The Boston Globe has "The Big Picture" site which is updated a few times a week with usually pretty spectacular photos from news stories and events from around the world. The photos from Mumbai are at:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/11/mumbai_under_attack.html
Some are graphic, but it really gives an up close and personal look into the terrible events.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
It is Sunday afernoon here in Columbia and snow is lightly falling and littering the ground with its festive but wet snow. I am sitting down for first time this weekend not being distracted by a dozen things.
As I reviewed the photos of Mumbai many questions came rushing at me.
Why have I not been more drawn to this? Intellectually it saddens me, however it does not have the same impact as the disasters and attacks that have occurred on US soil. Could I have been too distracted. I don't think so something of this magnitude probably should shake whatever "distractions" one has.
It seems to me that the connections or lack of connections that people have with human misery may be artificial. I don't know if this a moral issue, values issues, tribalistic, evoluntionary, religious or what. Why would a person be more concerned about the health and well being about another person who happens to have been born inside one border than a person who was born outside that border.
An example I always think about is the coverage of Hurricane season. This may simply be another thing we can blame on the media, but probably not. Hurricanes never concern those of us outside of thier path unless it it about to strike land somewhere in the US. We get in a tizzy if one just approaches key west and causes some property damage. However, we seemed to have ignored the devastation that had just occurred to Cuba or the Cayman Islands etc.
This touches one something Jacob and I were talking about recently. We were doing our bedtime prayers and going over the many things we were thankful for. We were thankful for being born in America and what that entails and what responsibilies that brings. I have often wondered what my life would have been liked if God had dropped me down in the middle of any other country other than the US.
As I mentioned the news coverage of this story never really knocked be back the way these photos have. What is it the power of photography to connect a story in a much stronger manner than video.
I have to go for now. But would be happy to discuss with anyone.
I totally agree with you. I don't know if the coverage hasn't been all that good, or if we are just less inclined to pay attention when its another "far away" country. It just seems (sadly so) that it doesn't effect us as much as would the same type of incident here in the US.
For me, the photography really makes it more real than the video we see on tv. I don't know if its my photographer perspective or if we are just used to seeing so much violence on the tv and less so in photography and still images.
In any case, the whole situation is pretty horrible.
Post a Comment