The eye as a weapon

The eye as a weapon was created by Nikita

Well lads, doing a bit housework in my books collection, i had the idea to create this topic.

As i see it, it's about to post very selected pictures, made by great photographers and war correspondants who risked their lives and who sometimes died in action in order to inform the people, at least the people who want (and also who have the luck) to be informed...

Maybe a way to pay tribute to these soldiers of another kind and also to confirm that photography can be a redoubtable weapon against war, as it is true that, according to the old adage of the press, a single picture is worth 100 000 words...

Free supplement here

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Replied by Nikita on topic The eye as a weapon

Gilles Caron

Well, there must be one to begin with, so i choose Gilles Caron .

Why him? I don't know... Maybe because he's not well known by the recent generations, maybe because he died young, maybe because his pictures of the Biafra war have marked my memory of schoolboy...

And maybe because he believed in what he was doing, and that's not so bad in a man's life...

Gilles Caron (July 8, 1939 – April 5, 1970)

Vietnam, 1967.

Biafra, Nigeria, 1968.

Biafra, Nigeria, 1968.

Vietnam, 1967.

Biafra, Nigeria, 1968.

6 days war, Sinaï, 1967.

Link to the Gilles Caron fundation here (French only)

Also a good post about Gilles Caron here (French / English)

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Replied by Nikita on topic The eye as a weapon

Don McCullin

We continue this topic with another legend of photojournalism. Don McCullin belongs to the same generation of reporters that Gilles Caron.
He escaped alive, but forever marked by what he saw. Today, seems that he found a kind of redemption by renouncing the war reporting...

Attachment DonMcCullin.jpg not found

"I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: "I didn't kill that man on that photograph, I didn't starve that child." That's why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace."

Don McCullin

Biafra, Nigeria, 1969.

Vietnam, 1970.

Vietnam, 1970.

Biafra, Nigeria, 1969.

Biafra, Nigeria, 1969

Beirut, Lebanon, 1982.

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Replied by Nikita on topic The eye as a weapon

James Nachtwey

It's just impossible to try to approach such a topic without talking about James Nachtwey , arguably the greatest contemporary war photographer, even if he don't like this image that sticks to his skin...

A selection of his work, necessarily imperfect, necessarily incomplete, necessarily subjective ...

" I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should. not be forgotten and must not be repeated. "

James Nachtwey

Rwanda, 1994.

Rwanda, 1994.

Rwanda, 1994.

Somalia, 1992.

Kabul, Afghanistan, 1996.

Afghanistan, 1996.

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Replied by Nikita on topic The eye as a weapon

Of course, when we think "war correspondent," we immediately think about him. The reference, the myth, the legend. The only one who dared, on June 6, 1944, playing his life at Omaha Beach as a soldier plays his pay on a poker table. The one who has traveled the world and covered five wars. The one who had gone to seek the death penalty in China after the death of Gerda Taro, "the little redhead," his companion, his alter ego, his love forever. The one whoever came out when so many others fell around him. The one who, after the words of Alex Kershaw, "was playing with life" and death has finally caught by a hideous anti-personnel mine, a spring day in 1954, somewhere in Indochina. The one who summarized so well both his job and the war by saying : " War is like an aging actress: more and more dangerous and less and less photogenic. " I of course mention

Robert Capa

Robert Capa (October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954)

Spanish civilian war. Republican soldiers on the way to the front line.

Spanish civilian war. Dead Republican soldier.

Spanish civilian war. Spanish refugee going to cross the French border after the Republican defeat.

Spanish civilian war. Young Spanish refugee waiting for evacuation.

Spanish civilian war. Air alert in Madrid. (Yes Mom, i think about you right now.)

Spanish civilian war. The farewell of the International Brigades in Barcelona.

"Eleven". Indochina, 1954. The very last black & white picture by Capa. The death is hiding under an antipersonnel mine in the ditch right side.



"Bob's compassion was for all sufferers in war, and his photographs captured not only the crucial moments in these events, but also the hearts and imagination of those who have viewed his work. What he left behind is the story of his unique voyage and a visual testimony affirming his own faith in humankind's capacity to endure and occasionally to overcome."

Cornell Capa, his brother
Foreword in Robert Capa: Photographs

Dedicated to Jose Asencio Pastor, lieutenant, tank instructor in the Spanish Republican army.
My grandfather.


EDIT : Excepting "eleven", i chose to focus only on the Spanish war. Because it's like that.

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Replied by Nikita on topic The eye as a weapon

The ECPAD (photo/video and archives department of French army) and the EMA (French army head of staff) recently published pictures of the French operation SERVAL in Mali. That can be found on the Theatrum Belli Flickr page here

Mali - Operation SERVAL - March 7, 2013
A soldier of the French Foreign Legion stands guard near the workplace of the engineering group, after discovering a stock of IED.

Credit : ECPAD / EMA

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