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At one point, an enraged Iraqi minder grabbed cameras from a photographer I've been working with and threw them off the roof of the building. Later, as we walked through the city, my photographer friend and I were taken into what might be called protective custody and held for four hours. We were offered a choice between serving as human shields in government buildings or heading by car for the Iranian or Syrian border—which is impossible, since there are no roads, and incredibly unwise, since American forces might be bombing fleeing traffic. Eventually, we were returned to our hotel, with the warning that we could be expelled or drafted as unwilling human shields at any time.

Nate Thayer, correspondent in Bagdad voor Slate.

Als Saddam Hoessein vertrokken is, krijgen Palestijnse families niet meer 25.000 dollar per zelfmoordaanslag. Is dàt even jammer!


The Iraqi newspaper "Bavel" showed a Palestinian woman receiving a check from the Iraqi government. The woman pictured is the sister-in-law of Salah Shehade. Her son, Balal Shehade, was killed while carrying out a suicide attack. The government of Iraq continues to transfer money to the families of Palestinian terrorists killed or wounded in terror attacks against Israel. The family of a suicide bomber receives $25,000.

Videotape shot by Kuwaiti TV crews Friday showed about a dozen villagers, most of them adult men, warmly welcoming American soldiers who arrived and briefly took up positions in the village of Safwan.

The men, a few children, and one woman spoke to at least three soldiers who got out of their vehicles. Many shook the soldiers' hands or embraced them, and some kissed the soldiers' cheeks. At one point, a soldier tore large pieces from a large poster of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president. One villager took off his sandal and repeatedly hit what remained of the painting of Saddam's face.

Among the drivers of the 101st Airborne Division is Kevin Gropp, who is with the 55th Signal Company at Fort Meade, Md., a combat camera unit. His job is to document the battle at the U.S. Central command. But first he had to get to the battlefield, using some of the driving skills he learned as a delivery driver in Denver just a few years ago.

"Best case scenario is we go in and we don't have to attack at all. We just go in and come out and I go home," Gropp said. He said his job as a combat photographer allowed him to serve his country: "I thought this job was the best way I could help."

Bron: Kentucky Post.

Geheel naar oosterse traditie wordt Nevruz, de komst van het nieuwe jaar, ook in Baghdad met vuurwerk opgeluisterd.


foto Ramzi Haidar/AFP

Molly Bingham arrived Monday in Baghdad to take pictures of a city that has since come under siege from the skies.

Bingham, 34, is a free-lance photographer who specializes in covering international conflicts. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Rolling Stone and other major publications. ''Where I'm going, I expect there's going to be direct conflict,'' Bingham said two weeks ago from Rome as she waited for an Iranian visa that facilitated her entrance to Iraq. ''Of course I'll be scared, but fear is actually a good thing in my job. It keeps you sharp and aware.''

Bron: The Courier-Journal.


Molly Bingham

Peter Howe has been a war photographer in Northern Ireland and El Salvador and later was the picture editor for The New York Times Magazine and director of photography for Life magazine. He knows many of the photographers on assignment in the Middle East and is aware of the challenges they face in the days ahead.

"The kind of embedding that's going on this time (where reporters and photographers live with and follow a military unit) hasn't really been tried since World War II," Howe said. "I think the military is hoping for a good compromise between the over-control of the first Gulf War and what -- from the military point of view -- was the over-freedom of the Vietnam War." Howe said he thought the Pentagon decided to allow reporters and photographers more access to combat units in part because "they didn't get a lot of good press from the first Gulf War. They want the public to understand what they're doing, and they want public opinion on their side."

Advancements in technology since the Persian Gulf War of 1991 mean that "photographs can be transmitted in a matter of minutes," Howe said. "If you have a digital camera and a laptop and a (satellite phone), you're set." The widespread use of digital cameras is an advantage but is not without its problems, said Howe, author of "Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer". "The problem with digital cameras is, I think, they will radically reduce the amount of images available," Howe said. "If these field commanders are allowed to censor images before they're transmitted, and they don't like a particular image, they can just say, 'Delete it.' It's a lot easier to delete an image off a digital camera than it is to snip a frame out of a roll of film."

Deleting an image from a digital camera and losing it to history sounds analogous to the way e-mail has replaced letter-writing as a form of communication, much to the regret of future historians. "Yes, except e-mails can turn out to be more permanent than we thought," Howe said. "You can recover a (deleted) e-mail from the hard drive of a computer, but you can't really recover a deleted image from the memory chip of a digital camera."

War photography works on two levels, Howe said, "as news for today and as history for tomorrow. For example, there's a photograph in my book of a charred Iraqi soldier from the last (gulf) war. That photo was taken off the (Associated Press) wire because it was considered too graphic. Twelve years later, that photo is a part of history."

Every war presents different challenges for photographers. In the Middle East, those challenges can be as everyday and important as keeping dust and sand particles out of cameras and lenses and as life-and-death as having a protective suit in case of chemical or gas attack. Howe said he recently had lunch with two photographers now on assignment in the Persian Gulf, and much of the discussion concerned what type of chemical protection suit worked best.

In every war, some journalists and photographers are eager to distance themselves from the pack and make an impact, either by getting a scoop or capturing an image no one else has. Howe said one of the myths of war photography is that photographers work as individuals. In fact, they often work in groups, and it is not unusual for photographers from competing news organizations to work side by side.

"It's always possible to get something different, but I think the difference this time will definitely be experience," Howe said. "I know several photographers who are embedded in different units who have more combat experience than the troops they're with -- not only the troops, but in some cases, the generals and commanders of those units. Some of them are very experienced in combat. I talked to Jim Nachtwey, one of the photographers in the book, after he'd gone through the boot camp (for journalists) and asked him how it was. He said it was pretty basic; they told them things like 'don't get between a soldier and whatever it is he's firing at.' "

Bron: The Oregonian.

For nearly six decades, World War II veteran Jerry Ziehme spoke proudly of his role as a corpsman on Iwo Jima — a moment he says was captured in a photograph taken by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Joe Rosenthal. Then came the book. Ziehme says the book — "Flags of Our Fathers," published in 2000 — is used by some to claim he's lying about being on that Japanese island mountaintop when one of the most famous military pictures was snapped.

The nearly blind, 80-year-old former Navy medic has a forensic photo expert reviewing old pictures to try to prove he's in a photo of Marines on Iwo Jima. "I would rather face the whole Japanese army than face that book," said Ziehme, his voice choked with emotion. "I hope that, before I die, my name will be cleared again." The book, written by James Bradley and Ron Powers, documents the lives of the six Marines who raised the flag atop Iwo Jima's highest peak on Feb. 23, 1945 — an immortal moment captured by Rosenthal, an Associated Press photographer, in a Pulitzer Prize-winning picture.

The flag-raisers' commanding officer, retired Marine Col. David Severance, and the book's author say Zieme is an impostor.

Bron: Associated Press

Afgezien van het beperkte aantal persfotografen in het directe oorlogsgebied, hebben de internationale persagentschappen veel mensen uit andere delen van de wereld verplaatst naar omliggende landen. Zo verblijft Ami Vitale, onlangs nog prijswinnaar in de World Press Photo, momenteel niet in haar vaste standplaats New Delhi maar bivakkeert ze al enkele weken in Israël om de mogelijke gevolgen van de oorlog aldaar vast te leggen voor Getty Images.

Reuters-fotograaf Jerry Lampen is al geacclimatiseerd in Koeweit en volop aan de slag. (Weer eens heel wat anders dan schaatsen, en ook een graad of dertig warmer). Zie onder een van zijn eerste foto's ter plaatse.

In de serie fotografie-pockets "55" van uitgeverij Phaidon is er nu ook een uitgave gewijd aan Ed van der Elsken.

Few photographs over the past year have ignited as much debate as Luc Delahaye’s "Taliban, 2001." The large-format panorama of the dead Talib soldier first raised eyebrows last fall when it was exhibited at the New York Armory Show with a $15,000 price tag. By itself, the image stuck out from the other art pieces and raised more questions than answers: Is it art, photojournalism, or both? Is it right to profit from the dead? Is the shot an authentic "found" scene or was it composed? (Bron: PDN)

De Aviodrome beheert voortaan de grootste collectie luchtfoto's uit de 20e eeuw in Nederland. Dat komt omdat de Stichting Nationaal Luchtvaartthemapark Aviodrome in Lelystad een deel van de luchtfoto's van KLM-Aerocarto heeft gekocht, aldus de stichting dinsdag.

De Vogelvluchtfotografie, die in handen was van Arcadis, bestaat uit ruim 150.000 luchtfoto's van objecten op de grond. De foto's zijn sinds 1921 gemaakt. De Aviodrome bezat al de originele glasnegatieven en de rechten van de, zover bekend, oudste luchtfoto's van Nederland. ,,Wij beheren hiermee het grootste deel van alle luchtfoto's'', zei een woordvoerder.

Belangstellenden kunnen kopieën van historische of actuele foto's opvragen. Ook kunen zij de collectie op internet bekijken. Nationaal Luchtvaartthemapark Aviodrome is de nieuwe naam van het Nationaal Luchtvaartmuseum Aviodome, dat was gevestigd op Schiphol.

Bron: ANP.

The New York Times has directed its photographer in Baghdad to leave "immediately". Reporters for Newsweek and the Washington Post remain. Reuters, which has mostly local correspondents in the city, plans to stay put.

Bron: The Wall Street Journal.

Get the hell outta there!

Ik kwam Paul Blanca tegen op straat. De fotograaf. Hij liep aan de overkant van de straat. Toen ik hem groette, begon hij kippig om zich heen te kijken. Blanca is een fotograaf met slechte ogen. Een andere handicap is dat hij meestal geen camera heeft. Verkocht. Gestolen. Kwijt. Bij een vrouw laten liggen.

Martin Bril

Paul Blanca liet een van zijn modellen huilen voor zijn beroemde huilende vrouwenfoto's door haar op te sluiten in een kast en vervolgens de deur uit te gaan.

(Anecdote uit het Parool Theater)

A fashion photographer takes pictures in front of a Patriot anti-missile system deployed in a joint U.S. and Israeli military outpost in north Tel Aviv, March 17, 2003. Israel is preparing to take action against possible chemical or biological agents in the event of an Iraqi missile attack if the U.S. goes to war with Iraq. Foto Eric Sultan/Reuters.

Tot de leukste gebeurtenissen binnen het World Press Photo jaarprogramma behoren de jaarlijkse Award Days in april. Tijdens deze Award Days in Felix Meritis worden prijzen uitgeloofd aan de winnende fotografen van verschillende categorieën binnen de journalistieke fotografie. Met vele topfotografen en andere betrokkenen in Amsterdam organiseert World Press Photo fotoscreenings en discussies over verschillende onderwerpen binnen de professionele (pers)fotografie.

Eén van de hoogtepunten van het programma van dit jaar is de eerste World Press Photo Sem Presser Lecture. Voor dit nieuwe programmaonderdeel is Vicki Goldberg uitgenodigd als spreker. Zij is criticus en auteur en schrijft regelmatig voor The New York Times Magazine, American Photo en Vanity Fair. Haar lezing vindt plaats op zaterdag 26 april om 16.00 uur en is gratis toegankelijk voor publiek.