Photo of the day

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@Helveticum - portraits - Kabul - 1995. One of Ahmad Shah Massud's Pansheri Tajiks. Playing his flute to take his - our - minds off the fact we were being pummeled by incoming mortar rounds from the opposing Hesb-e Islami troops. They were literally just across the road. The firing positions would have been a bit further back. We were hiding and trying to put as much concrete between us and them as possible. You don't want to be on open ground with mortar shells dropping around you. They have a horrifyingly wide kill radius. I don't mind admitting, i was shitting myself. I trusted these guys and they looked after me. My first experience of combat photography. I learned good lessons that have stood me in good stead since. To this day - all these years later - fireworks put the shits up me. That's what war sounds like. Yours - I. - Olympus OM3 or OM4 or OM1 - I can't remember. Kodak Tri-X - certainly.
 
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@Helveticum - portraits - Kabul - 1995. One of Ahmad Shah Massud's Pansheri Tajiks. Playing his flute to take his - our - minds off the fact we were being pummeled by incoming mortar rounds from the opposing Hesb-e Islami troops. They were literally just across the road. The firing positions would have been a bit further back. We were hiding and trying to put as much concrete between us and them as possible. You don't want to be on open ground with mortar shells dropping around you. They have a horrifyingly wide kill radius. I don't mind admitting, i was shitting myself. I trusted these guys and they looked after me. My first experience of combat photography. I learned good lessons that have stood me in good stead since. To this day - all these years later - fireworks put the shits up me. That's what war sounds like. Yours - I. - Olympus OM3 or OM4 or OM1 - I can't remember. Kodak Tri-X - certainly.
Fascinating Iain. And a work of art. Stunning.
 
Thank you - but photography is not art and can never be. If you doubt this I refer you to John Berger's ' Understanding a Photograph.' - I.
Damn...we have to call the committee of UK`s most important art prize, the Turner Prize, that they were complete wrong making photographer Wolfgang Tillmanns and its photographic work the winner of year 2000. ;):D

http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/wolfgang-tillmans-wins-turner-prize-2000

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1045386.stm
 
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Is that about how images are produced, and under what circumstances Iain? To see such an image as art is missing the point? I think, it that is the case, I agree with you and Berger!

@Barry Giddens - From Berger - ' by their nature, photographs have little or no property value because they have no rarity value. The very principle of photography is that the resulting image is not unique, but on the contrary infinity reproducible. Thus, in 20th century terms photographs are records of things seen. Let us consider them no closer to art than cardiograms." - Yours - I.
 
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@Barry Giddens - From Berger - ' by their nature, photographs have little or no property value because they have no rarity value. The very principle of photography is that the resulting image is not unique, but on the contrary infinity reproducible. Thus, in 20th century terms photographs are records of things seen. Let us consider them no closer to art than cardiograms." - Yours - I.
I am not this opinion and won´t consider that. But that is topic for P.M. and not for pages full about this endless theme...my opinion. ;)
 
@Barry Giddens - From Berger - ' by their nature, photographs have little or no property value because they have no rarity value. The very principle of photography is that the resulting image is not unique, but on the contrary infinity reproducible. Thus, in 20th century terms photographs are records of things seen. Let us consider them no closer to art than cardiograms." - Yours - I.
Interesting Iain. It would be good to continue the conversation at some point.
 
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@Helveticum - portraits - Kabul - 1995. One of Ahmad Shah Massud's Pansheri Tajiks. Playing his flute to take his - our - minds off the fact we were being pummeled by incoming mortar rounds from the opposing Hesb-e Islami troops. They were literally just across the road. The firing positions would have been a bit further back. We were hiding and trying to put as much concrete between us and them as possible. You don't want to be on open ground with mortar shells dropping around you. They have a horrifyingly wide kill radius. I don't mind admitting, i was shitting myself. I trusted these guys and they looked after me. My first experience of combat photography. I learned good lessons that have stood me in good stead since. To this day - all these years later - fireworks put the shits up me. That's what war sounds like. Yours - I. - Olympus OM3 or OM4 or OM1 - I can't remember. Kodak Tri-X - certainly.
Whoa! Holy shit, so you were a war photographer as well? For how long have you been there, in Afghanistan during the conflict?
 
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