by Jessica Reed
The Guardian is currently streaming a fantastic yet disheartening video by Sean Smith, an embedded photographer who spent two months in the US troops in Baghdad. A good debate about the video follows up on Metafilter. The video reminded me of Geert Van Kesteren's work, which I doscovered at the Democratic Image Conference last spring (link to the openDemocracy blog retracing the event).
Van Kesteren was an incredibly impressive man who appeared very grounded and soft spoken (more...). He told us about his extreme difficulties he encountered as a war-photogtapher, from having to persuade military leaders to gain access to war-zones to seeing Iraqi civilians mistreated before his eyes. Astounded by the flagrant lack of communication he found everywhere, he decided to publish his work in both Arabic and English, as his website shows.
Warning: the footage includes graphic and disturbing images which might upset some viewers.
