The Shot That Nearly Killed Me

War photography is also called as war porn. People like to see bloody body parts, shocked expressions. The cloud of smoke and burning vehicles. While in the safety and comfort of their homes. 

But what about the photographer? Some of the famous photographers talk about their famous photographs. 

One day I'm going to do this. Capture the moment. That's going to be fun. Once you both go to university and then I can go potter around in a war zone or a disaster zone. 

Love

Baba

 

The Shot That Nearly Killed Me [longform.org]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/18/war-photographers-special-report

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• The Guardian, Friday 17 June 2011
• Article history

Adam Ferguson, Afghanistan, 2009

Adam Ferguson: ‘As a photographer, you feel helpless. Around you are medics, security personnel, people doing good work. It can be agonisingly painful to think that all you’re doing is taking pictures.’ Photograph: Adam Ferguson/VII Network

I was one of the first on the scene. The Afghan security forces normally shut down a suicide bombing like this pretty quickly. I was able to get to the epicentre of the explosion. It was carnage, there were bodies, flames were coming out of the buildings. I remember feeling very scared because there was still popping and hissing and small explosions, and the building was collapsing. It was still very fresh and there was a risk of another bomb. It was one of those situations where you have to put fear aside and focus on the job at hand: to watch the situation and document it.

This woman was escorted out of the building and round this devastated street corner. It epitomised the whole mood – this older woman caught in the middle of this ridiculous, tragic event. I wish I could have found out how her life unravelled, but as soon as the scene was locked down, I ran back to the office to file.

As a photographer, you feel helpless. Around you are medics, security personnel, people doing good work. It can be agonisingly painful to think that all you’re doing is taking pictures.

When I won a World Press award for this photograph, I felt sad. People were congratulating me and there was a celebration over this intense tragedy that I had captured. I reconciled it by deciding that more people see a story when a photographer’s work is decorated.

Economists operate in a fact free environment

So I read this with interest.

ECONOMISTS love to argue. Indeed, since the crisis, it has often seemed they cannot agree on anything, and especially not on important matters like how best to boost a sickly economy or when to trim government borrowing. “Schlock economics” was the judgment bestowed by Robert Lucas, a Nobel prizewinner, on the stimulus proposals of Christina Romer, then Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser. Another Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, labelled a rival view of business cycles “Phlogiston economics”, a reference to a debunked 17th-century theory of chemistry. More soft-spoken economists worry the bickering may carry a reputational cost: the public may simply conclude that solid, fact-based conclusions are beyond economists’ reach.

Such concerns were discussed (politely) at the latest annual meetings of the American Economic Association. Dismal scientists throng together each year (this time in not-so-dismal San Diego) to gossip, test the job market and hear presentations on hundreds of new academic papers. Among them were a handful focused on economists’ image problems. They suggest that economists, in fact, agree on quite a lot but that the public is resolutely unimpressed when they do.

I started laughing like an idiot on the tube when I read this part.

Economists might conclude from this that they just need to shout their views more loudly. But communication is only part of the problem. Ms Sapienza and Mr Zingales note that when Americans are told what economists believe before answering a question, their view scarcely budges. Told that economists favoured a carbon tax, the share of the public supporting the tax rose only marginally, from 23% to 26%. The public actually grew more confident in its ability to pick stocks successfully after learning that economists think it is close to impossible. Americans seem to believe that economists operate in a fact-free environment, a bit like Buddhists, commented Robert Hall of Stanford University.

As an economist (well its a fairly specialised branch that I mess about in, financial economics, but also relating to international trade and macro-economics), I find this fairly distressing. For example, the idea of too much debt being bad for the economy is something that people simply do not get. And I find that absolutely gobsmacking. Painful, but then the flip side is, looks like when I talk about debt, a glazed look comes over people’s eyes..

This can be a close second to bubble wrap

Every manager needs this on his desk. There is something so hypnotic about it all..

Bloody hell, and I eat those things?

Be warned!