War photographers are unique, driven and talented

[Md. Anikuzzaman]

Some years ago I went to Ethiopia for the Observer, into the highlands where some of the country's poorest people live. Visiting what was billed as a maternity hospital but was in fact a corrugated metal-roofed shed with a few rusty bed frames where a doctor visited once a month. Unfortunately for the 17 year-old woman brought in by her young husband and terrified parents-in-law, the day she had complications after giving birth didn't coincide with the doctor's visit. As the girl lay curled up on bare bed springs, slowly bleeding to death, the heart-broken mother-in-law begged the Observer photographer to take a photograph, her nails digging deep as she clutched my hand. We didn't know whether she wanted the picture taken to show the world their situation or to prove that she'd lived at all.

A few weeks later I went to the opening of a new children's unit in a Sussex hospital. It was full of smiling white-coated staff and bright colors. To my surprise I missed the speeches and ended up locked in the brand new toilets, in bits, feeling the grieving women's nails and knowing why she wanted the picture taken.

The work of war and conflict photographers is not just about their bravery in face of fire. It's also about their constant exposure to some of the most awful tragedies imaginable and their ability to process that hurt and trauma and carry on working in the face of it, driven by the larger ideal that telling the world what is happening will make a difference.

It's not just the photographer who wants the story to be told, so, in most cases, does the person being photographed. Some of the work done by the women photographers featured in the Observer's New Review cover story this weekend, takes courage to a whole new level.

None of these women have made much money or are household names. Alixandra Fazzina's coverage of the Somalian refugee crisis involved her following trigger-happy murderous traffickers who took boats of refugees out to sea and dumped them there, returning for anther fee-paying load. Lynsey Addario clambers so fearlessly over battlefields, yet through the fog and smoke of war manages to capture images of great humanity and empathy. Maggie Steber's career-long relationship with Haiti has put her at great risk but documented that troubled nation's people and their lives at times when few outsiders cared.

When I was in Egypt last year with Observer photographer Gary Carlton we were with a protest march that suddenly came under fire from the opposing side. I ran one way, away from the shooting, but as I looked over my shoulder for Gary, he was running just as fast the other way, camera in front of his face. There has to be an instinct that takes over, something inherent in the genes that makes people able to do the job.

And it's an extraordinary job they do. Camille Lepage, the 26-year-old French photographer killed n Central African Republic earlier this month, was, said her grieving mother, the kind of person who was so driven to make a difference "that she was not an easy person to live with". A different breed absolutely. Unique, driven and tremendously talented. Without them the world would be blind.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/she-said/2014/may/24/war-photographers-are-unique-driven-and-talented-without-them-the-world-would-be-blind