Declan de Barra - Performing Bear

burnedshoes:

© James Nachtwey, 1984, El Salvador

James Nachtwey was awarded the Dresden International Peace Prize on Feb. 11, 2012. The remarks delivered by Wim Wenders, below in full, touched on this image from 1984, of the Army evacuating wounded soldiers from a village football field in El Salvador during the Salvadoran Civil War. (thanks to / via: timelightbox)

“The photograph invokes what may happen next or what just happened. Whichever the case, these children will remember this moment as long as they live. (…) Still the message of a photograph is only the photograph itself. In museums many people pounce on to the caption before they even look at the picture. It’s as if they were trying to protect themselves from the image. Reading creates distance, the information lets you stand above things again.

I ask you urgently: First read the photographs closely, also here, in the Dresden museum of military history. Then you will realize in this case: There’s a lot of tenderness in this photograph. This photo was taken by someone who is more interested in the children than in the troops and their business. It’s not a subject you would expect to see in a picture taken by someone who went there to photograph the war. To find this, you have to be on the children’s side. You can’t cover your own face with your hands and try to protect the lens of your camera from the dust. You have to do the opposite: open your eyes wide and risk the dusk in your face and your lens.” (Wim Wenders)

(read more here and here)