Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin traveled to Afghanistan in June 2008, the deadliest month of the war. They were embedded with the British troops in Helmand Province to document the war. But instead of bringing cameras, they brought a 50 meter roll of photographic paper and would little by little, day by day, they would unroll a little more to expose it under the ambient light. In this act, the photographers challenge the traditional role of photojournalism and so-called “tragedy porn.” They denied the viewer the act of catharsis usually associated with the visual language of images of tragedy, and refuse to fall into the classic photojournalist traps of selective portrayal and bias.
Click through on the image for a link to Broomberg and Chanarin’s website.
(And I’m sorry for the quiet. I promise to be a good blogger now my assignments have been handed in.)
