I recently had the misfortune to encounter some knob on Twitter declaring that war photographers (like working-class photographers) are merely virtue signallers who do nothing constructive and make no positive impact. Anyone who uses the epithet "virtue signallers" doesn't deserve to be taken at all seriously, but let's briefly do so. OK, done: even if we leave aside the question of whether it's reasonable (as he seems to think) to expect lone individuals to resolve complex structural problems, history shows that his argument is patently absolute horseshit. Take Vietnam alone.
And not only history. Just look at Mohammed Salem's image named Photo of the Year in this year's World Press Photo Contest: Inas Abu Maamar, head bowed in grief, cradling the shrouded corpse of her five-year-old niece Saly. Amid all the abstract talk, the photo - respectful and taken with humanity - conveys the individual and intensely personal consequences of the Israeli assault on Gaza. It underlines that those who have been killed are not merely numbers - they have names, and families, and friends, and communities.
Nothing can quite capture the reality of what is happening (and has already happened) there, and the image is not going to bring an end to the horror on its own. But the judges' decision to award this photo the prize will mean that its stark power will resonate more widely, and it can't fail to have an impact.
Meanwhile, several of the regional winners in the contest depict the devastating effects of climate change: forest fires in Canada (Charles-Frederick Ouellet), gas flares in Venezuela (Adriana Loureiro Fernandez), rising sea levels in Fiji (Eddie Jim) and, most astonishingly, a bone-dry Amazon riverbed (Lalo de Almeida). Such images help to bring home the gravity of the situation and the urgency required to address it, and should be thrust in the faces of those who continue to prioritise short-term personal self-interest over implementing solutions for the benefit of all.
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