Imagery
John Nichol was on lunch time TV today during a piece on the POW pictures. He stated he had never watched the clip of himself, which was obviously filmed under duress. JN made an interesting comment that these images possibly gave the relations some comfort that the people were alive, but ONLY at the time they were filmed. I wondered that maybe 'between the lines' this meant that the famillies may have suffered more stress because of the showing of the film. He also made the comment that part of the reason for filming was to further degrade the POW's. As a civillian seeing those images first time round, made me realise just what a debt of gratitude we owe all our servicemen/women, for the sacrifices and risks they are prepared to take on our behalf.
I am not surprised at all that we have seen these images, after all as above we have seen that a precedent has been set in GW1. Regarding the images of the deceased soldiers, we have to remember that in the 'west' we have seen similar images. Towards the end of the Afghan conflict in the UK there was photographic coverage of the shooting of what was described as an Afghan Al-Quida member. Any of this mans family or friends who would have had access to these pictures would have seen how his life was ended. Those were front and second page images on many UK papers. If we as a society are happy to purchase those papers with such graphic images, we should not be surprised that other countries follow suit. I can also recall images of 9/11 with recognisable faces of trapped people in the upper stories, who obviously did not survive. Our society was also happy to 'purchase' and view those images too. I am not condoning the use or showing of any of the above images, but it is a fact that if we view such images without complaint, then we should not be surprised that other societies are 'happy' to view images we are uncomfortable with. In due course we might even find them in a 'lads' magazine like FHM for example, one of that genre of mags has already used graphic pictures of the failed Iranian hostage mission with 'witty' captions.
Just for a bit of background to this post I have occaisionally free-lanced as a photographer, and have family members in the services.