Contents
| This theme includes example sections and will be revised and added to as we proceed. Suggestions for additions, improvements and the correction of factual errors are always appreciated.
Status: Collect > Document > Analyse > Improve |
260.01 War > Justification for the Iraq War (2003-2011)
 
On 5 February 2003 Colin Powell gave a speech at the United Nations where photographic evidence of dubious quality was presented to justify the Iraq War (2003-2011). The evidence purported to show preparations for biological and chemical warfare plants and storage sites. No evidence in subsequent investigations supported these claims.
260.02 War > Iraq War (2003-2011): Abu Ghraib
        
260.03 War > William Laven: War Models
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
                    
War Models is a series of photographs of unassembled model airplane kits of aircraft flown in the Iraq War (2003-2011).
Forty aircraft types have been flown in Operation Iraqi Freedom. This includes 30 types of airplanes -- fighters, troop transporters, aerial tankers, and reconnaissance planes -- eight types of helicopters and two kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), one armed with missiles, the other with cameras.
Of the forty aircraft flown, model kits are made of twenty-one. The prints are scaled in proportion to the actual aircraft; each image is 1/50 the size of the actual aircraft. The AV-8 Harrier, for example, is small enough that two could squeeze into the typical San Francisco house lot, while two B-52 Stratofortress bombers would overcrowd a football field. The AV-8 weighs 14,000 pounds; the B-52 carries five times that weight in bombs alone. These images of children’s toys touch on the American fascination with symbols of power and acknowledge the complex relationship to the destructive power of the actual aircraft.
© William Laven (November 2006)
260.04 War > Ellen Susan: Soldier Portraits
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
                                   
The wet collodion process was the primary photographic method from the 1850s through the 1880s, encompassing the dates of the American Civil War. The men and women photographed for the Soldier Portraits project are members of the U.S. Army based in Southeast Georgia. Most have deployed to Iraq one to three times since 2003. Many are in Iraq now.
The necessarily long exposures of this process often result in an intensity of gaze, and the grainless, highly detailed surface brings out minute details of each individual. These attributes, combined with the historical military associations made me feel that the process could be a meaningful way to photograph contemporary soldiers to provide a counterpoint to the anonymous representations seen in newspapers and on television. I wanted to produce physically enduring, visually arresting images of people who are being sent repeatedly into a war zone.
Ellen Susan (2008)
alan@luminous-lint.com |
General reading
Eisenman, Stephen F., 2010, The Abu Ghraib Effect, (Reaktion Books) isbn-10: 1861896468 isbn-13: 978-1861896469 [Δ]
Kamber, Michael, 2013, Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq, (University of Texas Press) isbn-10: 0292744080 isbn-13: 978-0292744080 [Introduction by Dexter Filkins] [Δ]
Kamber, Michael, 2013, Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq, (University of Texas Press) isbn-13: 978-0292744080 [Foreword by Dexter Filkins] [Δ]
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Ashley Gilbertson
Gilberston, Ashley & Filkins, Dexter (introduction), 2007, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War, (University Of Chicago Press) isbn-10: 0226293254 isbn-13: 978-0226293257 [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
Resources
Camera / Iraq
http://www.camerairaq.com
Camera/Iraq is a project by Carleton College's Cinema & Media Studies Department to gather news and commentary about public and personal photographic image practices associated with the War of Images in the Middle East.
| Soldier Portraits
http://soldierportraits.com
A photographic study of soldiers in the United States Army by Ellen Susan. The photographs are made using the 150 year old collodion wet plate process.
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Luc Delahaye (1962-) • Ashley Gilbertson (1978-) • Sean Hemmerle (1966-) • Chris Hondros (1070-2011) • James Nachtwey (1948-) • Alan Pogue • Ellen Susan | Home > Themes > War > Iraq War (2003-2011)
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