember is the way the house looked, which is refreshed in my memory by a photograph of the house. Perhaps I have no true memories of the house, our memories often play tricks on us. In “Waltz with Bashir”, created by Ari Folman, one of the main characters finds that his memory has been mysteriously altered. His therapist refers to a famous psychological experiment regarding memory that says a great deal about memory’s ability to change as a result of photographs, the subjects in the experiment, “remembered an experience they never had” (1). This occurred as a result of the fact that, “if we suddenly find some details missing, our memory helps us out by filling in the gaps with things that never happened” (1). Clearly, photographs have bizarre affects on our memories. The new remembering and understanding that photographs elicit is common in misery photographs taken by Sebastiao Salgado.
http://www.photography-now.net/listings/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=375&Itemid=334

Salgado’s photographs help create and change people’s memories. His photograph of the oil spill, Workers Place a New Wellhead, Oil Wells, Kuwait, is no exception. This photograph contains an extremely depressing view of the harrowing effects of the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. Two workers are working in the gray, dirty disaster that is the spill. This photograph was projected all over America, to be seen by all. Salgado’s image changed the way in which I regarded the spill by providing my mind with a picture to fit with the stories. Workers Place a New Wellhead, Oil Wells, Kuwait became the image I picture in my mind when thinking about the spill. People’s memories of the oil spill were deeply affected by the intensely emotional photograph of the spill. The image not only created a memory of the oil spill for many, but also overshadowed previous memory of the spill for those who already had existing memories. Sontag explains how the oil spill image affects people’s memories, “photographs help construct- and revise- our…past” (Sontag 261). This image, like many others, has become common in our society and has therefore shaped the memories of many people. There are many famous photographs that are commonly known in our society, images that are decidedly important, “photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what a society chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about” (Sontag 261). These photographs usually consist of inspiring events, such as Martin Luther King’s speech, that provide people with positive memories. Societies use images like these to declare what they collectively believe to be important, society’s “ideologies create substantiating archives of images, representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable thoughts, feelings” (Sontag 261). In this fashion, people’s memories and understandings have been greatly transformed as a result of influential photographs. Photographs can also influence their audiences by misleading them.
http://isfeldphoto11.blogspot.com/
War photography is extremely influential, but often misleading. Whether images are taken before, during, or after events have occurred can severely change the way the event is regarded, because the images vary greatly. In Salgado’s photograph of the dead bodies, the image is taken after the events have occurred. This ghastly image appalls and sickens me. There are roughly eight dead bodies in the image scattered in a road and by a truck. This gruesome photograph that demonstrates the casual and acceptable death, evident by a bystander’s apparent unconcern, is so powerfully shocking that it “haunt[s]” (Sontag 263) me. The picture caused me to reflect on how relatively safe our society is and to be grateful. This photograph simply shows the scene after the events, the images of the scene before or during the events are unseen. This lack of knowledge caused by photographs being taken after the deaths, or posthumous, creates a dilemma for the audience’s memories. Salgado’s photograph, like many others, “is…of something posthumous; the remains, as it were” (Sontag 261). This creates a dilemma, because the photographs of the remains are understood and remembered by the audiences as the legitimate event, which is false. The ability of photographs to misinform their audience is uncanny. This photograph fails to display anything other than the posthumous scene. Salgado’s image is misinforming, because the events of the image are unknown, the dead bodies could have been killed in a fight over drugs, for example, or perhaps while patriotically trying to save their country. Since the events of the image are unknown, the photograph creates an unfair understanding and remembering for the audience. Photographs of the concentration camps, like Salgado’s photograph, are just the remains, the “newsreels of the concentration camps are misleading because they show the camps at the moment the Allied troops marched in” (Sontag 261). Salgado’s picture, like the newsreels of the concentration camps, could depict something entirely different from what was normal. As a result of the tendencies to be taken after events, war photographs, along with the memories they construct or revise, are often illegitimate.
Even if photographs are legitimate, memories that result from them may not be. Photographs that are deemed significant by society create, as Sontag would state, ‘“memories,’…that [are], over the long run…fiction” (Sontag 261), because they are simply recognized, valuable photographs in society that completely lack understanding or true memories. Photographs do, however, provide people with the ability to reference the past. Museums aid people by displaying, “photographs [that] lay down routes of reference, and serve as totems of causes: sentiment is more likely to crystallize around a photograph than around a verbal slogan” (Sontag 261). Photographs in museums eclipse understanding and memories that are beneficial to the audience. Photographs in museums and Salgado’s photographs are taken with purpose. One reason for the creation of memory museums was to, “ensure that the crimes they depict [would] continue to figure in people’s consciousness. This is called remembering, but in fact it is a good deal more than that” (Sontag 262). The photographs in the museum provide the audience with proof of events in hopes of preventing unjust events like such from occurring in the future.
http://graememitchell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/salgado_2.jpg
Salgado’s minefield photograph displays injustice. In this photograph, Dispute between Serra Pelada Gold Mine Worker and Military Police, Brazil 1986, many poor, helpless miners, wearing tattered rags and living in apparent squalor, watch a violent dispute between one of the miners and a militant, who carries a gun. The revolting miner is grasping the end of the militant’s gun as the rest of the miners watch intently. This photograph reminds me of slavery in the United States. It is clear that the one, white, man holding the gun is unfairly overpowering the poor, unprivileged workers. Dispute between Serra Pelada Gold Mine Worker and Military Police, Brazil 1986, like photographs of slavery, should be displayed in museums so that, “people [can]…visit-and refresh-their memories” (Sontag 262) in order to understand and remember the unjust actions of the past to prevent any future reoccurrences. Salgado’s photographs and photographs of slavery have similar affects on viewers, they surmount other forms of remembering and understanding to provide their audiences with true memories.
Sebastaio Salgado is an extraordinary artist who successfully shares understanding and memories through his art. Art, such as Salgado’s, is often in museums so that many people can understand and remember what the art teaches. War photographs are inordinately prevalent, Sontag admits that, “the very notion of atrocity, of war crime, is associated with the expectation of photographic evidence” (Sontag 261), but many things, not just photographs, can eclipse our other understanding and memories. Consider your memories of anything. Close your eyes and picture your memories, what do you see? You see your memories, fake and real, without any way of deciphering the truths from the fallacies, “your memories could be an amazing thing” (1).

Works Cited
Salgado, Sebastaio. Dispute between Serra Pelada Gold Mine Worker and Military Police, Brazil 1986. 1986. Photograph. Brazil.

Salgado, Sebastiao. Workers Place a New Wellhead, Oil Wells, Kuwait. 1991. Photograph. Kuwait Epilogue, Kuwait.

Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Print.

Waltz with Bashir. Dir. Ari Folman. Perf. Ari Folman. Bridgit Folman Film Gang, 2008. DVD.
Web. (1)

http://isfeldphoto11.blogspot.com/

Posted by Shaz at 2:04 PM 0 comments  

Through images of torn up and ruined homelands, decaying buildings, and piles of lifeless souls, war photography has been used for generations to document and reflect the realities of war time. In Susan Sontag’s essay, “Regarding the Pain of Others,” she directs her focus on the various aspects of these war photos. Specifically, she calls attention to the idea that war photos have the ability to make a moment in time, tangible. “Photographs objectify: They turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed. And photographs are a species of alchemy, for all that they are prized as a transparent account of reality” (Sontag 259). This brief, two-sentenced paragraph stands alone in the essay, hidden by an immense amount of other topics. However, if the reader were to just read this one selection, the diction and the brevity of the paragraph, makes this piece one of her strongest arguments.
Objectify, possessed, alchemy, transparent, and reality. These words reached out to me with the greatest emphasis.
According to Webster Dictionary, objectify, the primary verb used here, means to present as an object, especially of sight, touch or physical sense. In this case, the photographs are presenting a certain event or time period as an object. Through these objects, the reader is able to construct a memory, or an emotional attachment to the photo that helps them remember these events. Sontag later states, “Ideologies create sustaining archives of images, representative images, which encapsulate common ideas of significance and trigger predictable, thoughts, feelings” (261). These thoughts and feelings that are triggered through an aesthetic experience, is what allows the viewer to connect to the photo. By emotionally engaging in the event, and through the visual facades that are presented, the image, and historical event become hard to forget.
Possessed meaning to be owned, emphasizes the idea that photos strongly reinvent a historical event, to the point that the memory seems as if it were one of our own (Webster Dictionary). Being able to own this photo, or this event means that the audience understands it, and it will forever be locked in their memory, as if it were a sacred possession locked in their home. Sontag often makes references to the idea that because we have the ability to own these pictures, we also have the ability to create our own interpretations and opinions about the photo. “The illustrative function of photographs leaves opinions, prejudices, fantasies (…) untouched” (Sontag 261). Although sometimes this could lead to misinterpretations, for the most part it is our opinions and how we interpret the image that allows us to own it, and make it a part of our possessions. By creating our own understandings of the photo, the audience is thinking about the picture, stimulating a thought process that allows the memory to be permanently engraved in their minds.
Alchemy is the process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value (Webster Dictionary). This word alone can almost sum up the entire idea of the statement through its definition. Basically a simple photograph, of little value, has the ability to be turned into something of great value. When we are first introduced to a photo our minds are a blank slate, open to interpret the image and find a greater meaning from it. As we study who, where, and what the picture has captured, we begin to learn and react to this historical event. A picture is not just an image, but it reflects time and history. Furthermore, Sontag also says, “Transforming is what art does…” (259). It transforms the photo into a memory, and a deep understanding of the event.
Transparent: easy to see through, understand or recognize (Webster Dictionary). The clarity and visual aspects of pictures makes it easier for people to understand. “To remember is more and more to not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture” (Sontag 263). It’s easier to call up a picture, because it is one image that has the ability to capture and express many factors. A photo is much easier to recognize and understand then a story with many words and phrases that we could become confused by. When we see a picture it tells us a story, and to remember the story again all we have to do is think of the image. On the other hand, if you were to read about the story, there is no image to visualize, instead you have to think back and try to remember all of the details that were listed, rather then visually expressed.
And reality: the state or quality of being real (Webster Dictionary). “It used to be thought (…) that showing something that needed to be seen, bringing a painful reality closer, was bound to goad viewers to feel more” (Sontag 259). This statement is true. Photos capture the true essence of reality, leaving nothing to be fabricated. Photos can sometimes project the true, harshness of reality so much, to the point that the viewer can’t even admit to what they have witnessed. In some cases, as Sontag mentions, people resort to calling the photo surreal, because they cannot bear to accept the reality. Discovering and accepting the reality is evidently a very important step in observing and understanding the picture. Sometimes as a viewer we make look at a picture, but not actually come to terms with the fact that it is real. If we cannot discover the reality, then we wont be able to make the emotional connection that is necessary to experience all that the photograph has to offer. Through the visualization of photographs, the audience can fully understand the reality, and the true identity of the event, and on a greater scale, of history.
These words, rather pulled out of context, or put together in the statement, have great meaning and power to them. Although they serve a great purpose in the message being presented in the original statement, they clearly are also present in various other locations of Sontag’s original essay. Having the meaning of these words throughout the essay helps connect all of Sontag’s different ideas and topics. However, for the sake of this brief selection, it would have enhanced the meaning and overall message of it, to see an example directly following it.
When looked at as a separate entity, the selection does provide a concrete argument, however, when the paragraph is incorporated into the essay as a whole, it looses some of its strength among all the other valued topics. Therefore, by incorporating an example directly after the statement, it would allow the reader to apply this idea to an actual situation. For example, several pages later Sontag states,
The familiarity of certain photographs builds our sense of the present and immediate past. Photographs lay down routes of reference, and serve as totems of causes: sentiment is more likely to crystallize around a photograph than around a verbal slogan. And photographs help construct- and revise- our sense of a more distant path (…) (261)
This new information provides support to the author’s original statement. Basically it says that photographs have the ability to recreate a moment in time, and be instilled in the viewer for the long run. Although this selection, along with various other quotes does provide sustenance to the original snip it, it would be more effective if they were put directly following the statement. By having one example directly following, the idea would be fresh in the readers mind and could be instantly applied to the example helping lock the argument in the reader’s memory. Also, although the information provided helps further support the original argument, a specific example is what is truly necessary to enhance the statement.
To help create an illustration of what Susan Sontag should of included after that brief paragraph, beholds the war photographer Robert Capa. He was previously mentioned in Sontag’s essay for the immense bravery he had in taking his daring war photographs. Capturing some of the most documental pictures from World War II, Robert Capa’s photography provides the precise examples of what is needed in Susan Sontag’s essay.
http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox_VPage&RAQF=1&IT=ZoomImage01_VForm&IID=2S5RYDIK2G0W&ALID=2K7O3R14Y2E4&PN=3&CT=Album
In this photograph, taken in 1944 at Omaha beach, two men are taking body counts of the men killed at the landing*1. Is it the picture, or the brief caption I just described that the audience will remember? Most likely you will remember the picture, because not only can you clearly see what is going on, but you can also see the bodies and destruction of war. This image allows the viewers to visualize the harsh reality. Not only can the audience visualize, but they can also feel the pain and emotion of the picture, something they could not feel from the caption. As I look at this I see death, weapons, torn up landscapes, and destruction. I feel sorrow for the soldiers who are living and lost a friend, and I feel even more sorrow for the men who lie cold on the ground. Through my experience with this picture I have made my own emotional connections and interpretations, which gives me a sense of possession. The fact that no one else will have the exact same reaction to this is what makes it a unique memory to me. At first this image was just another black and white war photo, but the more I looked at it and began to understand it, it became a comprehendible image that reflects the reality of World War II. If this picture was placed after that short two-sentenced paragraph, the reader could evidently apply what was being said, to this image.
Although I do not have an immense amount of experience on the subject of war, I do know the effect that pictures can have on myself. When I see pictures of my parents from even before I was born, seeing them smiling and adventuring around the globe makes me smile and fills me with a sense of happiness. Even though I was not there for that photo, the visualization of the scene, and the emotions that were felt in the picture, allows me to respond to the picture as if I was there watching them. Such photos not only allow me to feel the emotions that they were feeling, but it also documents my parents past before I came along. When looking through the albums I can slowly begin to understand the life they lived, and the history of my family.
http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox_VPage&RAQF=1&IT=ZoomImage01_VForm&IID=2S5RYDIK2G0W&ALID=2K7O3R14Y2E4&PN=3&CT=Album
This photograph portrays when German soldiers started shooting against a parade, during the celebration of the liberation of the city in 1944*1. Although I was clearly not there to witness this event, through the various aspects of the picture I can feel the terror and also envision the actuality of what happened on that day. The crowded streets and people randomly huddled together on the ground reveals the sense of immediate fright they felt the second the first shot boomed through the air. Through the few faces that I can see, the panic that is radiating from them is then instilled in me. When I look at this image I almost feel as if I was there, planted to the ground afraid to show my face, afraid to be a witness of death and destruction on a day that was meant to be celebrated. The hurt and anguish that filled that day is obvious to any viewer. Undeniably, whether I am looking through my parents’ old albums, or other pictures like these, they all represent how photos can be transparent accounts of reality.
http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=ViewBox_VPage&RAQF=1&IT=ZoomImage01_VForm&IID=2S5RYDIK2G0W&ALID=2K7O3R14Y2E4&PN=3&CT=Album
Without giving the actual caption from this photo, the viewer can already see the obvious*1. Two men most likely soldiers from what they are wearing, sitting in a dark room, planning out their next execution. This picture, although very different from the previous two, shows the other side of reality. The actual description says that these men were Fascist rebels planning a major offense in order to capture Madrid in 1936. Although the true caption gives us more details on who and when this was happening, the picture alone was already able to tell the audience a decent amount of information. Unlike the other pictures, which depicted the victims and death of war, this photo shows the viewer the planning and cruel intentions that hide behind the facets of war. When you really look at pictures, you can understand the event better then if you were to read about it in the history book. By actually visualizing these events, we can feel the pain, and emotions of the time, which is just as important as knowing the dates, and where it took place. This photo is simply another example that could of helped improve and support Susan Sontag’s argument.
The power that a photograph has is undeniable. The ability to objectify allows us to look at these images, and transform them into our own memories, our own experiences with what they have captured. In any of Robert Capa’s photos, the viewer can look at them, and feel the emotions, they can understand what is happening, and they can then remember this visual representation of history for the long run. Sontag’s overall message could have benefited from the incorporation of these photos. For a lot of what she has said could easily be applied to the riveting war photographs. Even with that said, her message was strong, and any viewer of any photo, should understand the influential abilities that photography has over its audience.

Posted by Shaz at 2:01 PM 0 comments  

The book “Regarding the Pain of Others” is a provocative and brilliantly written piece of work discussing the topic of war photography and its impact on society. Susan Sontag’s brevity and articulate wording brings the reader right to the heart of the matter as she points out the many aspects, both good and bad, that this type of shocking photography has on people minds. Susan forces the reader to consider the fact that constant exposure to other peoples suffering is dulling our ability to view these images as strong or impressive. Instead these photos are becoming standard to our consumerist culture. People all across the globe are slowly becoming unfazed by these photos that use to shock and horrify entire nations. With the help of many photographic examples, Susan shows how, due to this constant “media-driven” exposure to vulgar and appalling photos, our world is slowly creeping closer to a nation devoid of sympathy.
To provide the reader with strong evidence on this matter, Sontag refers to one of the most debated Photographic journalist of our time, Sebastiao Salgado. Almost all of his controversial / commercialized works have been a subject of criticism and debate since the publication of his first book, “Other Americas”. Before I go into much detail upon why his photos have created so much contention amongst photo critics, it appears to be necessary to understand a little more about the history of the photographer at hand.
Salgado spent his somewhat nomadic childhood growing up in different areas of Brazil. By the time he got to college he had thought he was destined to be an economist and therefore, that is what he got his degree in. After a couple years working for The International Coffee Organization, where he would constantly be traveling back and forth from Africa, he began to take his passion for photography much more seriously. Eventually, he abandoned his career as an economist entirely and instead began to pursue photography. Starting out, he used his skills to work on news assignments where he would travel the world capturing the world from his point of view. Eventually he began to make a name for himself as a pronounced war photographer. It was here in his life when his artwork began to take a turn towards being a subject of controversy.
As Salgado’s popularity continued to grow, his style of photography began to morph into a specific style unique amongst all other war photographers. His photographs would attempt to capture misery through a lens and all at once, super-size it, contrast it between black and white, and make it as spectacular and “cinematic” as possible. These photos, which had been transformed by Salgado into pieces of “art”, were then amassed into three hundred plus photo collections that would bombard the eye with intense graphic images page after page. In the end, these collections were bound up, published, and sold to the general public for his own profit. It was at this point in his career when suspicions began to arise about the true intentions of his photographs. Was Salgado simply trying to make a profit off the misery of others, or was he truly trying to expose their misfortunes to the world in an attempt to help those in need?
Before one can judge the true intentions of Salgado, it is important to actually see a few of his works first hand. Through all my research, I chose to pick three photos from one of his most famous and controversial books called “Workers”. The main objective of this book was to show the public the hard working men and women from around the globe that struggle day to day with their cruel and demanding jobs. Salgado did this in a way that allowed each and every one of his subjects to be portrayed in an almost “heroic” light. For example, the first photo I chose to examine is called “Firefighters at Work”.
In this photo we see a man taking a break from his grueling job of putting out oil fires in Kuwait. Day in and day out he stands under this shower of black oil just trying to support a family. As the man stares blankly out into the open space you can see that he has just about reached the end of his strength. How much longer can he stand in this inferno of heat, gas, mud, and soot? This is a perfect example of what Susan Sonatag explaines as “Uglifying” something which means “showing something at its worst” (Sontag 260). People love to see beauty in images, but they also like to see horror and emotional despair. Salgado manages to captures every last bit of emotion that there is in this picture and maximizes by putting it in black and white. The viewer does not see a disgusting man in oil, but an iconic labor hero covered from head to toe in a bronze polish. The man in the picture might be at the the end of his wits, but Salgado still manages to keep the man’s dignity intact. This man has been stripped of everything, he is in ruins, but as Sonatg once said “There is beauty in ruins” (Sontag 257).
This photo manages to grasp a moment in life that every human being goes through at given times in their life. The moment when you are on the very edge of giving up and calling it quits, yet somehow you manage to gather up enough momentum to simply push through. When a boxer is nearing the end of his vigor, and all of the sudden he finds the last bit of power in his body and swings a punch for a K.O. I personally have come across this moment numerous times throughout my life. Whether it be pushing to win a soccer game in the last minute of a heated game or when I’m at the end of my wits on a two hour exam that gets me into college. There are moments in your life when you feel that all is lost, yet somehow you manage to muster up the strength to keep fighting. This moment is a part of human nature and that is exactly what Salgado captures in this photo.
The next picture I chose from Salgado’s collection is a photo titled “Boys Fleeing From Southern Sudan to avoid having to fight in the Civil War”. The title basically tells the story of what is happening but the photo combined with a title like this truly provokes a strong feeling from the viewer. What is seen in this photo is a group of boys, no older than twelve, huddled together in the darkness as they fear who is at the door of there home. Is it men from the civil war coming to snatch them up and prepare them to fight in war? I can only imagine how much fear a child would have if they were told, at the age of twelve, they were being recruited to fight in a civil war. In the door way you see the figures of three people, and you the viewer are left to wonder if these children will be safe or are they about to be sent into a war that they want nothing to be a part of.
The feelings that this image provokes are strong emotions of sorrow and fear for the future of the boys. It is here where questions are brought up about the ethics of a photo like this being clumbed together with hundreds of pictures that stir up the same emotions. Page after page, the same emotions are aroused one after the other. It is here where Susan Sontag brings up a strong point: “Does Shock have term limits” (Sonatag 260)? What this means is that the shock and horror that is provoked by witnessing these photos does not last forever. The more we are exposed to these photos of suffering and despair the more we grow accustom to it. Our sympathy for the victims in these photos is being dulled more and more by as our nation is exposed to hundred upon hundreds of sorrowful images. Because of this, we the viewer are left searching for photos that will bring up the same emotions and this takes more violence, more suffering, and more despair all together. This is why I saved the most shocking photo (in my opinion) for last.
This photo is considered by many, to be one of Salgado’s greatest pieces of photography. The reason for this is because it brings out the strongest emotions that we have and therefore it’s “Shock factor” lasts a very long time. The title of this photo is titled “Salgado Dispute between Serra Pelada gold mine workers and military police”. Yet again the title does a great job telling the reader exactly what is happening in the photo. Like Sonatag said “Narratives can make us understand” yet “Photographs do something else: they haunt us” and this is exactly what occurs with a photograph like this (Sontag 263).
In this photo you are witnessing the two main characters (a gold mine worker and his superior) as they are arguing over a dispute. Surrounding them are hundreds of other workers who all appear to be powerless to the officer with the gun. By holding the gun the officer has power over these workers and they are helpless. Although there is no explanation for what is going on in this photo, there are numerous ways to interpret this image. With no narrative behind the picture, the viewer is open to make their own imaginative acquisitions. Who is in the right and who is in the wrong? Did the miner start the fight or was it the man with the gun? With no explanation your imagination is allowed to run wild and come up with the most fantastic story behind the photo, thus exaggerating the story and making the shock more powerful. I believe that Salgado purposefully did not include an explanation in order to have the viewer come up with their own story and, in turn giving the photo the most “shock” possible.
We are living in a “culture of viewers”, and violence and horror has always been in constant demand by our society. Why else would news programs get higher rating when they show more graphic content? Although it might seem barbaric to think about, the pain of others amuses us, as long as it is kept far away from us. Each year horror movies and action movies get more and more violent and people love it. More blood! More Gore! More Pain! The demand for violence is constant and it always will be. The more that people become grow accustom to violence, the more violence they want to see. When you compare the first Die Hard movie to the Die Hard movie of today, the first one seems to be as tame as Bambi!
It seems to me that people regard the pain of others with little to no sympathy at all. It’s not me, so why should I care? “Regarding the Pain of Others” discusses the many points and topics that surround this mystery of why people love violence, but in the end, this abstract mystery can never be answered. Using her words and wisdom, Susan taught me the many aspects of why people strive to witness destruction and horror. From her work, I was even able to extend her reasoning’s and develop my own theory’s of why our nation is slowly becoming devoid of sympathy. I guess the world will never know the true reasons behind our love for humanity at its lowest form.
Picture Citations:
http://www.all-art.org/history658_photography13-31.html
http://www.agallery.com/aspx/inventory.aspx?ItemID=SS25438&photographer=Sebastiao+Salgado&search=&sort=
http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/the-mines-of-serra-pelada/

Posted by Shaz at 2:11 PM 0 comments  

On February 8, 1944 Sebastião Salgado was born into a world that was at war, and would remain at war for long periods of his life. Sebastião began his professional career studying economics, however this did not last long once he discovered his passion for photography. After earning his masters degree in economics he began traveling to Africa for his employer where he started taking photographs. By 1973 Sebastião had made the complete switch to professional photography, began working for an agency out of France, and has been taking pictures ever since. Sebastião has taken photos from across the globe and they have become world famous.
Susan Sontag’s “Regarding the Pain of Others” is an extremely powerful essay that takes numerous different perspectives on photography. The perspective I found to be the most fascinating was her one on how by making the hardships of others more universal through photography, people tend to care more. Sontag phrased this perspective perfectly in one short sentence, “Making suffering loom larger, by globalizing it, may spur people to feel they ought to “care” more” (Sontag 259). After taking this perspective and looking at some of Salgado’s work, I found myself relating to many of the photographs due to my past experiences, new thoughts were provoked, and I genuinely wanted to educate myself about the photographs. Salgado’s images and Sontag’s perspective causes viewers to feel a call to action to help others and become more involved.
1. http://www.adammarelliphoto.com/2011/01/sebastiaosalgadoleicafredritchin/
The photograph above1 was taken by Sebastião in 1986 and displays the Serra Pelada goldmines in his home country Brazil. At first glance there is a lot of activity going on in this photograph. Although this picture was not taken during a time of war, there is clearly a conflict taking place. When I first saw this photograph, I did not know anything about it, yet the nature of it provoked a lot of emotion and questions from me. I first thought the workers in the picture were slaves or prisoners of some sort, but after some research I discovered they were gold miners. And the soldier in the photograph is a member of the Brazilian military who was sent there to take over operations of the mining so the workers were not exploited. The picture makes it look like the military person is trying to hurt or harass the worker, which is actually the opposite of what he was sent there to do. Looking more closely at the man’s face who the soldier is pointing his gun at, the viewer can tell that he is actually quite young. His hair is rather mangy, and his eyebrows are torqued in a way that displays his discontent. The man’s neck muscles are stressed, suggesting that he is projecting his voice at the soldier. By looking more closely at this image, the viewer gets a better sense of the environment and how tense the situation is.
Photographs of small parts of an event can misrepresent the event, and Susan Sontag supported this statement, “This remembering through photographs eclipses other forms of understanding, and remembering” (263). Even though this particular photograph may not accurately portray the militaries actions at this gold mine, it does show the disgruntled workers and their conditions. If a story had been sent worldwide reporting that the gold miners here were being mistreated and had poor working conditions, it most likely would not have had the same effect as a photo. But because Salgado captured this photo, people are getting a visual image of the workers, their tattered clothes, and intense conflicts with soldiers. By providing a visual element, it makes viewers feel more obligated to educate themselves on the situation.
This image1 brought up past thoughts about how downward an event can go when the military becomes involved, but made me think of how pictures can misrepresent events. For instance during the Vietnam War, the US military continually raised the amount of troops and firepower it was putting into the war despite public protests. The heightened military presence increased the number of casualties, both civilian and military alike, for both sides. Yet the US government was reporting casualties to be lower than they actually were to prevent the antiwar movement from growing stronger. However this strategy backfired, especially when images of fallen US soldiers spread like wild fire across the media. People reacted much more strongly to a graphic photograph of an unknown US soldier than to a reported number. However, what arguably provoked the most protests and emotions was when images of deceased children and elderly hit the press. Sontag mentioned a different photographer than Salgado, but his photographs were globalized as well and created this same feeling of responsibility:
Like the pictures from the Vietnam War, such as Ron Haberle’s evidence of the massacre in March 1968 by a company of American soldiers of some five hundred unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai, they became important in bolstering the opposition to a war which was far from inevitable, far from intractable, and could have been stopped much sooner. Therefore once could feel an obligation to look at these pictures, gruesome as they were, because there was something to be done, right now, about what they depicted. (263)
Sontag is reinforcing the perspective that photography can cause action. When seeing slaughtered children or the elderly, it is a universal response to want to take responsibility and do something to stop and prevent these atrocities. This was never more evident than when these pictures of My Lai surfaced, and the antiwar movement became stronger than ever. Photographs can have a much larger impact and evoke much more emotion from a person than simply reading or hearing about an event.
2. http://www.all-art.org/history658_photography13-31.html
Above2 is one of Salgado’s most famous pictures taken in Kuwait during the Kuwaiti oil fires. Unlike the other photo, this one was taken during a time of war. In this photo though there are no soldiers, the men are firefighters trying to stop the oil from spewing out of the ground. The men look as if they are standing in the middle of a rainstorm, when they are really just dripping from head to toe in oil. There seems to be a sense of despair coming from the men in the picture, as the man in the background is looking down, almost defeated. Meanwhile the man in the foreground is holding his hands up, as if to ask why? When examined more closely, the man on the left clothes are completely soaked in oil. His shirt appears to be so saturated, that even lifting his arms would be an extremely strenuous task. His pants appear shinny from the oil residue, and the boots seem so drenched that walking would be nothing short of an accomplishment due to their weight. This picture made me think of the atrocities of war, and how far the effects of it stretch. Sontag stated, “Uglifying, showing something at its worst, is a more modern function: didactic, it invited an active response” (260). Because Salgado was able to uglify this picture, it provoked a much stronger reaction from me than most beautiful pictures. The grime dripping off the men, the smoke pillars on the horizon, the darkness and hopelessness the photo projects on its viewer causes them to think about the picture more.
The men’s names are not given, but nonetheless, the viewer feels a sense of sympathy for them. Sontag pointed out a unique aspect that photographs possess, “The illustrative function of photographs leaves opinions, prejudices, fantasies, misinformation untouched” (261). People form their own judgments when seeing a photo, there are no words influencing how they react. Yet Salgado is able to portray an image such as above2, and consistently evoke a sense of compassion for these men (History of Photography). Spreading images such as this across the world would have brought significant attention to the event because of the sheer nature of the picture. The brilliant aspect of photographs is that there is no language barrier. Anyone can look at a photograph and understand its message, thus allowing images to be globalized.
I for one was overcome by memories after seeing the image and learning about some of the background information behind it. It reminded me of the photographs I had seen of other firefighters on September 11, 2001. This image below3 is one in particular that allowed me to relate to the one from Kuwait. The photos themselves are extremely similar in the sense that the firefighters seem to be in a bit of anguish. The one on the left is looking down just as the other firefighter was in Kuwait, and the one on the right is holding out a hand almost asking for help as well. The pillars of smoke are apparent along the horizon again, and that same feeling of hopelessness overtakes the viewer.
September 11, 2001 was an emotionally draining and intense day for me, and most Americans. So seeing pictures that remind me of that morning bring back an immense amount of emotion and thought. Even to this day when I look at picture from 9/11, they seem almost surreal, “Photographs tend to transform, whatever their subject; and as an image something may be beautiful-or terrifying, or unbearable, or quite bearable-as it is not in real life” (Sontag 258). Images of the towers and other scenes from the 9/11 attacks are still difficult to look at for me. Graphic pictures tend to give me the chills, but virtually any image from September 11th sends that same chilling down my spine. This reaction undoubtedly comes from the strong connection I have to that particular event. Even though I was still young at the time, I remember people telling me that this was a significant incident and I would never forget it. Susan Sontag describes how memories are turned into history, and how photos are there to illustrate them:
All memory is individual, unreproducible-it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds. (261)
When I die, my memories of September 11th will be gone forever because they are unique to me. However, the images from that time period will continue for generations. The US culture has put emphasis on not forgetting this date because it wants people to still care about this event in the future. Photographs ensure this can and will happen.
Salgado’s photograph from Kuwait caused me to think of the natives of Kuwait as well. Do they experience similar emotions when they see pictures from 1991 as when I see pictures from September 11th? The picture made me see images of war from a new perspective, and think about how other people might feel when they see certain images.
3. http://topnews.net.nz/content/218252-911-firefighters-attack-contract-cancer
4. http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado_covers_full.html
In 1984 Ethiopia suffered one of the worst famines in its history that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many more. Sebastião Salgado captured4 these four people out a refugee camp in Korem. The child closest to the viewer is once again looking down, and appears to be fatigued and has given up. Upon further inspection, the boy’s hair is thinning, which is often a result from lack of nutrition. There are several markings on his forehead that could be cuts or scars from previous hardships. His eyes are big in comparison to the rest of his face, but they are hidden from the viewer. The next two closest figures, the man and the larger child, are looking directly at the photographer and the viewer gets a sense that they are disgruntled. Their faces are partially hidden and the rest of their bodies are wrapped in cloth that suggests it is cold there. The last persons back is facing the viewer, and the person is overlooking the vast desolate terrain. Susan Sontag comment on Salgado’s work saying, “It also invites them to feel that sufferings and misfortunes are too vast, too irrevocable, too epic to be much changed by any local political intervention” (259). This quote is extremely true in the sense that Salgado’s photographs are so strong, that it causes people to care about what they are seeing. After seeing Salgado’s pictures of these camps, I felt much more obliged to inform myself about what had happened and why.
Although this picture4 is not the most traumatizing by any means, for some reason the smallest child’s face in the front of the image is seared into my mind, “Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us” (Sontag 263). Salgado’s image of that child haunts me. I believe this image has stuck with me due to the boy’s innocent face, and the fact that he is so young. Having younger siblings has caused me to develop a natural urge to protect younger children from wrongdoings and keep them safe. I feel this same urge when looking at this boy, yet I feel helpless at the same time because I know there is nothing I can do for him.
After seeing the image from the refugee camp in Korem, I was instantly hit with copious memories and feelings once again. Every summer I go on a trip to a different part of the country and do community service. Last year I went to California and helped out at a homeless shelter. Many of the people at this shelter were in a disposition because of factors that were out of their control. For example, one man I shared lunch with told me his story of how his house burnt down in a fire and he had nowhere else to turn but the shelter. I felt exceedingly sympathetic for this man because he had done nothing wrong and suffered from a negative externality. Stories such as this one were common on these trips and formed life long memories for me. Susan Sontag remarked:
They invoke the miracle of survival. To aim at the perpetuation of memories means, inevitably, that one has undertaken the task of continually renewing, of creating, memories-aided, above all, by the impress of iconic photographs. People want to be able to visit-and refresh-their memories. (262)
Photographs have the ability to bring back memories and emotions from years ago that would have otherwise been lost. Even though I did not look at an image from my service trip, Salgado’s photo made me feel similar emotions to that trip that caused me to reminisce about that time. Even though the memory was not an overly uplifting one, it was still enjoyable to relive and would not have been possible without Salgado’s photo.
By globalizing his pictures, Sebastião Salgado was successfully able to make people feel a sense of obligation to the event they were seeing. Salgado’s photographs have an uncanny way of drawing emotion, thoughts, and memories out of its viewers, which in turn causes them to take more interest in what they are viewing. I was personally stuck by several of Salgado’s photos because even though they were taken in a distant land I had never been to, I could somehow relate with the hardship going on, “Photographs objectify: They turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed” (Sontag 259). When someone possesses something it is more tangible to them; thus creating a greater sense of responsibility to it. Not only do Salgado’s images make their way across the globe, they are taken from places across the world over large periods of time. By capturing images from a variety of countries and events, Salgado allows his photos to be even more relatable than before due to their diversity. Sebastião Salgado’s photographs are visually magnificent, but at the same time are able to impact their viewer in a way that causes them to feel a personal sense of obligation to what they are seeing.

Works Cited
"History of Photography." History of Art. 2011. Web. 09 Oct. 2011.
Marelli, Adam. "Entering the Circle." Adam Marelli Photo. 2011. Web. 09 Oct. 2011.
"Sebastiao Salgado." Masters of Photography. Web. 09 Oct. 2011.
Sharma, Pallavi. "9/11 Firefighters Attack Contract Cancer." TopNews New Zealand. 09 Feb. 2011. Web. 09 Oct. 2011.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 2009. Print.

Posted by Shaz at 2:18 PM 0 comments  

How quickly can you change your opinion about something or someone? At first glance, a random stranger covered in tattoos could be assumed to be a horrible person. Would your opinion change when you were told that he donated every Christmas to an orphanage? His parents died in a car crash when he was little and knew the pain of having no one on Christmas. How quickly can the idea in your head go from good, to bad? This is what the background information can do; it transforms your opinions about anything, a person, a car, even art.
Art can be very controversial, because some people see one image and other people see a completely different image. For example, the pictures from 9/11 are inspiring to Al-Qaeda, but horrific to us. Art in photography is extremely controversial because it can change something from a horrific image, to a beautiful photo. It can change a horrible battleground into a beautiful spectacle. When the pictures of Iwo Jima were shown to people in the United States, they were horrified. This 11-mile island held one of the worst battles in the pacific; it had 28,000 casualties on both sides. The month long battle produced some of the worst war photography of the war. In this war-zone, there was a memorable scene of a group of men hoisting up an American flag on top of the main hill on the island. That image appears to be the Americans winning the fight on Iwo Jima. Even though we did win, the battle was far from over at that point, three of the six men that hoisted the flag; died in that battle. This photo later became one of the most influential photos from World War II, and won countless awards from the photography world including the Pulitzer Prize for Photography. Art especially in photography can deceive you into believing in something that was never even there.
People use photography to change something completely Susan Sontag says, “Often something looks, or is felt to look, “better”(260) in a photograph. Indeed, it is one of the functions of photography to improve the normal appearance of things”. “Beautifying” and “Uglifying” are terms that Susan Sontag uses to show how images can be transformed completely by the photographer. For example, in the photograph explained above, these men were glorified as heroes when they returned to the United States. These men didn’t do anything amazing or spectacular, they just raised a flag. The photographer tries to “beautify” the struggle of raising the flag, but it wasn’t a difficult task. It was just six guys hoisting a flag. These methods used by photographers can completely distort the actual image being shown.
Photographs can change the image seen, by using techniques as I previously stated. The photographer Margaret Bourke- White has some images that seem like something but could be a different thing entirely. The first photo I chose was a photo with a couple kissing in the street at a celebration. The man is in a uniform and the woman is in a dress, other people are celebrating around them. Only this wasn’t a normal celebration, it was the celebration of the end of World War II, most likely the most influential war of the modern century. This image could be seen anywhere. It could be an image of a man coming home from a quick military service. Art transforms this photo into an iconic scene between two lovers who were separated by war who finally get to be together. Susan Sontag explains this through “Photographs lay down routes of reference, and serve as totems of causes”(261). I can relate to this photo because I have been away from my house last year and I know what it is like leave the people you love. The first couple weeks away are hardest, getting adjusted without them. The long phone sessions and emails written just add to the grief without them. Trying to stay connected to someone while being constantly away from him or her is not an easy task. But when that time comes when you are finally reunited and you see their smiling faces again. It is truly a wonderful and indescribable sight.
The next photograph I chose by Margaret Bourke-White was a more controversial photo. It was not a war photo because its not only war photos that art transforms. “A beautiful photograph drains attention from the sobering subject and turns it toward the medium itself, thereby compromising the pictures status as a document” Susan Sontag (258). This photo shows a group of African Americans holding baskets standing in line for something. A billboard is hanging over them with a family in a car and the billboard reads “America, Worlds Highest Standard of Living”. This photo makes the reference to irony and racism. First off, it is ironic that America that has the highest standard of living has people who are most likely standing in line for food. Also all of the people under the billboard are African American, and all the people in the car are white, referring to racism and how white people are usually more successful than African Americans. Yet remember, Art transforms, these people are most likely standing in line for a soup kitchen, and in these times, white families were more successful than African American families. Do not be fooled however, this was not all bad. This photo was most likely post-WWII; this was the time where all the social reforms for African American people were taking place. This was the age of Martin Luther King Jr. and his reforms, this was when African American people started being recognized and started the ideas for equality for all humans. This photo could have been inspiration for the young Martin Luther. This photo could have inspired a lot of people to fight for social reform. I can relate to this photo because I have seen hardship like this photo. I have traveled to a town with a group where they did not have electricity, working toilets, and they grew everything they ate, we sat down and had lunch with the people of this tiny village. They work everyday on their farms only doing hard manual labor it was truly eye opening. We sat down in a little house with an aluminum roof, the chairs were plastic and the bowls were dirty. They tried their best to impress us with the meal, it was a stew of chicken and rice and other vegetables. It was a small meal because they did not have much to offer, but I have never felt more honored to eat at someone’s table before. Even though their work seemed tough they graciously gave me food and they were happy about it. They wanted to live in their village it was there home. Their hardship made me sad but it also motivated me to do more. If these people could do all this work, I can walk instead of driving.
The last photo I chose by Margaret Bourke-White was a photo of a man searching for mines, with his device looming near the photographer as if he is looking for mines near the feet of the photographer. At first glance, it seems that this man is looking desperately for mines so that they don’t hurt his platoon. A noble cause, but then you realize that the photographer would be standing on the mines he is looking for, ergo, the mines would have blown up already. I found this a little bit comical because he is obviously posing for the camera in this photo. This is another example of Beautifying. The camera is clearly trying to glorify him in this picture when in reality he is searching for nothing. The photographer has tricked the audience into thinking he is looking for mines when clearly this whole image is staged. The camera would have blown up if it were on top of the mine that this man is searching for. This photo is a perfect example of how an artist can distort your idea of an image.
Art transforms the images that we see. Artists try to shape the image in the art to persuade you to see the image they want you to see. Art in photography especially persuades you through the many tactics used by photographers. Susan Sontag explains “Photographs objectify: They turn an event or person into something that can be possessed. And photographs are a species of alchemy, for all that they are prized as a transparent account of reality”(259). The art shapes your idea of the image and makes it something completely different than what it could be.

Picture Citations:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=margaret+bourke+white+war+photographs&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1259&bih=649&tbm=isch&tbnid=Doi5Sdf1OdZY4M:&imgrefurl=http://fr.photography-now.com/artists/K06246.html&docid=m9h17_1IjDqeRM&w=138&h=200&ei=KqmTTqjpKIjo0QHj78HCBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1001&vpy=311&dur=376&hovh=160&hovw=110&tx=107&ty=118&page=2&tbnh=145&tbnw=98&start=20&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:21,s:20

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=margaret+bourke+white+war+photographs&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1259&bih=649&tbm=isch&tbnid=zGdFps0GIhpn3M:&imgrefurl=http://www.atgetphotography.com/&docid=0DRmiKzpdghtXM&w=300&h=226&ei=KqmTTqjpKIjo0QHj78HCBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=587&vpy=255&dur=473&hovh=180&hovw=240&tx=124&ty=100&page=5&tbnh=126&tbnw=167&start=84&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:18,s:84

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=margaret+bourke+white+war+photography&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1259&bih=649&tbm=isch&tbnid=tSKzlgP7k3aXOM:&imgrefurl=http://amandarivkin.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/margaret-bourke-whites-second-world-war/bourkewhite04/&docid=McqztWBTRBKnPM&w=2642&h=3000&ei=_6mTTvKlOIfg0QG2uumtBw &zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=634&vpy=298&dur=430&hovh=239&hovw=211&tx=94&ty=166&page=8&tbnh=140&tbnw=128&start=147&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:147

Posted by Shaz at 2:14 PM 0 comments