OK, you’re a documentary photographer. Or maybe you’re like a reportage photographer. You know ― that’s a strange thing, you know, because like some guy is killing a woman in front of you ― and like ― you’re taking a fucking picture of it. You’re not helping a woman save her life ― you’re getting a story.
*
Maybe you’re reach or something… with a secret life that you won’t tell anyone about no matter how lonely they are, or no matter how pretty they are you just won’t tell. Doesn’t matter I’ll guess.
I’ll tell you about yourself.
Left: Amindi, a refugee from Kandahar province, walks through the Charahi Qambar refugee camp on Feb. 27. Right: A U.S. Marine guards Combat Outpost 7171 in Helmand province on Oct. 28, 2010.
From The War in Hipstamatic by Balazs Gardi.
Martha Rosler
Power Game, 2009
Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for a Documentary, RESTREPO chronicles the deployment of a U.S. platoon of courageous American soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, considered to be one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military.
“We’re at war,” Hetherington said in an interview with The Associated Press before the Oscars. “We wanted to bring the war into people’s living room(s) and put it into the movie theaters, and get people to connect with it. It’s not necessarily about moral outrage. It’s about trying to understand that we’re at war and try to understand the emotional terrain of what being at war means.”
Tim Hetherington, “Restrepo” director and photojornalist, was killed in Misurata, Libya on April 20, 2011. Also killed was Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer for Getty Images. Thank you for the courage, Tim and Chris, and rest in peace.
Iran president’s speech to 65th Session of the UN General Assembly
Man with his potentials for understanding the secrets of the universe, his instinct for seeking truth, his aspirations for justice and perfection, his quest for beauty and purity and his capacity to represent God on earth was reduced to a creature limited to the materialistic world with a mission to maximize individualistic pleasures. Human instinct, then, replaced true human nature. Human beings and nations were considered rivals and the happiness of an individual or a nation was defined in collision with, and elimination or suppression of others. Constructive evolutionary cooperation was replaced with a destructive struggle for survival. The lust for capital and domination replaced monotheism which is the gate to love and unity. This widespread clash of the egoist with the divine values gave way to slavery and colonialism. A large portion of the world came under the domination of a few western States. Tens of millions of people were taken to slavery and tens of millions of families were shattered as a result. All the resources, the rights and the cultures of the colonized nations were plundered. Lands were occupied and the indigenous people were humiliated and mass-murdered. Yet, nations rose up, colonialism was alienated and the independence of the nations was recognized. Thus, the hope for respect, prosperity and security was revived amongst nations. In the beginning of the past century nice talks about freedom, human rights and democracy created hopes for healing the deep wounds of the past. Today, however, not only those dreams are not realized, but memories, even at times worse than before, have been recorded. As a result of the two World Wars, the occupation of Palestine, the Korean and the Vietnam’s Wars, the Iraqi war against Iran, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq as well as many wars in Africa, hundreds of millions of people were killed, wounded or displaced. Terrorism, illicit drugs, poverty and the social gaps increased. The dictatorial and coup d’tat governments in Latin America committed unprecedented crimes with the support of the West. Instead of disarmament, the proliferation and stockpiling of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons expanded, putting the world under a bigger threat. As a result, the very same old goals of colonialists and the slave masters were, this time round, pursued with a new facade. […] In all these cases the United Nations has been unable to take any effective course of action. Unfortunately, in the decade proclaimed as the “International Decade for the Culture of Peace” hundreds of thousands were killed and injured as a result of war, aggression and occupation, and hostilities and antagonism increased. H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
At the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly,
New York,
23 September 2010
