“Some pros are dabbling with digital but most still shoot on film“. A remarkable claim by the great Eamonn McCabe made on BBC Radio 4 recently. I’ve been a fan of McCabe’s work ever since i first saw his sports photography in a copy of amateur photographer around 20+ years ago. In this case though, Eamonn seems to have got it rather wrong.

The problem is, is that photographers tend to believe that everyone works like they do – I shoot mostly on film, so therefore everyone else does. Only they don’t! Photography is a fascinating business because it is made up of so many practitioners doing photography their own way. We customise it to our own way of seeing, thinking and our attitudes to the world. We build our own methods, philosophies and believes, creating our own view of photography – and then we guard it fiercely. I’m right, you’re wrong!

For my part, I shoot digitally and on film. I love both and always will, but i am aware that there are photographers, out in this big bad world of ours, who will NEVER touch a film camera ever again. Likewise, some photographers stay away from digital photography. That’s a decision that they’ve made, just like i made a decision to use both digital and film. That’s the beauty of photography – we mould it into what we want, and no mould is exactly the same.

Another three  photographer profile posts are due to be added to the website over the coming months.

To check out the photographer profile page click HERE

The post can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/photoblog/2009/09/dying_marine.html

In theory, a photojournalist should capture every aspect of warfare, but some areas still remain taboo. War dead have always been fierce topic of debate since Matthew Brady’s photographers photographed the dead on the battlefields during the American Civil War. Since then, photographers have often tried to capture the sense of sacrifice on the battlefield, usually under huge scrutiny and censorship from the military and political powers.  During world war II, images from the battlefields were closely controlled, and only on a number of occasions were US and British war dead photographs ever published. The Soviets, however, published lots of photographs of Soviet dead to motivate and inflame the Red Army/Soviet people as it fought against the onslaught of the German army’s assault on Russia.

A photograph is an immensely powerful thing. Even in the 21st century, the right photograph at the right time can cause havoc with public perception and opinion. The lessons learned after the Vietnam war are still being enforced. Don McCullin was barred from photographing the Falklands war in 1982 due to political pressure – the powers that be didn’t want any true images of war i.e war dead, by a seasoned war photographer, to influence public opinion back home. The result was that the Falklands conflict remains one of the most poorly documented conflicts that the United Kingdom has ever fought.The strangest element to photographs from a war is the nature of subjectivity. Display a photograph of dead Afghans/Iraqis and there may be few complaints, but show a dying British or American soldier and all hell breaks loose. Maybe it should.

The recent image of Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard dying,  published by various news agencies, has brought the old arguments to the surface again. Just when do you stop taking pictures? Is there anything you don’t shoot? Do you publish the photographs? Even if you do take the photograph of the dying soldier, there is a good chance that it will never be published. On the other hand this is the reality of the situation on the ground. Young men and women risk their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq – sometimes the price can be high. Shouldn’t we acknowledge that, and show that risk and sacrifice? In the end this topic will continue to divide opinion as long as there are wars and photographers photographing those wars. 

Some of the most thought provoking photographs taken of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq have been taken back home among the families of dead servicemen, where the impact of the loss is so keenly felt. Todd Heisler’s superb photo-story Final Salute is an excellent example of a photographer looking closer to home for the true visible cost of war. For me, Heisler’s images are far more emotionally powerful and poinant than any taken on the battlefield. Maybe it’s away from the battlefield that the real stories lie.

A couple of years ago, British television was full of these ‘best of’ programmes. The best 100 love films/comedy/war films/science fiction films/ etc etc etc. It was tedious but the TV people loved them because it filled in about three or four hours of programming schedule. One thing became apparent from these TV shows –  the public vote format they used tended to favour the new. Time became a deciding factor on rating. If a film had been released recently it stood a far better chance of getting a higher position than an older 1940′s film. Music top tens were even worse because most people would vote for flavour of the month/year. Robbie Williams would often be higher for the best album ever than The Rolling Stones. Age and public awareness determined position. That is the fatal flaw with certain top ten topics. Do the vote five days/months/years later and you’d get a completely different result.

If you try to do a top ten with photographers surely you must have to take into account the era into account. You could do a top ten best Vietnam war photographers but it would be a lot trickier to compare Larry Burrows to  a modern photojournalist like James Nachtwey. Both photographers live(d) and work(d) in two totally different times, with different needs, technology and media audiences. One isn’t better than the other. It’s like comparing directly a 1950′s football player with the modern player. So much has changed that it’s virtually impossible to use any static and solid measurement to compare them. The best idea is to not even try.