Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Following the tragic demise of photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Libya, there have been numerous interviews and essays on journalists in war zones. Some are not directly related to Tim and Chris, but came up in the light of the difficult and extremely dangerous working conditions of journalists in Egypt and Libya. Questions raised are: Why do they keep going back? What does it mean for their loved ones? What are the employer’s responsibilities? Here is a roundup of some of the most interesting reads.

1. Which of us dies first?

“You’d almost think it was the first time journalists had been killed in the line of duty, but it wasn’t – it was just the first time, in a long time, that western journalists with names like “Tim” and “Chris” were killed.” Some very important points by Teru Kuwayama on the treatment of fixers, translators and drivers who have been killed or wounded alongside western journalists. Michael Kamber‘s response (cached) offers a different view.

2. What to expect if you’re injured on assignment

“When Bangkok-based photographer Philip Blenkinsop returned home after having a bomb blow up a few feet in front of him while photographing in southern Thailand for Time Asia, he got a lesson in the sort of assistance and protection freelancers on assignment can expect from their clients. ‘I had a lovely bouquet of flowers waiting for me when I got home,’ remembers Blenkinsop. ‘And I was offered an extra day rate.’” Jay Mallin asks about publishers responsibilities when hiring freelance journalists to cover conflict. Most editors prefer not to comment.

3. The inner lives of wartime photographers

“’It becomes your identity in so many ways,’ Joao said. ‘This is my identity. This is all I’m known for. Nobody sends me out to go shoot beautiful pictures for travel articles, you know?’” Bill Keller, Executive Editor of The New York Times, talks with Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva about their careers as war photographers, why Joao still wants to keep going besides having lost both legs and why Greg has stopped covering war. Keller also writes about his responsibilities as an employer.

4. Lara Logan breaks her silence

In an incredibly open and courageous television interview, CBS correspondent Lara Logan talks about being sexually abused by a mob on Tahrir Square. Linsey Addario has also written about being a female journalist in a war zone: “And when I was in Libya, I was groped by a dozen men. But why is that more horrible than what happened to Tyler or Steve or Anthony — being smashed on the back of the head with a rifle butt?”

5. Only the good die young

“Tim is not the first friend I have lost like this. Richard Cross was the first, John Hoagland the second, and few now can even remember their names at all nor  the war they died in or what it was about. Sure seemed important at the time.  Nicaragua, Contras. Anybody know about it?” Shocked by the death of his friend, David Alan Harvey questions the idea of photographers covering war in general.

6. It seems, according to NYT Lens blog, the quickest way to earn your photojournalism stripes, is getting blown up

“Please no more pedestals. Otherwise more freelance photographers will die and be injured and potentially put the lives of others at risk taking photos that in the current climate may never be published (unless they themselves become the news story).” Duckrabbit on the myth-building around war photographers.

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7. Face that screamed war’s pain looks back, 6 hard years later

Samar Hassan screamed after her parents were killed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq in 2005.

“He says Samar’s 8-year-old brother, Muhammad, talks to himself when he is alone. ‘When we go out and see a family, they get sad,’ he said. Sometimes he finds the children in a room together, crying. ‘When they remember the accident, it’s like they just died.’” Tim Arango writes about what came the girl in one of Chris Hondros’ most famous pictures. (I feel slightly uncomfortable about the fact that showing here the image for the first time might made her relive the worst moment in her life.) In 2005 Chris himself wrote about Joseph Duo, the subject of another of his iconic images. “He’s been an inextricable part of my life for more than two years now but I’d never known his name, his age or anything else about him. In fact, before last month we’d only met once for a few minutes during a pitched gun battle in West Africa. But our lives connected for good during the millisecond it took to photograph him jumping into the air in exultation during battle.”

8. KIA in the age of Facebook

“In the Facebook and Twitter age, the time delay of the print news cycle seems positively quaint. I thought about that as I watched real-time updates stream across my monitor and mobile screens — and I wondered if Tim and Chris had family and close friends who hadn’t even woken up yet in whatever time zone they were in.” Teru Kuwayama on how the news of Chris’ and Tim’s death got out on Twitter and Facebook within hours.

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9. “You Never Forget the First Taste of War”

“To survive, ‘you stick with colleagues you trust,’ says Yuri Kozyrev, who was with New York Times photographers (and high-school friends) Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario in Libya just before they were taken captive in March and who had planned to be on the trip with Hetherington and Hondros, too. ‘If you are by yourself,’ says Kozyrev, ‘you can just disappear.’ Gary Knight, a founding member of the agency VII, puts it more bluntly: ‘I go in with other people because I don’t want to die alone.’” Jada Yuan on the photographers Chris and Tim left behind.

US Army soldiers including flight medics of Task Force Shadow Charlie Company 6-101 Dustoff evacuate an American soldier, Southern Afghanistan, Nov. 28, 2010. The soldier got hit by shrapnel from an improvised explosive device. He suffered wounds at his head, chest and arms.

Within a week the New York Times, Time Magazine and the Toronto Star published stories on US Army flight medics, normally referred to as Medevac, an abbreviation of medical evacuation. This caused a little controversy started by Michael Shaw on BagNewsNotes. He asked if this clustering was due to the military’s public relations strategy that wanted the public to see stories of heroic rescues rather than combat.

Around the same time there where at least seven photographers embedded with Medevac units. I was one of them. My friends at dvafoto.com asked me to give my take on that controversy. You can read it in the post “The Medevac Stories with Daniel Etter”.

Here is a list of essays on Medevac units that appeared in the last months:

• “Is child abuse a new Taliban gambit?” by Nicki Sobecki (photos and text)
• “Profiles of a Dustoff 57, medevac team in Afghanistan” by David Brown (text) and Linda Davidson (photos)
• “The Birds Of Hope: With A Black Hawk Medevac Unit In Afghanistan” by James Nachtwey (photos and text… next time a photo editor tells me that you can’t write and photograph at the same time, I tell them: “Have you heard of this dude … Nachtwey?”)
• “In Wider War in Afghanistan, Survival Rate of Wounded Rises” by Tyler Hicks (photos) and C.J. Chivers (text)
• “Frontline medevac teams are life-savers in Afghanistan” by Louie Palu (photos and text)

One of  my favourite things on the web are the TED Talks. The cover an amazing range of subjects from biology over conducting   to comedy to name a few. In this presentation Jonathan Klein, director of Getty Images, talks about photos that changed the world. Many of them are images are very iconic, single images that almost single handedly defined an event or an incident. As an exception to this, his presentation includes a picture of one of the most photographed woman in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.  Melancholicly, I have to say to myself that the times of Eddie Adams are over

# 7: Platon

Photos: Platon/ The New Yorker

I could listen to Platon telling the anecdotes he has collected over the years photographing the famous and powerful for hours. Check out the series of portraits of world leaders he did for the New Yorker. Unfortunately, Angela Merkel is missing – I would have loved to see her in there, but it wouldn’t have been her style. To make a bet: Platon’s work will be awarded in the World Press Photo Contest.

# 6: New German Photojournalism

Andy Spyra's website

Photojournalism in Germany in the last years has been heavily influenced by Ostkreuz an agency from Berlin. To sum up its style: brownish, desaturated medium format photography – rather unemotional. I feel that there’s been a new trend recently, I can connect better with.

To see what I mean, check out Andy Spyra‘s work. He comes from a small, boring and probably really uninspiring town in Germany – yet he produces very inspiring photography. He has devoted himself to documenting life in the Indian part of Kashmir and has been quite successful.  He has been shortlisted for the Magnum Expression Award and received the Getty Images Grant. But most importantly he has photographed one of my favorite images of all time.

# 5: Consequences by NOOR

Consequences by Noor

Noor has become the agency with the highest proportion of photographers that I admire. Among them are Pep Bonet, Francesco Zizola and Yuri Kozyrev.  When I saw Bonet’s work for the first time on the Photokina some years ago it opened my eyes for a more artistic approach to photojournalism. Kozyrev is definitely one of the best conflict photographers at present and Zizola has made a great impact on the use of color in contemporary photojournalism.

Consequences, a joint project by Noor photographers on the impact of climate change, shows that a photo collective can really be much more than just the sum of its members. (I wrote more about Consequences here.) Way to go.

# 4: Young talents

Maybe it’s only my perception, but I feel like there have never been so many young photographers producing amazing photography. Some of my favorite discoveries of this year are Alejandro Chaskielberg, and Adam Ferguson.

Alejandro Chaskielberg's website

I still haven’t figured out what kind of photography Alejandro Chaskielberg actually does: fashion, art or journalism? But I think it’s the freshest approach I’ve seen in years.

Adam Ferguson's Website

To call Adam Ferguson a discovery is misleading since I’ve known his work for three years, but he has really made his breakthrough this year. His photographs from the Afghanistan have graced Time Magazine covers two times this year and Chris Morris called them the best covers he has seen in a decade. To make another bet: Adam’s work will be awarded in the World Press Photo Contest.

# 3: Not whining about the state of the industry

Well, yes, the internet is a big threat to traditional media outlets. Newspapers and magazines are cutting staff – that is if they don’t file for bankruptcy. It’s become harder and harder for photographers to make a living, because competition is getting better and the market (the one where you get paid) is shrinking. The media is degenerating into thousands of niche publications and the integrating power of mass media vanishes. You could complain about it forever or you could just grab the opportunities that come with this technological revolution and produce high quality work people want to pay for – online and offline.

For example, the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit has never sold so many copies as this year.  Why? Because it’s good and because it provides something you don’t look for on the internet: long, well researched and well written features. On the internet Die Zeit tries to follow the same strategy. Instead of the continuous stream of news, it tries to declutter news and focus on specific subjects.*

# 2: The NYT Lens Blog

NYT Lens Blog

Founded in May this year, the NYT Lens Blog has quickly made it to my favorite websites. It’s just how a photo blog should look like: easy navigation, clean layout and amazing photography. Lens shows the dedication of the NYT when it comes to high quality photojournalism and it has strengthen my belief that even in today’s economic environment of the news media unique photojournalism has its place.

# 1: Burn Magazine

Lance Rosenfield's "Thirst for Grit" on Burn Magazine

David Allan Harvey must be the most selfless, optimistic and encouraging person in the photo industry at present. He is not only a great photographer but also a great teacher. In 2008 he has initiated the Emerging Photographer Fund, a 10.000 $ grant for a journalistic or artistic photo project, and founded Burn Magazine. They can be seen as two branches of one mission: supporting young inspired photographers. Burn has become the place on the internet to dsicover and discuss contemporary documentary photography.

*Despite all this praise, I don’t agree with the photo policy of Die Zeit. They often manipulate images. To mark the manipulation they always put an [M] in the caption so you can see if an image is manipulated, but you can’t see what they manipulated. Did they just change from color to black and white or did they change the content?

Monastery in Tblisi, Georgia. Photo: Paolo Pellegrin/ Magnum/ Georgian Spring

As magazines and newspapers cut costs for production, competition among photographers is rising and publication on the internet  doesn’t generate enough income, photoagencies try to approach new ways to fund and publish projects. The most recent examples are Consequences by Noor and Georgian Spring by Magnum.

In the forerun to the United Nations Climate Change Conference eight Noor photographers cover current affects of climate change from Greenland over Sudan to Canada. Among others Oxfam, Greenpeace and Nikon are partners for this project. (Edit: Funding only comes from Nikon.) It will first be published exhibited during the Conference.

Blackfields, Poland. Photo: Pep Bonet/ Noor/ Consequences

One year after the war in Georgia ten Magnum photographers went there for a project called Georgian Spring. Beautiful images of an equally beautiful country. The website is really sophistcated showing the skill of the Magnum multimedia department. Georgian spring was funded by the Georgian Ministry of Culture with support of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Consequences and Georgian Spring are not limited to the internet. It’s just one outlet among many. Magnum published a book and there will be a travelling exhibition for both projects along with publications in traditional media. I think this is a great development and might well show the future for ambitious photojournalistic projects.

But as great as these projects may look, journalistically they are questionable. Georgian President Saakashvili will surely not fund anything that’s overly critical of his policies. And if you work for NGOs (regardless of how good their aims may be) you won’t publish anything that’s contradictory to their mission. You can basically say that Consequences and especially Georgian Spring are very sophisticated public relations projects. (Edit: I stand corrected, this doesn’t apply to Consequences. See Nina’s comment below.)

I guess for Magnum, VII, Noor and many other agencies this might be the only way to survive in the coming years. And the image of journalistic independency is probably just that – an idealistic image. Now the influences are just more obvious. I think it’s okay as long as it is clearly stated who funded these projects, as long as you don’t sell it as independent journalism or – if published in a journalistic context – put it into critical perspective in the accompanying text.

In any case, I enjoyed looking at them.