jump to navigation

Losing the Media War: Larry Towell Magnum on Afghanistan December 14, 2014

Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Larry Towell, LENS, Magnum, New York Times , trackback

 

Losing the Media

War in Afghanistan

By James Estrin 

The war in Afghanistan has been difficult to document for even the most determined of Western photojournalists. By the time Larry Towell arrived there in 2008, most news outlets had abandoned regular coverage because of the extreme expense and danger — and a lack of interest from editors and the American public. What little visual coverage there was relied on embedded journalists.

But Mr. Towell had photographed the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and felt compelled to investigate what had happened in Afghanistan since then. So he paid his own way there.

“A journalist should be able to just go off and interview people and see for himself, but that has not been the case in Afghanistan for years,” he said in a phone interview last month. “I didn’t believe in the embedded photographer just taking pictures of things being blown up and calling that journalism, so I tried to piece it together visually.”

Photo

As people worked around him, a minister stood amid the wreckage of the World Trade Center, seemingly dazed by the events of the day. Sept. 11, 2001.

CreditLarry Towell/Magnum PhotosAs people worked around him, a minister stood amid the wreckage of the World Trade Center, seemingly dazed by the events of the day. Sept. 11, 2001.

Putting together a comprehensive view was challenging: Taliban militias made it impossible to travel through most of the country. Undaunted, Mr. Towell started his documentation by examining the aftermath of the Russian invasion, then cataloged the improvised explosive devices and the land mines that litter the country. He photographed people who were maimed by explosions, medevac units, drug addicts and a remote American military outpost where Afghan soldiers were trained.

He has combined these images, along with his photos from the Trade Center attacks and collages of snapshots by soldiers, in “Afghanistan: Larry Towell,” published by Aperture Foundation.

The book is large, but it looks like a cross between a journal and a personal photo album with Mr. Towell’s handwriting on many of the images. While the photos are masterly, it is Mr. Towell’s words that powerfully distill his experiences in Afghanistan.

“I learned that it is not possible to depict war properly because the dead live in memory and the living die emotionally,” he wrote. “Lies become truths and the contaminated become clean. The blood of war does for the wicked what the blood of Christ does for sinners but without saving their souls — war grants the authority for humans to hunt humans in self-defense, and for those in self-defense to protect themselves against the hunters. It allows them to create hit lists where everyone is suspect — and indeed everyone is suspect, because no one is neutral. Neutrality is the enemy.”

Photo

Bomb parts. Afghanistan. 2011.

CreditLarry Towell/Magnum PhotosBomb parts. Afghanistan. 2011.

Mr. Towell, a Magnum photographer, has published nine photo books, including “The Mennonites” and “The World from My Front Porch,” but his writing is central to each one. Although he is best known as a photographer, he is also an accomplished poet and songwriter.

“If you have a business card that says carpenter, brain surgeon, writer, mechanic, everybody thinks you can’t do any of it,” he said. “So it’s better to call yourself one thing.”

Besides photographer, poet, songwriter and musician, Mr. Towell’s business card could also include farmer. He was raised in a large rural family in Ontario, and he still grows his own food on a farm that is about 20 miles from his childhood home.

Farming comes in handy as he carefully walks the line between journalism and the art world, living on grants, a few editorial assignments and selling prints and books. He keeps his expenses low and bulk-loads his own black-and-white film. His wife, Ann, processes his black-and-white film. A crowdfunding campaign paid for the final trip to Afghanistan in 2011.

While some people may want to forget the Afghan war, Mr. Towell says he believes that it is vital to examine what happened there despite the lack of news media interest.

“I understand journalists. I’m one of them,” he wrote in his Afghanistan book. “We are particularly vulnerable to the shrinking market, consisting mainly of gratis information, no assignments, and fierce competition from all quarters, especially for freelancers. But people are being sacrificed in America’s name, and we have the duty as human beings to help avoid the shedding of blood. We have the added obligation of scrutinizing the intentions of our political leaders. Our job is to hold them accountable. The danger, therefore, lies in thinking like the military. We need to keep a safe mental distance. We are not in the same war. Ours is a war on reality. The real war is the media war and we are losing the battle.”

Comments

Sorry comments are closed for this entry