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Terrorist Bombings: From Stopped Time to Still Life Posted by Hariman in visualizing war Representation in any public art today has to include using old forms to capture what is distinctive about our time. Eventually new forms emerge, and we should ask what might become the artistic conventions of a "catastophile" society in which disaster and violence are fatal attractions and spectacular sources of energy. One image that might be on the cusp of old and new is this screen shot of a bombing in Sri Lanka:

Did London bombings turn citizen journalists into citizen paparazzi? Cameraphones and videophones on the scene were important tools in giving the world the first look at the horrific London bombings. But what about people with cameraphones who vied for the most gruesome shots of victims?

"25 Tons of Bombs Wipe Afghan Town Off Map"

VII Photo Panel: Why Photography Still Matters Long, long ago, when picture magazines arrived in millions of homes once a week, and people still read newspapers, a news photo could have an immediate impact on public opinion. Images of fire hoses turned on men and women wanting to exercise their right to vote mobilized thousands of voter registration volunteers. An image of a naked girl running down a road to flee a napalm bombing curdled public opinion about an already unpopular war. But in today's fractured media, with so few publications showing serious photography, can a photo really make a difference? The answer, according to participants in the panel discussion held last night at the VII Photo agency office, is yes. Each panelist-a Congressional aide, a human rights activist and a photojournalist-gave examples of the surprising and sometimes unexpected ways that photos of human rights issues have moved individuals to take action.

VII Photo Panel: Why Photography Still Matters Long, long ago, when picture magazines arrived in millions of homes once a week, and people still read newspapers, a news photo could have an immediate impact on public opinion. Images of fire hoses turned on men and women wanting to exercise their right to vote mobilized thousands of voter registration volunteers. An image of a naked girl running down a road to flee a napalm bombing curdled public opinion about an already unpopular war. But in today's fractured media, with so few publications showing serious photography, can a photo really make a difference? The answer, according to participants in the panel discussion held last night at the VII Photo agency office, is yes. Each panelist-a Congressional aide, a human rights activist and a photojournalist-gave examples of the surprising and sometimes unexpected ways that photos of human rights issues have moved individuals to take action.

"Camera Phones Prevail: Citizen Shutterbugs and the London Bombings by Dennis Dunleavy, Ph.D San Jose, Calif. -July 9, 2005 - Photojournalism history was made last week. For the first time, both The New York Times and The Washington Post ran photos on their front pages made by citizen-journalists with camera phones. Many years ago I found a cartoon of a tourist visiting hell. I think it may have come from the New Yorker, but it could have been Gary Larson's "Far Side" as well. "

Photographs The photographs collection is a key resource for the visual history of London during the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. It includes work by both professional and amateur photographers and covers most aspects of London life. It contains some topographical and architectural images but the main emphasis is on social documentary. Notable bodies of work include: * Early topographical views of London by Roger Fenton, c.1857 * Construction of the Metropolitan District Railway by Henry Flather, 1860s * London street life by John Thomson, c.1876 * Historic London buildings by Alfred & John Bool and Henry Dixon, 1870s & 1880s * Poverty in the East End by John Galt, early 1900s * Impressionist views of London by Alvin Langdon Coburn, early 1900s * Suffragettes by Christina Broom, early 1900s * Street and river scenes by George Davison Reid, c.1930 * East End homes by Humphrey Spender, early 1930s * London street life in the 1930s by Margaret Monck, Wolfgang Suschitzky and Cyril Arapoff * Underground shelters during the Blitz by Bill Brandt, 1940 * Bomb damage to the City of London during the Blitz by Arthur Cross and Fred Tibbs, 1940-41 * London street life in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including work by Nigel Henderson, Roger Mayne, Paul Styles, B J Green, Cory Bevington, Jerome Liebling, Lutz Dill, Jim Rice and Paul Trevor * Topographical views of London by Edwin Smith, 1960s * Contemporary work by many photographers including Yoke Matze, Anna Fox, Alan Delaney, Paul Barkshire, Tim Daly, Chris Dorley-Brown, Tom Evans, John R. J. Taylor, Ed Barber, Magda Segal, Paul Baldesare, Dave Trainer, Paulo Catrica, Ronen Numa, Angus Boulton, Janet Hall, Dave Young, Michael Donald, Jason Wilde, John Davies, David Turner Tom Hunter and Mike Seaborne

Afghanistan: Pictures Not Taken 'When the press started to feel empowered to show and tell the truth, it was only a matter of time before the military and government powers would retaliate.' By Travis Beard Journalist Ash Sweeting rides in a pickup with the Afghanistan National Police. Photo by ©Travis Beard/Argusphotography. Nothing has more power to communicate the destruction and despair of our time-especially from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan-than photography. But in the sanitized and censored environments now of government and military control, taking the picture can be as difficult as getting it published. In coverage of these wars, freelance photojournalists are indispensible. One after another, news organizations have abandoned the task of informing the public. For editors back home, photojournalists-and the images they transmit-are problematic. But it's not the photographers who pose the problem; it's the truth their images tell. During the Vietnam War, there was the searing image of nine-year-old Kim Phouc running down the road with her flesh melting and fusing into her body after a napalm strike and her brother running in front of her with an expression that recalled Edvard Munch's "The Scream." This photograph spoke to people in ways that words had failed to do. These children were ones the Americans were supposed to be saving, not bombing. Images such as this one did much to turn the tide of that war, but if they did, it was because they conveyed important truths.

"On the Internet, everybody is a millenarian. Internet journalism, according to those who produce manifestos on its behalf, represents a world-historical development-not so much because of the expressive power of the new medium as because of its accessibility to producers and consumers. That permits it to break the long-standing choke hold on public information and discussion that the traditional media-usually known, when this argument is made, as "gatekeepers" or "the priesthood"-have supposedly been able to maintain up to now. "Millions of Americans who were once in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do this stuff-and that many unknowns can do it better than the lords of the profession," Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates one of the leading blogs, Instapundit, writes, typically, in his new book, "An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths." The rhetoric about Internet journalism produced by Reynolds and many others is plausible only because it conflates several distinct categories of material that are widely available online and didn't use to be. One is pure opinion, especially political opinion, which the Internet has made infinitely easy to purvey. Another is information originally published in other media-everything from Chilean newspaper stories and entries in German encyclopedias to papers presented at Micronesian conferences on accounting methods-which one can find instantly on search and aggregation sites. Lately, grand journalistic claims have been made on behalf of material produced specifically for Web sites by people who don't have jobs with news organizations. According to a study published last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there are twelve million bloggers in the United States, and thirty-four per cent of them consider blogging to be a form of journalism. That would add

Citizen Journalism

"Citizen Journalism and the BBC '… when major events occur, the public can offer us as much new information as we are able to broadcast to them. From now on, news coverage is a partnership.' By Richard Sambrook On the day of the London bombings, the BBC News's Web site used images sent to them by citizens who were affected by the attacks. On the site, people could learn how to submit their video, photographs and words for use by the BBC. "

Includes a photograph a citizen journalist took of a Mercedes packed with Propane gas that was to explode outside of a nightclub off Haymarket St. The photograph earned £20,000 for the photographer.