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The Impact of Photography on History: Ethics of the Photography of Atrocities
Paul Watsons iconic photography of the Vietnam War and Somalia brought to life those far-off wars to viewers at home. One image that won the Canadian Watson the Pulitzer Prize particularly haunted him, that of the desecrated body of an American soldier being torn apart by crowds in Mogadishu. The article The Haunting of Paul Watson actually notes how Watson had to go back for a second, less explicit photograph, because he was afraid newspapers would not publish the first. Watson himself later hunted down the dead mans family to ask for forgiveness. He has said that, while powerful, that such photographs can be taken out of context and misinterpreted, dehumanizing the subjects. He felt this had been the case of his own prize-winning photograph, which he initially took to make a political point about how the American presence in the area was received by local Somalis.
Watson does not regret taking the photograph, he notes in the article, stating that his hope is that viewers can see their own feelings and thoughts reflected both in the dead soldier and the mobs of Somalis, and that they can engage in greater reflection about themselves as well as the ethics of foreign invasions. At other times, however, such photographs have inspired horror, as was the case of Richard Drews photograph of a falling man in...…Watson and Drew, if they are now less apt to be believed? The impact of these photographs may have been great, but the types of war and horrific acts of terrorism were not stopped by the power of such photographs. On the other hand, photographic images can still become iconic, and the photographs of Watson and Junod still have the power to disturb and provoke. Hopefully, they can also make people think and remember, which was Watsons explicit reason not only for taking the photograph but also writing a memoir chronicling his later, ambivalent feelings about his work as a photographic journalist during wartime. Photographs can be powerful in a way text is not, but they do not mean the viewer…
Works Cited
Gessell, Paul. “The Haunting of Paul Watson.” The Ottawa Citizen. 2007 August 17.
Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire. 8 September 2009.
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