Adam Ferguson war photographer
The article is on the guardian website and is entitled 'The shot that nearly killed me'. This is a report from Adam himself about his life as a war photographer. The article also asks a question. 'who'd be a war photographer'. These are the kind of things that makes you actually think past the images and about how demanding the job actually is, the factors you need to consider are the amount of travel you have to do, the amount of time you will spend away from family meaning having a family of your own would be extremely difficult, the dangerous conditions you will be in, sometimes life threatening ones as Adam himself has experienced he almost died after being shot in Afghanistan hence the title of the article.
Those who are able to do this on a daily basis are very admirable to report what is going on in those situations to the rest of the world to make it as real as possible in hopes in most cases of change.
There was a film i watched in a seminar about a war photographer called James Nachtwey. He took you through his work as a war photographer narrating it himself. There was video footage of him in action alongside stills of the images he took, many times with the video to back up and show more of what was happening in certain situations in images.
He also spoke about his coping techniques with what he sees with his job. Everyone copes with horrible situations differently, but either way seeing in a lot of cases masses of dead bodies will always be traumatic, no matter who you are. James' copes by basically in his own words 'doing his job'. That at crunch time when he sees something horrific he gets on with it and takes photo's. He says there are situations where people are severely injured or in great distress but their friends/colleagues are attending to them and that is when he does his job and documents what is going on but there have been circumstances where there have being people in the same situation but he is the only one there who can help them and then he chooses to step in but he stated that that is a personal choice made by him. The information i just got was from a discussion between journalists about how they cope in those situations. (http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102213/Dealing-With-the-Trauma-of-Covering-War.aspx)
James elaborates on his coping methods in his documentary, alongside examples of certain situations. He did show footage and photo's of a situations where a mob was chasing individuals who i believe were suspected of murdering another man, they chased one of them down and when they caught up with him they started to beat him to the point of death, James stated that that was one of the situations where he tried to reason with people and stop what was happening, however unfortunately i do not think he was successful.
I have seen numerous amounts of James' work and he is a photographer i do like a lot and that i admire, i know that a lot of his work is very hard to see, but i think the fact he gives people a voice that they may not have if photojournalist and journalists didn't exist over rules the horror in it for me, it shocks people into action and really the goal of photojournalists and journalists alike. T
o me that is the main factor in the job giving a voice to people who need to be heard no matter how shocking and gruesome.
Fair to say i admire the work of James a lot more than the work of a paparazzi photographer.
Those who are able to do this on a daily basis are very admirable to report what is going on in those situations to the rest of the world to make it as real as possible in hopes in most cases of change.
There was a film i watched in a seminar about a war photographer called James Nachtwey. He took you through his work as a war photographer narrating it himself. There was video footage of him in action alongside stills of the images he took, many times with the video to back up and show more of what was happening in certain situations in images.
He also spoke about his coping techniques with what he sees with his job. Everyone copes with horrible situations differently, but either way seeing in a lot of cases masses of dead bodies will always be traumatic, no matter who you are. James' copes by basically in his own words 'doing his job'. That at crunch time when he sees something horrific he gets on with it and takes photo's. He says there are situations where people are severely injured or in great distress but their friends/colleagues are attending to them and that is when he does his job and documents what is going on but there have been circumstances where there have being people in the same situation but he is the only one there who can help them and then he chooses to step in but he stated that that is a personal choice made by him. The information i just got was from a discussion between journalists about how they cope in those situations. (http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102213/Dealing-With-the-Trauma-of-Covering-War.aspx)
James elaborates on his coping methods in his documentary, alongside examples of certain situations. He did show footage and photo's of a situations where a mob was chasing individuals who i believe were suspected of murdering another man, they chased one of them down and when they caught up with him they started to beat him to the point of death, James stated that that was one of the situations where he tried to reason with people and stop what was happening, however unfortunately i do not think he was successful.
I have seen numerous amounts of James' work and he is a photographer i do like a lot and that i admire, i know that a lot of his work is very hard to see, but i think the fact he gives people a voice that they may not have if photojournalist and journalists didn't exist over rules the horror in it for me, it shocks people into action and really the goal of photojournalists and journalists alike. T
o me that is the main factor in the job giving a voice to people who need to be heard no matter how shocking and gruesome.
Fair to say i admire the work of James a lot more than the work of a paparazzi photographer.
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