Why We Need War Photography Now More Than Ever

A decade ago, Chris Hedges titled his analysis of the addictive power of war War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. If war truly is a force that gives us meaning, photography is a force that gives us a means by which to envision that meaning. In War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, which runs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, through February 3, 2013, photography’s ability to capture every aspect of war—from beginning to end—becomes almost troublingly clear. Dedicated not just to the thick of the fight, but also to the events leading up to as well as the consequences thereafter, War/Photography demonstrates how deep our need is to picture war as a means to understand it and, perhaps, avoid it. Unfortunately, in an age of dehumanized battle where automated drones strike from above, we may be losing the genre of war photography itself, just when we need it more than ever. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Why We Need War Photography Now More Than Ever."

[Image: Joe Rosenthal, American (1911–2006), Over the Top—American Troops Move onto the Beach at Iwo Jima, February 19, 1945, gelatin silver print with applied ink (printed February 23, 1945), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Richard S. and Dodie Otey Jackson in honor of Ira J. Jackson, M.D., and his service in the Pacific Theater during World War II. © Associated Press.]

[Many thanks to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for providing me with the image above from and other press materials related to War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, which runs through February 3, 2013.]