Fewer Words, More Truth

Photographers from the Associated Press have just won a Pulitzer Prize for taking pictures of the ongoing fighting in Iraq. The pictures are available at the Pulitzer web site and some of them are almost unbearably moving. There is one of a circle of American marines praying over the body of a dead comrade. There is a photo of an 18-month-old child in a crude wooden coffin. There is a photo of an American soldier lying flat on his back, holding up a stick with his helmet on it to draw enemy fire. He looks like he's about nineteen.

When I look at these photos, I feel such gratitude that someone was there to take the pictures, to show me what the newspapers only tell me. Written accounts can be tremendously affecting as well, but the cliche is absolutely true: these pictures speak thousands of words to me all at once. The stories they tell are multi-sided, complicated, human, terrible, but not without elements of humor and hope. You have to digest all of these things in seconds, and that quick digestion, as opposed to reading the thousand words, gives the photos their impact. These photos offer no easy answers, no explicit blame, and no editorializing.

The fact that the photographers who took these pictures risked their lives to do so makes them all the more impressive. Some commentators have criticized the Pulitzer judges because these photos are not always flattering to Americans and American soldiers. But these critics speak without proper reflection, for the simple reason stated above: photographs are not opinions. They are not criticisms. They are not statements. You can't criticize a photograph of a soldier any more than you can criticize a photograph of a sunset. The thing in the picture happened. You can't argue with it.

I think that people who don't like to look at photographs of wars should probably spend all their time opposing wars, which are bad, by the way. Wars are probably the worst thing that human beings can do to each other. Opposed to them? Great. I'll stand with you. But don't criticize people for taking pictures of wars. The war was like that when the photographer got there.