How photography can shape history

[Music]

last year

over 1 trillion photographs were taken

1 trillion

that’s a pretty amazing number if you

think about it and many of you

contributed to that number with

photographs of your family of your

friends of your experiences

they all fill the digital world of

content

photographs of your favorite pets

perhaps your favorite lunch

all of those photographs

represent something to you

take a moment and think about an image

that means something to you

over the last 30 years

during my career i have focused on

raising awareness about human rights

i have photographed in over 100

countries

i have documented over 25 conflicts

when i’m asked

why do you do that

why do you think there’s value in

photographs why do you think there’s

value in risking your life to take

photographs

the questions are quite good the answers

are those that

form the foundation of why i do what i

do

and they’re also the reason why

i’m directing a film called biography of

a photo which examines the lives of two

of my photographs

so

to kind of step back a little bit and

help answer the questions i bring you

back to the year 1989

another period another world i’m a young

photographer working in new york

i want to be an international

photographer

i was photographing an event

and i see this photographer on the

street and he looks like the

quintessential international

photojournalist press credentials the

right cameras the very important

photojournalism scarf so i said okay

this is a guy i should talk to

i introduced myself his name was chris

morris

and i said chris

where are you going next

and chris said i’m going to panama

so chris that’s amazing i’m also going

to panama i didn’t know where panama was

i didn’t know what’s happening in panama

but if this guy was going to panama that

was the place to go if you wanted to be

an international photographer

the story in panama was that was being

run by a dictator named general manuel

noriega

his relationship with the united states

had faltered and he decided to hold

elections to prove to the world that he

was loved by his people

i got an assignment to go and cover the

story i was very excited i was on my way

to becoming an international

photographer

just before i about to buy my plane

ticket

my assignment was canceled and i was

crushed

i had been working as a bike messenger

driving an ice cream truck i wasn’t

really surviving as a photographer so i

couldn’t afford to buy a plane ticket

i ran into chris and amazingly he had

just bought his ticket and the airline

had a buy one get one free special like

a revolution special and chris said you

can have my extra ticket

i said thank you and off we went to

panama to document the election

i started by selling photographs fifty

dollars at a time to john’s france press

a french wire service

i encountered my first situations of

violence tear gas rubber bullets clashes

between the opposition and government

supporters it was an eye-opening

experience

the dictator noriega held the election

he lost the election he then nullified

the results of the election

and the would-be victors came out onto

the street to start an uprising

they were met with serious violence

i was following the vice president-elect

and his entourage as they drove through

the streets

at one point they got stopped by police

and soldiers

and there was a standoff

all of a sudden

a group of men known as the dignity

battalion a paramilitary unit supporting

the dictator came running towards them

it was complete chaos

they had bats they had pistols and i was

trying to photograph and look around and

do whatever i could do

then at one point a man walked over to a

vehicle took out a pistol and fired

a gun

into the car

a few moments went by the door

eventually opened

a man staggered out of the car

covered in blood it took me a moment to

realize who he was

it was the vice president-elect

guillermo billy ford

as i moved toward him to photograph i

heard somebody say compromiso in spanish

excuse me and the man stepped around me

and began to attack the vice president

the vice president defended himself and

within moments the whole thing was over

i brought my film back to the afp office

the film was processed and transmitted

around the world

and here look at this photograph

carefully you see

the vice president

on the left covered in blood being

beaten as a soldier stands behind and

watches and does nothing

by the next day the photograph was on

the front page of newspapers around the

world

and by the end of the week was on the

covers of newsweek u.s news and time

magazine all in the same week

a unique moment for a

photographer i thought this

photojournalism thing is pretty easy you

go places you take pictures you get

covers

i’m going to become famous i’m going to

make lots and lots of money not true at

all

and i was pretty

for the next seven months the united

states tried to oust through diplomacy

the noriega government

they started to use the time magazine

cover as one of the reasons why

noriega should be thrown out of power

diplomacy failed

and by december of that year the united

states invaded panama

president united states gave a speech to

the world

on the number of the justifications for

the invasion

you remember those horrible pictures of

newly elected vice president ford

covered head to toe with blood

beaten mercilessly by so-called dignity

battalions

when i heard that speech and saw the

action i realized this wasn’t about

covers it wasn’t about fame

it wasn’t about me

it was about what i was doing in terms

of providing work

providing imagery to be part of a chain

part of a conversation for information

to be put out there for people to make

decisions i was there as your eyes

and it wasn’t whether or not i agreed

with the invasion which was said to have

killed thousands of panamanians

it was just the understanding that the

work that i was choosing to do could

have impact on the world that’s what i

found incredibly interesting

now let’s jump ahead two years it’s

i read a story about this place called

yugoslavia a country in eastern europe

that everybody thought was going to make

this amazing transition in the

post-soviet world

but there were these rumblings of

nationalism violent nationalism and

nobody was exactly sure what was going

to happen

in fact

over the next five

sorry over the next 10 years i spent

more than five years on the ground

documenting the very brutal breakup of

that country

by 1992

i found myself in a small city in bosnia

on the border with serbia

there’s a town called bialina and when i

had arrived the town was already split

with muslim civilians on one side and

serbian civilians on the other and they

were fighting

the butcher was fighting against the

banker

the bookkeeper was fighting against the

policemen it was complete chaos and

civil society had broken down

violence escalated to a new level with

the arrival of arkhan

serbian warlord and his unit known as

the tigers i had worked with arkham

before and he gave me permission to work

with his troops he said he was there to

quote unquote cleanse the town of muslim

fundamentalists

we moved into the center of town

eventually arriving at a mosque

the soldiers went up to the mosque they

took down the islamic flag they posed

for a victory photo

right after this i started to hear some

shouting from across the street and i

walked outside

there was a house with a red brick wall

and a couple had been brought out

in front of the wall

the woman hamietta paigetti and her

husband abduraham were shouting at the

soldiers the soldiers were shouting at

them they were simultaneously shouting

at me don’t take any photographs

shots rang out and abduraham fell to the

ground

immediately this was obvious this was a

war crime what was striking to me was

that nobody cared that i was there with

the camera and it seemed to me at that

moment there was very little i could do

to stop anything that was happening

several months earlier i had been in a

very similar situation where somebody

was executed in front of me which i

couldn’t stop nor could i even document

for the evidence of the crime

i had vowed

never to let that happen again

so

i tried to figure out how to be able to

take a photograph of what was happening

and eventually i was able to photograph

hamietta as she tried to save abduvraham

as he lay there bleeding

moments later

hamieta was shot

a few moments later another woman aisha

shabanovich was brought out and she too

was shot

then a prisoner was brought out turned

out to be aisha’s son he tried to escape

they shot him again nothing i could do

to stop it and nothing i could do to

document it

then harush zabiri was brought out as a

prisoner for some reason

they let me photograph him

but i realized

that i needed an image of the soldiers

and the victims in the same frame

so that nobody could dispute

what was happening that the evidence was

there to prove everybody that this was a

war crime

and here you see in this photograph

the serbian paramilitaries the tigers

with their victims now look closely at

this photograph of the soldier on the

right

the cigarette in one hand sunglasses on

his head as he casually brings his boot

back

as the victims the pioneers and ayesha

shabbat actually dying on the street

this is a photograph that is called an

excess of violence

this is the documentation of ethnic

cleansing

the conversation in the world at the

time was that the bosnian war was about

to erupt unless there was intervention

from the west

i thought that this these photographs

which were published around the world

would be the evidence to push the west

into intervening

president bush who reacted to my panama

photographs earlier was still president

of the united states so for sure there

would be something there was no reaction

from anybody

the war started it lasted for almost

four years

thousands were killed millions more

became refugees

led to several more wars and today

bosnia is a dysfunctional country

it became apparent to me that the work

had failed

and i had to ask myself what was i doing

as a journalist

arkhan so angry that these photographs

were seen

had vowed quote unquote to look forward

to the day he would drink my blood and

he put me on a death list

so i had to decide should i keep working

what was the purpose and i realized

after some time that when the

photographs fell

in their attempt to sort of garner any

kind of change immediately they took on

another life they took on a life of

evidence

to hold people responsible for their

actions so obviously the soldiers and

the photographs those that gave them the

orders and so on to be held responsible

but more importantly i thought

to hold people responsible for their

inaction

for the leaders that saw these

photographs and did nothing they

witnessed a war crime and said nothing

they are also responsible and by

extension

what does that mean for all of us the

ones that put these people in power

the ones that did not take to the

streets to protest

what happens today when we look at

photographs from various places and we

don’t react so with those sort of twin

foundations of photojournalism

i move forward continuing to do this

work

so i started working with my co-director

dr lauren walsh on biography of a photo

we started to discover

that the photograph from panama and the

photograph from bosnia

lived

on and on most news photographs last a

day or two and disappear

most of you look at an instagram photo

you swipe it you like it you forget

about it 15 minutes later

these photographs continue to have

impact months years

later it’s very unusual for work

and the photographs as we look at their

biographies they weave this narrative

that show how the history the memory and

cultural fabric of each area is formed

so let’s look at the photograph from

panama

shortly after it was taken the

dictatorship declared it illegal

but it gave hope to the opposition

that people were actually paying

attention to what was going on

the vice president

elect guillermo billy ford said quote

the photograph saved his life

it made him into an international figure

that couldn’t be touched

an opposition leader said

my friends died for democracy

the photo changed everything it renewed

our courage to stand up and fight

with the photograph from bosnia even

though it found on an international

level was quickly made into a recruiting

poster for people to come over and

volunteer to fight to protect their

muslim brethren it was seen around the

islamic world the photograph was

continuously published in newspapers

both inside and outside bosnia

artists did their own versions of the

photograph as a protest to the war

the french filmmaker jean-luc godard did

a short film on the photograph

as a voiceover meditates on man’s

inhumanity to man and the lack of

intervention in the bosnian war

with the formation of the inter

international criminal tribunal for the

former yugoslavia in the hague

during the opening day speech the

photograph was said to be one of the

inspirations for the creation of the

court

the image was used to indict and convict

war criminals as recently as just a few

months ago these are civilians i assume

i always assume

and they are being

killed executed in the most brutal

manner by a beast not by a human being

by a beast so

you can imagine what that means and why

the tribunal has used it you’re aware

that these photos were published and

distributed essentially worldwide and

roughly at the time and and since well

you know it doesn’t take much to go to

the website called iconic photographs

which means photographs that are

particularly famous

in the world of education

where neither conflict is taught in each

country

multiple

generations know the work and understand

the history through

the photographs

in panama each year they mark the

anniversary of the us invasion

many panamanians consider that invasion

a war crime and they connect it directly

to the photo

recently when filming one of the

demonstrations a man recognized me and

became so incensed that i was the

photographer that he tried to get a mob

to attack me

but not all panamanians feel the same

way former panamanian president varela

said quote the photograph gave panama

back its democracy

which is a pretty amazing thing to say

about a photograph

this is just a few of the ways that the

photos have played a role in shaping the

histories

of the places where they were taken

and then as we kept working on the film

and biography of a photo we found that

for each photograph there was somebody

who was personally connected

to each image in the events of the day

in panama we have manuel guerra whose

brother alexis guerra was the bodyguard

who was assigned to protect vice

president ford

the blood that you see on ford’s shirt

is of the bodyguards

and then we have alma pekovic whose

mother aisha shibanovic is dying in the

photograph

they’re both on a personal quest for

justice

the images are famous but their family

members the little people the

working-class bodyguard and civilian

bystander are in danger of being

forgotten by history

they want justice for their relatives

manuel is fighting for his brother’s

remembrance he wants us connected to the

photograph that represents the democracy

of panama

and alma wants something simpler form of

justice she wants the soldiers in the

photograph to be indicted and convicted

of war crimes a charge that nobody has

been given up until this point

[Music]

so photographs have the opportunity to

inform and influence

sometimes under the guidance in the

media and sometimes they travel the

world on their own

hopefully having some impact wherever

they are seen

i hope this gives you all a new way of

thinking about photos those that you see

and those that you take

thank you very much

you