Conflicted

“He was cracking jokes,” said Nicole Tung. A sentence all too welcome to those having family members involved in a war. 27-year-old Guy Martin was not involved on the front lines with a gun, but rather a camera. The world of conflict photojournalism can be one of the most dangerous occupations; one where you can't fight back. Ed Ou recalls a trip to Cairo with Martin during the uprising. "We would always be talking,” Mr. Ou said. “Always talking. Every 30 seconds, we would go: ‘Is this safe?’ ‘Is this dangerous?’ ‘What’s our exit strategy?’” During one particularly intense struggle they voted to hide behind a large wall adding, “The bottom line is we kept each other safe.”

The world of conflict photojournalism has not always been prominent. Since photography is a relatively new invention as compared to that of conflicts themselves, it has taken many years for this form of photography to thrive. Since the inception of photography itself, there were almost always photographs of the war sites being taken. John Burke, who photographed the Second Anglo-Afghan War in the late 1870s, paid his own way to Afghanistan. The camera toted along with him was a standard at that time; a 4-by-5-inch field camera. Though Burke created astounding images of the region, he did not do so with that of the conflict.

It was not until the Spanish Civil War that photojournalists began capturing the moments as they happened. Three photojournalists in particular became famous for covering the war; Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and David Seymour. "All three openly supported the anti-Fascist Republican cause and were eager to use the camera as a weapon to fright Franco. They not only recorded battle scenes but, whenever possible, the harrowing effects of war on refugees and civilians" (source).The cameras themselves were also much more versatile by this time.

Regretfully, all three died on the battlefield of different wartime locations. Taro was the first, dying just one year into the Spanish Civil War, Capa in Vietnam in 1954, and Chim in 1956 during the Suez War. All three left a lasting legacy and paved the way for photojournalists to get closer and be involved.