Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteGlancing over the news in general, death looks always impersonal.
It is not.
A body would tell its story if it could, it's deeply intimate journey into air, family, and country, its pleasures and struggles in nature and in God, its agonies and torment in the crucibles before the gates that mean to it, in its own lost and found and lost again way, greatness.
We, the living, have gotten good at ascribing meaning to death, especially for the peers we send out to greet it.
We provide it with context, how-to manuals, and poetry.
We--I am being intentionally all inclusive this morning--are aware that the return of a body represents a courtesy, an honor, and a shame.
We, the living, know too that air and life are good and their goodness is made sweet by the freedom and security to enjoy both as we may in peace.
Some--and now I may be exclusive--have gone to live in the border country between the living and the dead: the war zone. The journey through their eyes tells the stories the dead cannot, the many passing moments on the way to, through, and back from the thing that becomes a defining part of the message of their lives.
I don't know how lengthy a list of embedded and other current war photographers I'll compile from a couple of hours of effort this morning. It's turning out harder than I thought to get to primary content--i.e., just the unvarnished pictures and reports direct from photojournalists--free of meddling and overspin by intermediate publication editors.
I'll tell you what: if the war photographer is in-country as we go into the summer (2007) and has a blog or other fast-access web presence, let me hear of him and his 'Net location, and I'll compile at least a small directory of what I feel may be the most accessible, direct, down-to-earth, and fundamentally plain honest visual/verbal assessments of the felt character of contemporary conflict worldwide.
Afghanistan, yesterday: John D. McHugh, Photographer, Blog: http://blog.johndmchugh.com/
Afghanistan, timeless: Chad Hunt's Korengal Outpost: http://www.chadhuntphotography.com/theKOP/ and his Afghanistan in-service gallery: http://www.chadhuntphotography.com/afghanistan/
Afghanistan, more: Max Whittaker: http://www.maxwhittaker.com/main.php
Iraq, from The Guardian (UK) through the eyes and mind of Sean Smith: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2077241,00.html
Iraq: Chris Muir's guest report as sponsored by Bill Roggio's The Fourth Rail blog: http://billroggio.com/archives/2007/03/arrival_alignright_v.php
Iraq: Rob Curtis's slice-of-military-life gallery coverage of U. S. Marine Lt. Almar Fitzgerald: http://www.robcurtis.com/galleries/fitz/index.html
Iraq: Michael Camber, New York Times photojournalist, multimedia slide show produced from fieldwork, May 19, 2007, and the search for three missing American soldiers: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2007/05/22/world/20070523_SEARCH_FEATURE.html
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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