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Part 1/6 - "From Refugee Photographer to War Photographer." Ashley Gilbertson photographs the war in Iraq for the New York Times. He talks about the invasion of Iraq, the battle for Falluja, the Marines he worked with, post-traumatic stress disorder, Iraqi civilians, and the future of photojournalism. His work is available in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War published by the University of Chicago Press. part 1 of 6

Michael Kamber of the NYT on Iraq, embedding and photojournalism in conflict zones

"Donovan Wylie became the youngest ever full member of Magnum Photos in 1997, when he was just 26. Born in Belfast in 1971, he has explored the architecture of conflict in Northern Ireland and, more recently, in Iraq, where he hopes to return later this year. One of his images is going on show in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester from 25 September - 23 January, in a group exhibition called The Land Between Us: place, power and dislocation. BJP took the opportunity to catch up with him."

4 unembedded photogprahers in iraq

In the first years of the Iraq war, Noor co-founder and Time magazine contributor Yuri Kozyrev travelled behind enemy lines, following the conflict from both the US military and Iraqi insurgents' perspectives. 'I spent a lot of time with both sides,' he says. 'I would be with the rebels and then go across the road, knock on the doors of a palace, go inside and find myself with the US military.'

Read the Report After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account. -Maj. General Antonio M. Taguba (USA-Ret.), preface to Broken Laws, Broken Lives In PHR's new report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives, we have for the first time medical evidence to confirm first-hand accounts of men who endured torture by US personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay. These men were never charged with any crime.

Chris Hondros / A Window on Baghdad hondros images from windows of humvee in iraq

In the September issue of Italian vogue, fashion photographer Steven Meisel (the man behind Madonna's controversial Sex book) stirs up controversy with his glamorized imagery of the war in Iraq. His 'Make Love Not War' series (mostly) depicts sweaty, dirty soldiers in the middle of a war-zone interacting with models in a very "heated fashion" Apparently, claims are being made by 'Women In Media and News' suggesting this series of photographs are pornographic and evoke sexualizations of horrific situations, also saying that violence is erotic. Am quiet certain everyone would agree by this "surface" reading, but is that the point of the message? What do they mean to you? Check out the rest.

As photographer Simon Norfolk claims in the following interview, his work documents an international "military sublime." His photos reveal half-collapsed buildings, destroyed cinemas, and unpopulated urban ruins in diagonal shafts of morning sunlight - from Iraq to Rwanda, Bosnia to Afghanistan - before venturing further afield into more distant, and surprising, landscapes of modern warfare. These include the sterile, climate-controlled rooms of military command centers, and the gargantuan supercomputers that design and simulate nuclear warheads.

Brighton Photo Biennial Memory of Fire: The War of Images and Images of War festival review and interview with curator Julian Stallabrass by Guy Lane The Brighton Photo Biennial offers an in-depth exploration of the photography of war. Ten exhibitions, in locations across the South Coast, examine various aspects of the production, use and circulation of imagery during wartime. At the heart of the Biennial is a comparison of photojournalism from the Vietnam and Iraq wars, featuring - amongst others - the work of Larry Burrows, Don McCullin, photographers from the North Vietnamese Army, Bilal Hussein and Stephanie Sinclair. Harriet Logan's photographs of women in Afghanistan are afforded a solo show; as is Philip Jones Griffiths' Agent Orange project. Dutch photojournalist Geert van Kesteren presents edits from his books, Why Mister Why? and Baghdad Calling. Themes of censorship and obscenity are addressed in an installation by Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn. The representation of war by contemporary art photographers - including Simon Norfolk, Paul Seawright and Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin - is the subject of a further exhibition. Julian Germain hosts a display of pictures made by military personnel based in Portsmouth. And separate shows of material from the First World War (by Frank Hurley), and the Mexican Revolution, suggest historical parallels to the more recent work. The Biennial, titled Memory of Fire: the War of Images and Images of War is described as an opportunity for visitors "to experience a range of imagery and to reflect critically on the different elements and contrasts." It runs from the beginning of October for six weeks. Below, curator Julian Stallabrass discusses some of the diverse issues and topics raised by the show.

"Khalid Mohtaseb was on the ground shooting in Port-au-Prince less than a week after the earthquake hit Haiti on 12 January, 2010. His job was not an easy one. Today, those behind the lens covering the news are rapidly becoming the news themselves. The dramatic footage that Wikileaks released of the Reuters' photographer and driver shot in Iraq has focused attention on the dangers of covering news on the ground; it has also sparked a discussion about how news videos should be packaged. Did the effects Wikileaks staff added to the footage bias the story of what happened to these Reuters' newsmen?"

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.

Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives examines the spontaneous actions of ordinary people, caught up in extraordinary events, who felt compelled to adopt the role of a news reporter. This collection draws together 21 original, thought-provoking chapters. It investigates citizen journalism in the West, including the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia, as well as its development in a variety of other national contexts around the globe, including Brazil, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Palestine, South Korea, Vietnam, and even Antarctica. It engages with several of the most significant topics for this important area of inquiry from fresh, challenging perspectives. Its aim is to assess the contribution of citizen journalism to crisis reporting, and to encourage new forms of dialogue and debate about how it may be improved in future.

Here are three slightly different versions of the same story, "Mom Goes to War," which I photographed last summer with reporter Mark Brunswick while working at The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune. In the story, Maj. Patricia Baker, a helicopter pilot in the Minnesota National Guard, prepares to go to Iraq for her second deployment, and her son Zach talks about his mother leaving. The first version uses only natural sound, while the other two use loops from GarageBand. I did a limited amount of music editing to fit it to the video.

The Ethics of Mixing Music and Videojournalism Regina McCombs, a Poynter Institute visual journalism instructor, has created a powerful illustration of how soundtracks can affect a video story -- illuminating the debate as to whether they have a proper place in videojournalism. In her article, "See How Music Changes a Story," she shows three versions of the same video story, "Mom Goes to War" (featuring a pilot preparing for her second Iraq deployment and her young son). The first is with natural sound. The second adds a slow, somber keyboard track. The third features an upbeat guitar/percussion track. (Both scores are GarageBand loops -- demonstrating how easy and accessible it is for even someone with a tin ear to provide professional sounding music background.) McCombs poses the all-important question: how do the alternate versions change the way you react to, and feel about, the story?

"Corentin Wauters: Gamma is one of the most famous photojournalism agencies. Some even call it legendary. How important has it been for photojournalism? Michiel Munneke: I think Gamma - but also others like Magnum, for instance - played an extremely important role from early years on, especially in documenting crucial news events around the world. It's important to realise that in those days you had magazines like Life and the Picture Post who very generously allocated tens of pages to events like the war in Vietnam, for example. Those publications and photographs made a huge impact on their readerships. I think it's fair to say that the founders of Gamma, like Raymond Depardon - although he moved to Magnum at the end of the '70s - and Gilles Corron, who died in 1970 in Cambodia, can be classified as legendary. They played a very important role in news documenting in those years. Raymond Depardon said that in 1966 you only had to travel far away and take three shots to get published in magazines Paris Match or Le Nouvel Observateur. How has the profession of photojournalism changed since Gamma was founded? If Depardon was saying that competition for space in publications like Paris Match or Le Nouvel Observateur is stronger, then he's absolutely right. Competition is far more severe. Circulations are going down, advertising revenues are shrinking, and consequently budgets for journalism and for photography are being cut. image Nowadays its very rare that publications send photographers for assignments overseas. Take a renowned magazine like Time. They still have photographers on staff but they very rarely get assignments to go overseas. It's a sign of the times. Gamma, but also other big photojournalism agencies like Sipa, were founded in Paris. The city had a big name as a centre for photojournalism. To what extent is that true today? I think for those years it was really true. But now, in the era of globalisation and digitisation, it doesnâ