Shooting Under Fire

WARNING :GRAPHIC CONTENT

I've always wondered what is it like to be at the scene of a battlefield? what would it be like to see someone being shot at or die in front of your eyes. Till now it was just in the movies that i had witnessed such scenes of action I decided it was time for some reality and thats when i zeroed on this book- " Shooting Under Fire" by Peter Howe. A close friend of mine, ashish got the book for me. Though the book cost me a fortune but it was worth every penny or should i say cents!

The book offers a fresh perspective on war- behind the scenes type. During the course of any war the common man gets to to hear,see only carefully filtered news and is generally kept away from reality(as in the colossal life of human and property),but this book throws light on the bitter truth.

The book is a compilation of works by famous war photographers which showcases some of the works by renowned photographers,basically depicting war in its utmost brutality.Some of the heart rendering pictures make u wonder- man what is it that we complain about? damn there are ppl suffering , dying while we from the comfort of our cosy homes complain abt almost everything. One reason why i came up with this article was that i was deeply touched and moved by the plight of people suffering and i wanted people to see what it isall about.

If we stop thinking from a winning perspective( in any case there are no winners in a war)then one realises the dark, cruel, futile nature of war. War sure is Hell and the picture below expresses similiar views of a vietnam vet

reminds me of the quote by William Sherman which goes like

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. "

had scanned some pics from the book which i'm sharing. I guess you have to see it for yourself
what war is all about.The description below each pic is by the person who photographed it.

About the graphic nature of photographs, i would just like to reiterate what Harold evans(former editor of Times) has to say-" No action can be moral if we close our eyes to its consequences".


West of Saigon,1968
Sympathy for the enemy
These GI's had captured a vietcong fighter, only to discover that his belly had been blown out. Inspite of this he had been fighting for 2 or 3 days. The GI on the left said," Anybody who can fight like this for three days can drink out of my canteen any time. Years later this scene was enacted in Apocalypse now . Photo Credit: Philip Jones Griffiths

The Pearl Earring
One of the most moving photographs of the Vietnam War is of a priest giving last right to photographer Dickey Chapelle, who has stepped on a land mine. Her hair has fallen away from her face to reveal a pearl earring. Although she covered combat in the same dirt and sweat covered fatigues as her male colleagues,this touch of feminine adornment brings an immense poignancy to the picture of the dying woman .

Tet offensive,Hue,1968 By Don McCullin
Dead Soldiers can't speak
I arranged the composition of this picture. I saw two soldiers plundering the body for souvenirs.They kept laughing at the photographs in his wallet and throwing them on the ground and calling him gook this and gook that and motherfucker,and then they wandered off. I watched them leave and i thought,this is'nt right.Here was a young boy with a bullet through his mouth that had busted teh whole of the back of his skull out, and he's lying in the rain. He had a picture of his mother and a young woman,a sister or daughter,and his little first -aid tin,which would hardlly suffic for any bullet wound,let alone one in the head.
I've never denied the fact that i arranged the photo. I felt i was making a statement on behalf of this boy. Dead soldiers cant speak anymore, but i can speak for them. I did'nt think that what i did was a crime or taking a big liberty. I wanted to show compassion for this man's sacrifice for his country

Biafra,1968 By Don McCullin
To Biafra on the Ammunition Plane

The difficulty of photogrphing scenes like this is that it calls into question your commitement.What can i achieve by taking pictures of starving children?hat kind of risk am i taking here?What am i giving back here? i'm taking,but i' not giving.ifyou photograph a person who's dying, you're not going to save that person's life,and you start having all these things go through your head that could wind up sending you mad.I took a photograph of an albino boy there.I photographed him and just walked away,but he followed me and held on to my hand. Every time i'm in the darkroom and that image comes up through the developer,it's a haunting experience.I rarely print that picture. That boy and many people in those images did not survive,and you say,How can i justify this? but how can i not do it? you are trapped in a no-win situation.You want to go out thaere and bring attention to whats happening so that others might be saved.but you're not going t save that boy,so whatever your achievements are, however small or large they may be, you still walk away with a slight crime on your hands.

By Christopher Morris
The Tears Of Sarajevo
This picture was taken early on in yugoslavia. The boy is crying over the death of his father. it was almost as if the country was crying. It expressed the anguish of the whole country. There was something about the boy that remindede me of myself as a child. We have very similiar features. It was as if i became one with the boy in the photo, and it made me weep. I wept over all the death i had seen. i dont really cry much over the fighters who die, but i do for the civilian casualities and the horrendous wounds that weapons do to teh human body. people dont realise how horrific war is. i used to really get into my pictures, but after that point in sarajevo, i just stopped. i havent gone through any returns since 1990. i don'nt even want to look at them

Farley Gives Way
This picture was simply captioned Farley Gives Way in the Life layout." Its not easy to photograph a pilot dying in a friends arms and later to photograph the breakdown of the friend," Burrows said." I did'nt know what to do. Was i merely capitalizing on someone else's grief".

By Ron Haviv
The Eyes of Dying Men

In Bosnia, i photographed a young Muslim as he was being captured by serbian paramilitaries who had taken over his town. the soldiers forced him to his knees. He put his hands up in self defense and he looked me straight in the eyes,pleading for help, but there was absolutely nothing i could do except photograph him. Later the serbs took him to HQ's and interrogated him. Then they threw him out of a window. i was actually trying to get out of town before they realised i had taken photographs of this man and of several executions. The serbs beat him up, and dragged him back into the building. i had a fruitless confrontation with the commander on his behalf, then got out of there as quickly as i could. The next day, after i had shipped the film, i went back to the man's house and to the hospital, but he was nowhere to be found. I always remeber that connection with his eyes. It' a memory that will stay with me forever.

This is one of the most famous pics of vietnam war. The guy was executed!


Dying chechen,Grozny 1995


Where is the blood of war

David Turnley took his photograph on a helicopter ride with the fifth MASH unit inside IraqThe weeping soldier is Sgt Ken Kozakiewicz, who discovered that the body besides him wasthe driver of his vehicle only after a medic handed him the dead man's ID card. When Kozakiewicz's father, himself a Vietnam vet was questioned about the picture, he said that the military was trying to make us think this is antiseptic. But this is war. Where is the blood and thereality of what is happening over there? Finally we have a picture of what really happens in war".

Hue 1968, By Philip Jones Griffiths