Thursday, February 15, 2007

'Unembedded', a photography exhibition, website and book

I discovered a website called "Unembedded" today.

Tai Moses described "Unembedded" as the visual chronicle of wartime Iraq. There are photos of a father holding the hand of his dying child, bereaved women praying at a mosque, children playing in the street in front of an American tank. There are also scenes of people sharing a meal, dancing at a wedding, swimming in the Euphrates river. Even in a ruined country, people get on with their lives.

And there's an interesting interview with one of the "Unembedded" photographers, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad .

When asked what motivates him, he replies: I'm really curious about those people. Why are they doing these things? ... As a journalist, you are sitting there in your hotel room, and you're always talking about those people who are insurgents. You see the destruction; you see the car bombing; you see the assassinations; you see the fighting. You see all these things, and you don't know those people.

Who are the Sunni insurgents of Iraq? Are they nationalist? Are they religious? Why are they doing these things? What [is] their justification? And you really want to out of curiosity go, and you see those people and talk to those people. ...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heartbreaking.

Di Mackey said...

Heartbreaking work by brave people I thought ... I enjoyed the interview piece.