‘War Photographer’ By Carol Ann Duffy. The Photograph Johannesburg - Visiting Sudan, a...
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Transcript of ‘War Photographer’ By Carol Ann Duffy. The Photograph Johannesburg - Visiting Sudan, a...
‘War Photographer’
By Carol Ann Duffy
The Photograph
• Johannesburg - Visiting Sudan, a little-known photographer took a picture that made the world weep.
• What happened afterward is a tragedy of another sort.
• "I swear I got the most applause of anybody," Carter wrote back to his parents in Johannesburg. "I can't wait to show you the trophy. It is the most precious thing, and the highest acknowledgment of my work I could receive..."
Pulitzer Prize
Suicide• Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter
would be dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33. His red pickup truck was parked near a small river where he used to play as a child; a green garden hose attached to the vehicle's exhaust funnelled the fumes inside. "I'm really, really sorry," he explained in a note left on the passenger seat beneath a knapsack. "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."
War Photographer Speaks
• "I was appalled at what they were doing. I was appalled at what I was doing. But then people started talking about those pictures... then I felt that maybe my actions hadn't been at all bad. Being a witness to something this horrible wasn't necessarily such a bad thing to do."
Kevin Carter
The Story Behind the Photograph
• "Napalm is the most terrible pain you can imagine," said Kim Phuc. "Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Napalm generates temperatures of 800 to 1,200 degrees Celsius.”
• Kim sustained third-degree burns to half her body and was not expected to live. But thanks to assistance from South Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut and American doctors she survived a 14-month hospital stay and 17 operations.
• Subsequently, after the Communist take-over she was used as a propaganda tool by the Vietnamese Government.
What a War Photographer said…
• 'Working in a war zone is a compromise... between the perfect shot and staying alive.’
• 'The dilemma for the photographer... is the question of what to do - do I take the photograph? Or do I do something to help?’
• 'The editor's evaluation between a good photograph and a bad photograph can be different from the photographer's... I would perhaps choose images that an editor wouldn't... because I remember all the associations connected to that photograph... it may just be a body, but I might know whose body that is.’
(Ken Guest – Passwords, Channel 4, 1998)
What Carol Ann Duffy said…
• 'Those photographs are in the background but I'm more interested in the photographer... in the dilemma of someone who has that as a job... to go to these places and come back with the images.'
Context
• At the time 'War Photographer' was written, Duffy was friendly with Don McCullin and Philip Jones Griffiths, two very well-respected war photographers
• What interested her was the difficult decisions they have to make while taking pictures in a war zone
‘War Photographer’ by Carol Ann Duffy
In his dark room he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.
A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns a living and they do not care.
What is the poem about?
• Problematic nature of photographing victims of war
• Necessity for communicating information
• Unethical to callously photograph the dying without assisting them
• Dangers of society becoming immune to shocking images
‘War Photographer’ by Carol Ann Duffy
In his dark room he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
Coffins/dead bodies
Outsider/Observer/Recorder
Coloured lantern
(Catholic)
Peaceful/Sacred
Anonymous
Trying to make sense of it all
Takes job seriously/trying to stand up for
helpless souls/photographs
honour victims’ memory
Evil/moral darkness
One word sentences/List/Variety of war
locations where life is briefer because of
conflict
Fragility of life/Quote from
Bible (Isaiah)
assonance
rhyme
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
Contrast of war zone (steady hands – job to do)
and home(trembling hands – reality sinks
in/fear?/Horror?)
Literal – fluid/Metaphorical – solve
problem of war
Contrast fields in England (safe/peace) and abroad (mine
ridden/violence)Children emphasises innocence
corrupted/shocking
rhyme
Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.
Image appearing but also dead man/ memory of horror
Photograph curling & victim writhing in agony
A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns a living and they do not care.
Monochrome image but also good versus
evil/truth versus lies
Casual
Sheer mass of distressing pictures/painful for victims and for
photographer
Small emotional response/quick/short &
snappy word
Attack on cynicism and apathy of people back home
Readers’ reaction contrasts with long lasting effect on photographer
Damning final words
