Photo that some photographer took, but how? (WARNING GRAPHIC)

fotoworx wrote in post #15871669
How the hell could a photographer take this photo?

http://i.imgur.com/aHM​4MTz.jpg?1

For whatever reason it was taken. Do photos like this teach us anything about humanity? Do they have some value in this regard?

Photos like this one (not this one of course) helped end the war in Viet Nam.

I'm not saying this was the motivation of the photographer in this case, but sometimes showing the atrocity, which is real, and people should know about it and not get a candy coated USG world view, sometimes seeing the atrocity is what it takes to make the voters take action.

Some of those images are burned into my memory to such a degree that I have no need to engage Google Images.
They certainly had an effect on peoples support of the war.


Journalism has been surprisingly less effective in this regard in the most recent decades. It seems that social media is partly filling in the gaps left behind by the vacancies in that kind of journalism.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #15871805
Matthew Brady certainly didn't hold back documenting the carnage of the US Civil War.

No he didn't but since you brought it up, he moved bodies, arranging them in a certain way, etc.to set the scene. But you're right, even 150 plus years later, they are a clear example of man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

Just FYI, the reason the father is holding the child is so it only took 1 bullet to kill both.
Brainwashing propaganda is a horrible thing. We need to always resist it.

Assuming the photographer of the first picture was a disinterested third party and not a part of the same army as the soldier, it's very likely that, had he attempted to intervene, he would have been killed for his trouble.

Non-combatant war correspondents serve a vital function in any conflict if they accurately document real events. Without photos such as these would the world really understand how terrible war really is? More importantly, would military journalists really be better serving their countries if they ignored their assigned duties and picked up a rifle in the field?

There was no disinterested third party photogs attached to SS extermination units. You are looking at the work of a criminal.

The Hitler's regime and its followers were rather unique. Almost every political regime, no matter how evil in their actions, in their propaganda would try to appeal to people's best intentions and play on common human values - the communists believed that they were building a better future for everyone, the colonial forces in Africa believed they were bringing the light of civilization and Christianity to wild tribes, and so on. So it's understandable how a decent person could get brainwashed in following them. The N azis are unique in that they appealed to worst in people - for them, Jews, gypsies and Slavs were inhuman and killing women and children was perfectly OK and didn't require a moral explanation. So, to me at least, not only the regime was pure evil - there were a few other evil regimes on both sides - but the followers were evil as well.

Yes, my expectation is that the photographer is attached to the einsatzgruppen. Not a bystander, but part of the unit exterminating the pogrom. That's how you take that kind of photo.

Incidentally, the einsatzgruppen did encounter significant problems with mental health during their operations. 'Normal' people were unable to operate with the teams indefinately, while sociopaths gravitated to the operations. They were 'naturals' you might say.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #15872663
Photos like this one (not this one of course) helped end the war in Viet Nam.

(non gruesome link) This one has always been burned into my mind -

http://www.awm.gov.au …hop/items/4483/​poster.jpg

I know one of the guys that are kneeling down waiting in that photo.

But I think that photos from Vietnam like the burned children running down the road, the South Vietnamese officer shooting that VC in the head and the monks dousing themselves with petrol are all immensely powerful photos that must have made big impacts when they were first published and they haven't lost impact now decades later.

Amamba wrote in post #15873691
There was no disinterested third party photogs attached to SS extermination units. You are looking at the work of a criminal.

The Hitler's regime and its followers were rather unique. Almost every political regime, no matter how evil in their actions, in their propaganda would try to appeal to people's best intentions and play on common human values - the communists believed that they were building a better future for everyone, the colonial forces in Africa believed they were bringing the light of civilization and Christianity to wild tribes, and so on. So it's understandable how a decent person could get brainwashed in following them. The N azis are unique in that they appealed to worst in people - for them, Jews, gypsies and Slavs were inhuman and killing women and children was perfectly OK and didn't require a moral explanation. So, to me at least, not only the regime was pure evil - there were a few other evil regimes on both sides - but the followers were evil as well.

I apologize in advance as I didn't intend to write this all out to this extent since this isn't really related to the OP question, but since its written I might as well post it. Also I do not claim to be an expert and it has been a long time since I received my degree in European history, but this is a rough explanation.

I agree with most of this statement but Germany did appeal to the peoples best intentions. After WWI Germany was a destroyed nation large portions of it lands were taken and given to neighboring countries as "retribution" for their actions. It left a country vastly poor and living in a demoralized environment. In addition many restrictions were set up to prevent them from creating an army. this has a side effect of of loosing lots of factories not allowing them to fully recover economically.

Enter the naz i party. The genius of Hitlers rise to power was that he created a scapegoat for the peoples problems allowing their anger to be focused to one people the Jewish community of who he blamed a lot of his own personal problems on. In this sense you are correct in that he appealed to the worst of people. however as he rose in power he shifted to creating a national pride and ancestral right to power over other nations and latter other races. The 3rd Reich is a representation of this. the 1st being the holly roman empire as a result of the first German ruler advocated by the pope and ruler of the roman catholic empire. The 2nd being the German Empire which similarly contributed to the start of WWI as the peoples right to power. leaving the 3rd the nation socialist state. the **** propaganda creating national pride combined with god given right as a Superior race built off the negative hate for the people they thought caused their economical and social problems allowed them to convinced a nation that they had to go to war and take back what was rightfully theirs.

Also you have to understand that a large portion of the German people had no idea of the extent the atrocities that were going on. even the US and allies didn't know at first. as far as they new they were fighting a righteous war to reclaim what was taken from them and what was their right as the 3rd European empire.

Mike Photo wrote in post #15875581
>>>the **** propaganda creating national pride combined with god given right as a Superior race built off the negative hate for the people they thought caused their economical and social problems allowed them to convinced a nation that they had to go to war and take back what was rightfully theirs....

The parallels with South Africa today are interesting.

Kolor-Pikker wrote in post #15872255
Still going on.

http://i418.photobucke​t.com …/Gilbertson-WTF-photo.jpg

Often done for identification.

LV Moose wrote in post #15875728
Often done for identification.

Agreed there is no context to understand what has happened. for all we know they cam upon a village that had been assaulted by enemy forces and they a recording the atrocities as evidence. although often done by a military combat photographer they aren't always there.

Amamba wrote in post #15871752
Most likely that's a photo by a N a z i photog proud of what his "Kameraden" were doing. I highly doubt that anybody else would be allowed to be present there. I also highly doubt that whomever took this photo was thinking "hey let's not let this happen again". There's plenty of official N a z i wartime footage of hangings, shootings and other atrocities, where the cameramen seemed to be just "doing their job" and sometimes would spend 10 min on filming civilians being hanged and then another 10 min letting the soldiers make silly faces in front of the camera. Remember, they were a very different breed of people, especially the young guys who grew up under the regime and were totally brainwashed.

And you lived through all that & you have of course personal experiences to share?

That's a very judgmental statement to make!
Would you say the same of the photographer who photographed the execution of a vietnamese soldier during that conflict?
Recording moments in history is the task of the photographer & there is no room
for sensitivity while doing that!

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=Bv11KilBpHQ

We have to be careful in a thread like this. It's borderline political. I don't want it to get shut down because it's so good.

We really have no way of understanding what goes through the minds of the people who do this unless we talk to them or read their journals, etc. And we don't know if we really could do it until put in that position.

I often fantasize about having images of the plane that landed in the Hudson River a few years ago. Man, that would have been great (since everyone survived). A city of eight million people, and nobody videoed or photographed the landing. A security camera got some basic footage, but can you imagine having a DSLR at the ready when that thing came out of the sky?

That's the kind of thing I'd like to photograph: Cool stuff that fires up the imagination, gets headlines, and shows the better half of humanity. I like happy endings.

Good thread, makes one think to appreciate the power of the lens and the responsibilities and ramifications to wielding one.

fotoworx wrote in post #15871669
How the hell could a photographer take this photo?

In essence for the same reason this one was shot, it is to detail the human side of a story that might otherwise go untold.

I would hope so.

Wayne