Limitations of Photography in Portraying War Realities

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Photography plays a huge role when it comes to documenting history and capturing significant moments of war. But can pictures especially war pictures really portray experience and hidden emotions that a human being has gone through? Many soldiers are diagnosed with PTSD after their service and they are left with the painful memories of battle to the point where hearing the word “combat” bring tears to their eyes. Not only that but sometimes the images we see may even be censored to cover up what the government does not want to be shown. Although photography can give an image of how war is perceived, it is not dependable for presenting the concealed side like censorship and chaos. Photography may be seen as a helpful tool in recording history, history itself cannot be based on images. Susan Sontag author of “ Regarding the Pain of Others”, states:
What the American military promoted during the Gulf War in 1991 were images of the techno war: the sky above the dying, filled with light-traces of missiles and shells- images that illustrated America’s absolute military superiority over its enemy. American …show more content…

Fear and panic conquers over especially when things like a bomb go off unexpectedly. In “Soldier Stories”, a collective of journal entries from real life soldiers like Sergeant Timothy J. Gaestel mentions in his letter that an improvised explosive device went off causing severe injury on his back. While Timothy stays calm, his untrained partner starts to panic and begins to fear for the worst of the situation:
This guy didn't react well when I showed him my back- he started flipping out and yelling, “Oh G., you got him man, oh he’s hit in the back and is bleeding. As you can imagine, I was pretty pissed off that this point, and I showed my anger toward the people in the town that were driving through.

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