BagNewsSalon: The Korengal Valley View

On March 2nd, 208 the BagNews Salon hosted “The Korengal Valley View:” analyzing Tim Hetherington’s 2008 World Press Award winning photo along with several additional images from his series.  The Korengal Valley, located in Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar, is a key six-mile long pass where American troops have been fighting the Taliban, almost inch-by-inch, since 2005.  The area has also seen heavy allied bombing, with high civilian casualties.  American troops maintain a regular working relationship with local villagers who are well practiced at playing the Taliban and the American forces off one another.

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Images and Selected Quotes:

Produced for BagNews by Denise Ofelia Mangen

We will be analyzing Tim Hetherington’s 2008 World Press Award winning photo (top, above) along with several additional images from his series.  The Korengal Valley, located in Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar, is a key six-mile long pass where American troops have been fighting the Taliban, almost inch-by-inch, since 2005.  The area has also seen heavy allied bombing, with high civilian casualties.  American troops maintain a regular working relationship with local villagers who are well practiced at playing the Taliban and the American forces off one another.

The conversation — using Meebo.com live chat software — will be moderated by BAGnewsSALON producer, Denise Ofelia Mangen.   Denise — who is pursuing her doctorate of education at Columbia University’s Teachers College in visual and media literacy, and human rights education — has coordinated a number of significant documentary photo projects, and has worked closely with photographers such as Brenda Ann Kenneally and David Alan Harvey.

As a first outing, we are experimenting with how well the blog environment will support a discussion of this type, so it’s an adventure for all involved.  We hope you can join us.

Tim Hetherington’s War Image Wins World Press Photo (NPPA)

Hetherington World Press Korengal series (World Press Photo)

The Fight For The Korengal (Hetherington/Vanity Fair Photo Essay)

Korengal Platoon Portraits (Hetherington/Vanity Fair)

Into The Valley of Death (accompanying story by Sebastian Unger/Vanity Fair)

(images: Tim Hetherington.  September-October 2007. Korengal Valley, Afghanistan)

17:05Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Hello all!

17:05Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Welcome to the first BAGnewsSALON!

17:06Michael Shaw

I want to welcome all of you to “The BAG.”  As you know, the role of
BAGnewsNotes is to consider social and political imagery — and,
specifically, the unique details, composition and context of particular
images  — for its political and media implications.  (I should also
add that the site, although open minded, is a political blog, so we
tend to operate with a rather unapologetic progressive bias.)  Beyond
that introduction, I’m thrilled to have this distinguished group
together, and am happy to let the discussion — especially, first time
out — go where it goes.

17:07John Lucaites1

I remember seeing this image when it was first published and thinking that it bordered on the surreal.

17:08John Lucaites1

It has some of the qualities of the thousand mile stare, but there
is something “extra” here … maybe the way his hand seems to be both
in motion and stationary at the same time.

17:09Alan Chin

also the color palette — that late afternoon shadow green

17:10John Lucaites1

Yes, Alan, even the ground/mud has a greentint to it.

17:10Alan Hagman

Yes, the image has a very timeless feel to it. It almost feels like it could be from the days of Vietnam.

17:10John Lucaites1

But its not a natural green … almost like something out of a graphic comic book or novel.

17:10Alan Chin

it reminds me a bit — this whole pic essay, as well as lynsey addario’s — of Larry Burroughs’ images from Vietnam

17:10Nina Berman

There’s something very gentle, almost feminine about it. All the heroism, masculinity associated with warfare has been sucked out of him. It’s a picture of such despair, but you see no blood, no weapons.

17:11Alan Chin

Burroughs shot a lot of Kodachrome and early Ektachrome — the Ektachrome of the 60s often had this kind of green — with today’s digi cameras you can set the color balance, get a richness

17:12Alan Chin

the blood and weapons are in the other images of the pic essay

17:12Nina Berman

Yes I know that…. I like that you don’t see blood or weapons. It makes the picture more open. You have to imagine what he has seen that he’s trying not to remember.

17:13Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

The absence of those tools of war is very striking in this photograph since it reads so immediately as a scene from war.

17:13Michael Shaw

I’m glad you mentioned the despair — and the softness. The caption seems to play against those elements, saying he’s (only) resting.

17:13Hariman

I agree with Nina: one of the achievements of the image is that we can still see him as a boy, rather than either a warrior or someone who has been changed too much by war.

17:14John Lucaites1

Actually, if you take the helmet out of the picture it would be hard to now who or what he is. So, yes we can see him as a boy, but he has clearly been thrust into this mess.

17:14Alan Chin

it doesn’t matter what he’s actually doing at that precise moment — sometimes the most telling moments are the least obviously interesting

17:15Hariman

He’s not resting. Nor is he simply “exhausted,” as the Worldl Press Photo Jury stated. He is overcome, as if by horror, futility, whatever.

17:15Michael Shaw

Do you tend to read the expression as trama, though, or shock?

17:15Michael Shaw

Yes…

17:15Nina Berman

Yes, shock, disbelief, pain, exhaustion, completely undone.

17:16Michael Shaw

Which makes it something of an anti-war statement, I’d say

17:16John Lucaites1

And yet, only a small part of the scene … set to the far left and leaving much to the imagination as to what else is needed to tell the story …

17:17John Lucaites1

r perhaps marginalized by the larger scene …

17:17Hariman

Undone but perhaps not yet ruined. It is becoming too easy to see them as damaged goods instead of people who will survive and deal. His posture could suggest that he will deal with this.

17:18John Lucaites1

I’m not sure I fully agree with … in some ways he seems completly vulnerable … no sense of protection except that he is hidden in this small corner of space

17:18Alan Chin

I want to agree with Hariman here too — it’s relatively “easy” (wrong word, I know) to photograph soldiers at war looking this way — because, of course, how else do we expect them to look?

17:19John Lucaites1

he seems to hold onto the helmet as if a life line … why not lay it down … but here, hidden from view somehow he imagines the need to hold on to it … not his gun, but his helmet

17:20Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Is that a wedding ring glinting on his left hand?

17:20Hariman

He could rock back, but then forward; gasp but then talk. this is an optimistic view, but it is possible. The 1000 yard stare theme would say otherwise. But his eyes are closed, aren’t they? Closed, but to open again.

17:20Michael Shaw

I liked Bob’s point. Positioned at the far left, he’s at the farthest point of what seems like the entry or the dugout/cave. Reinforces idea he has “pulled in” and potentially collecting himself.

17:21Alan Hagman

To me, he actually looks more like an observer of the conflict rather than a participant. He doesn’t have that battle hardened look I so often see.

17:21Nina Berman

I wondered the same thing about the wedding ring. I tried to increase the file size but nothing became clearer….as for the helmet, i get the feeling he’s just come into the bunker or tent and taken the helmet off.

17:21Michael Shaw

pulled in, I meant

17:21Alan Chin

even more so for the soldier in the double spread — a real round “baby face” with concern and maybe fear, but not the “battle hardened look”

17:22John Lucaites1

The award notwithstanding, most folks, I venture, saw it in the context of the other photos that accompanied it in Vanity Fair and in the NYT article … does that alter how the photo is “captioned” and understood?

17:22Michael Shaw

Alan, can you say more about the notion of “the observer.”

17:22Alan Chin

however if you look at sebastian junger’s contributor photo in the front of the magazine, HE has the look! kind of like D.D. Duncan’s photo of the Marine captain in Korea. Probably that was his and Tim’s joke or homage…

17:23Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

The ring…the empty space…the absence of weapons…the exhaustion… All combine to arouse great empathy for this soldier – whereas when I read the article, I felt only frustration and an emotional disconnect.

17:24Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Yes, Junger does look like he’s lived a life of observing war…

17:25Alan Hagman

There’s something about his uniform and vest, clean almost appearing untouched. Void of any machismo.

17:25Alan Chin

because the photos make us sympathetic to the individual soldiers — but the explaining text reveals what a mess we’re in — the meat grinder of counter-insurgency

17:26Nina Berman

I thought the Elizabeth Rubin text in the NYTimes about the same cast of characters was far more insightful.

17:26Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Yes – the photograph makes us ask why he’s so exhausted and traumatized (?), but we don’t know why until we get to the article or the other photogrpahs.

17:26Alan Chin

of course, line infantrymen don’t get machismo. that’s for navy seals, green berets, fighter pilots

17:27Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

void of machismo… you think that’s part of what leads us to the text considering the context of this being another story of how bad things are in Afghanistan?

17:27Alan Chin

these guys aren’t conscripts, but between the bribery of signing bonuses and stop-loss and the lowering of standards, they almost are

17:28Alan Chin

line infantry almost never has machismo, unless it’s Prince Harry of the Blues and Royals or whatever!

17:30Hariman

And no one is going to pull this guy out of combat because he was photographed.

17:30Nina Berman

Anyone surprised by the jury’s selection of this image?

17:30Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

no football and motorcycles here…

17:30Alan Chin

yes i was surprised. i thought john moore + benazir’s assasination would get it

17:30Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

This image did surprise me – you?

17:31Alan Hagman

Ditto, I Moor’es image of the man standing in the street, arms spread, would be the winner.

17:32Nina Berman

As i mentioned before, I was confused by the head juror’s remark that it represents the exhaustion of a nation…….seems like a stretch to me as their are no afghans in the picture and i would venture that they’re far more exhausted then the USA.

17:33Alan Chin

they may be more exhausted in the real sense but in the political sense no one cares about afghan exhaustion. it’s like ho chi minh said, we’ll lose 10 to your 1 and yet you will tire first.

17:33Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Nothing in this image says Afghanistan, so he must have been referencing the US…

17:34Alan Chin

i’m sure the taliban say that to themselves every night — and maybe they’re right?

17:35Hariman

I would think that would be one of the frustrations of being a photographer: you are trying to document what is happening to them, and the story always ends up being about us.

17:35Alan Chin

For Americans it doesn’t matter if it’s Afghanistan or Iraq, it all melds into one persistent quagmire with little prospect of traditional “victory” — the only good news is no news when casualties are lower than before

17:36John Lucaites1

Or as in reports that we are not back to “just above pre-surge” casualties.

17:36Alan Chin

there are plenty of photographers working in Afghanistan where it’s still possible more or less (unlike iraq) but the apetite to publish stories from POV is small to nil

17:36John Lucaites1

That is “now back to just above pre-surge casualties.”

17:37Alan Chin

from the Afghan POV is what i meant

17:38Hariman

and i meant the template of the soldier after the battle, which includes the stare but also soldiers crying, etc.

17:40John Lucaites1

or learning how to run on prostheses?

17:40Alan Chin

to me the most powerful image in the series is the soldier seen from behind with his flak jacket covered in blood. you can’t see his face; he’s walking away from us; you can only imagine what happened to cause this

17:40John Lucaites1

That is, Bob, do you mean a template that focuses on psychic trauma? Or more than that?

17:42Hariman

Yeah, the inner wounds. The soldier crying in Vietnam, in the chopper in Gulf I, etc.

17:43Alan Chin

that’s the Burroughs “Yankee Papa” story, and Turnley reprising it in the Gulf War I, coming from D.D.Duncan….a proud tradition in PJ…every war photographer strives for it on some level no matter how cynical you may think you are

17:44Nina Berman

It’s interesting to me how the depiction of American soldiers in battle from the beginning of both Iraq and Afghanistan has changed over time.

17:44John Lucaites1

Can you be more specific Nina?

17:45Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Mainstream published or photos that are being made?

17:46Nina Berman

The early images from IRaq and Afghanistan which were published in mainstream magazines, showed soldiers in groups, pushing forward, or fighting sand storms, running across a bridge, rolling into Baghdad. They were images of strength.

17:47Alan Chin

right–casualties were very low in the beginning–it was very rare to be able to witness US KIA. from 2003 i can only think of a very small number of photos which showed this

17:48Alan Chin

it didn’t really change until the 4 contractors were hung from the Falluja Bridge

17:48Nina Berman

I think the press changed. I think they started looking for different photos.

17:48Alan Chin

the 3 months i spent in Iraq in ’03 and 3 months in afghanistan in ’01-02 i never saw a US casualty.

17:49Alan Chin

no, i think we were always looking! but finding is another matter!

17:49Alan Chin

from the invasion James Hill and Joe Raedle had images of US casualties that were published, and published big, but it was such a small part of the so-called overall picture

17:49John Lucaites1

Well, certainly early on the US press was endorsing the US posture … so that makes sense. As the war has gotten longer and public attitudes have shifted …

17:50Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

How, then, do you think the publishing and attention given to this image of exhaustion ((World Press, etc.) fits into that?

17:51Alan Chin

3900 US KIA now — of which only 100 were in the invasion.

17:51Hariman

The press coverage of US dead became focused around the question of showing the flag-draped coffins. The administration wins either way on that one.

17:52Alan Chin

well if 3800 of the 3900 KIA happened after “Mission Accomplished,” that speaks for itself —

17:52John Lucaites1

Well, it certainly contrasts with pictures of soldiers sitting in Sadaam’s palace after ransacking it and smoking cigarettes … I realize I conflate two wars here, but the dialectical tension is pronounced.

17:53Alan Chin

there are no more palaces to ransack except for the extraordinary privilege and waste and bunker mentality and willful blinkers of the Green Zone

17:54sionphoto

the question is whether the role of the media is to simply reflect attitudes or to change attitudes by reporting the war in context.

17:54Hariman

To make it real simple, it seems to me that the press supported the invansion and then came to oppose the occupation, but now we’re in some third state that might as well be called limbo.

17:54Nina Berman

I think a central question is how much does the mainstream press shape public opinion or reinforce it. The visual coverage of the Iraq, AFghanistan and Vietnam wars, I would venture to say, changed over time as the public attitudes changed.

17:55sionphoto

the question is how are such public attitudes formed?

17:55sionphoto

by what theyre getting in the press?

17:56Alan Chin

the “press” is too diverse an entity to be spoken of in such generalty — if you only watch FOX News — you’d have a very different idea of “reality”

17:56Alan Chin

the press

17:56Michael Shaw

Taking “limbo” or this “third state” further — I guess we also need to distinguish between the depiction of anguish or injury, as opposed to “exhaustion.” One says the war effort is not going well, the other speaks to our motivation…

17:57Michael Shaw

Maybe what really resonates in this image, and why it was recognized at this point, is because of the way it reflects a broader mood of : “We’ve had it.”

17:58Alan Chin

i don’t think that public attitudes can be “shaped” — the public may respond in the short term to appeals of patriotism and fear, etc. — but over a long haul, the lack of convincing results is bound to change the way people think

17:58Al

so was the selection of this photo as the WPP winner ideologically motivated?

17:58Al

or “anti-war”?

17:58Nina Berman

I think so.

17:58Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Aren’t they always? or at least meant to reflect/represent the dominant paradigm?

17:59Alan Chin

seen another way, this photo essay is good recruiting material for the army. not machismo, but certainly serving and sacrificing for your country. what Prince Harry wanted a bit of

17:59Alan Chin

anti-war? no way

17:59sionphoto

My problem is not that were being told that the wars are incrementally being lost or that were being softened up for a long haul, but that the reasons why we are there is often obscured or ignored

17:59John Lucaites1

Of course it was ideologically motivated … the question is wht was the ideolgical disposition?

18:00John Lucaites1

Alan — You don’t think this is an anti-war photo? Or you don’t think it is anti-Afghanistan?

18:00Alan Chin

no, it’s not anti-afghan. as i said, it’s classic “war is hell but it’s dramatic”

18:00sionphoto

Speaking as I am from the UK, I have to say the harry coverage has been particularly shocking in the cultural attitudes its shown and the total lack of any analysis about what the hell the bloke is doing there in the first place.

18:00Michael Shaw

Or, is it essentially anti-Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan?

18:01Alan Chin

you feel looking at these photos that these young men, though suffering and dying, are at their best, working as a unit bravely for an uncertain cause, not sure of success, but doing it day after day anywat

18:01Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Interesting point, Michael…

18:02Alan Chin

i made fun of Harry as much as anyone but hey, what are those Bush twins doing?

18:02Alan Chin

4 of FDR’s sons served in WW II. LBJ’s daughters were and are very socially involved

18:02Nina Berman

Seems to me the winning photo is quite different from the rest of Tim’s take which I have to say, didn’t leave me feeling much of anything.

18:03Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Really, Nina? Not even the “4 Mom” on the bullets?

18:03Michael Shaw

Yes, what about the second shot: “Markings on a soldier’s grenades?”

18:03Hariman

That’s so typical. Could be in a movie.

18:04Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

The feeling could be distaste…

18:04Michael Shaw

Maybe not for a New Yorker like Alan Chin???

18:04Alan Chin

reminiscent of the newsreels where they chalk insults to hitler on the bombs or draw naked girls on the airplanes

18:04Nina Berman

Seen it before, teeth on helicopters with the twin towers….etc. etc.

18:05Michael Shaw

i agree with nina on this one — but it’s a fun photo for the same reason the newsreels were interesting

18:05John Lucaites1

YEah, kit’s a cliche, but when the two pictures are published side-by-side can we ignore it with so much nonchalence?

18:05Hariman

I found the portraits (the slide show at Vanity Fair) quite moving. Am I alone in that? Or are they too easy to do?

18:05sionphoto

The grenade pic, and indeed many pics ive seen from Iraq/Afgho, self conciosly hark bak not only to earlier images of conflict from earlier wars – but movies of those wars.

18:05Alan Chin

why, michael? you don’t see me chalking “9-11” on my cameras, do you?

18:06Alan Chin

sion, it’s because we can no longer live without that visual literacy of past images. everything is a quote

18:06John Lucaites1

Sionphoto’s comment is much to the point here. Isn’t there a sense in which the visual representation of war is a kind of eternal return or repetiton. It can be done with more or less artistry, but these all seem to be tropes that are repeated.

18:06Al

But that kind of proves the problem. Why chalk 9-11 on a bullet used in afghanistan?

18:07Al

conflation, just like the administration

18:07Alan Chin

it makes sense to chalk 9-11 on a bullet in Afg. just NOT in Iraq!

18:07Hariman

Bingo.

18:07Nina Berman

Revenge, remember

18:07John Lucaites1

I like Alan’s point about visual literacy … but it isn’t just visual is it?

18:08John Lucaites1

Al — Actually, it makes more sense than one for Iraq? No?

18:08sionphoto

each postmodern reference leads us further and further away from whats going on. Its like people quoting tarantino scenes. Cool for the cognoscenti but ultimately meaningless

18:08Alan Chin

but quoting is OK IMHO. just because you’ve seen it before doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing again

18:08Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Do any of the images in the series stand out at different? Not a trope?

18:08Alan Chin

not meaningless if you’re part of it

18:09Alan Chin

in Iraq, chalking “Down With Al-Qaeda In Mesopotamia” might be a mouthful to write out over and over again

18:09Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

And, as a photographer, you’re part of it? Aren’t we all part of it, even if only as observers of the observations?

18:10Alan Chin

Exactly! Exactly the reason i’m a photographer, to get to know it “for real” rather than through others — even when i know i’m being fed nonsense

18:12Michael Shaw

Is the image that stereotypical, or is it more that Alan, Sion and Nina would react that way as professionals?

18:12Michael Shaw

Maybe it is…

18:13sionphoto

Personally my issue is not with the image. I think its intruiging and in many ways subtle. My issue is with what assumptions are being triggered in the audience who see it

18:14Michael Shaw

You are talking about the grenades shot, right?

18:14Alan Chin

right, sion. which is why it might be more intersting for Vanity Fair and World Press to show us graffitti or Iraqi **** or other such stuff we’ve never seen before, rather than this, no matter how strong Tim’s images are

18:14John Lucaites1

Sion — elaborate please. What “assumptions” and in what do you see as the ‘trigger” that invokes reaciton?

18:15sionphoto

Nope, the winning pic. There is a connection between the presence of the US sodiers and the Afghan man hoding the dead kid. But our sympathies are being led towards the soldiers, not the civilians

18:15Alan Chin

but sympathy for civilians is just another set of assumptions

18:17Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

What assumptions? Are they at all warranted reactions?

18:19sionphoto

For all I know the soldier might be looking shocked because hed just killed the baby. But without context, its easy to be lured into looking at the image with ‘noble sacrifice’ motifs from other immages in our heads

18:21sionphoto

Its like the Harry pics. We are being invited to look at a good looking fresh faced lad, kicking a ball about and having a jolly ripping time giving ‘terry taliban’ a jolly good thrashing, and therefore to assume that its ok.

18:22John Lucaites1

I agree that context is everything. But there is never only one final and certain context … right? Aren’t there competing contexts that then push and pull meaning in different directions?

18:23John Lucaites1

There are surely multiple contexts for inteprting “Harry” no?

18:24sionphoto

Id agree. In this case though, you probably wont be surprised that I think the context these images should now be seen in, is a growing amount of evidence that both wars were prosecuted illegitimately

18:25Nina Berman

What I loved about the Harry pictures was how staged everything looked. Everything looked completely staged. What was he doing with a dirt bike there? Never saw Americans with

18:25John Lucaites1

Sion: Well, you’re not goint to get me to disagree with that.

18:26sionphoto

Probably that was his butler used to deliver him his daily copy of the Times…crisply ironed on a silver tray.

18:26Nina Berman

Sorry, my fingers are slippery…what I meant to say is that the Harry pictures were so obviously staged…I can’t believe the British public didn’t see through that.

18:26Alan Chin

hilarious, i agree. now, sion, iraq and afghanistan are not the same war. i do not think that the war in afghanistan is unjust. obviously the prosecution of it is another issue altogether

18:26guest881951jtfromBC

on harry’s cap it says ‘we do bad things to bad people, but it doesn’t say we do bad things to 9 good people in the process, unless one understands the realityof this game,

18:27Alan Hagman6

Any thoughts on the meeting between the military and the British Press- agreeing on an embargo on any reports/images until Harry returned?

18:28sionphoto

What was funny is indeed how Kiplingesque the Harry images were…its all ‘sticky wicket bally good show tally ho’ stuff.

18:28Alan Chin

i don’t think it’s the job of the royals to communicate moral complexity. the job of a good junior officer is to get killed setting a good example. or if not, then ride dirt bikes and have some fun.

18:29Alan Chin

US media didn’t report on John McCain’s son in Iraq last year. it was no secret — but not talked about

18:29sionphoto

The cap motto should have said ‘ we do jolly bad things to bloody bad blokes, what! Toodle Pip!’

18:29Alan Chin

all fun and games till the stick him with assegais, as happened to prince napoleon in zululand

18:30sionphoto

Like the Monty Python sketch said ‘what is required right now to boost morale is a totally pointless sacrifice’. Us Brits excel there…

18:31Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Alan: further support of Nina’s previous comment… Though does that also call into question the authenticity of Heatherington’s images? Or no, because of the anonymity of the soldier(s) in that instance?

18:31John Lucaites1

The difference is I didn’t know John McCain had a son until you mentioned it and certainly could not pick him out of a crowd. The Princes can hardly do anything without being photographed.

18:31sionphoto

…and how Kiplings only son died, after his father pulled strings to get him to the front. Kipling never recovered.

18:31John Lucaites1

I have to check out folks. But this has been illuminating. I hope we do it again … and in the meantime I hope to see you all as regulats at the Bag (and www.nocaptionneeded.com).

18:31Alan Chin

thank you JOhn!

18:31Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Thank you, John! Look forward to next time…

18:32Nina Berman

Bye, bye, thank you

18:33Michael Shaw

Program note: why don’t we go 10 more minutes.

18:33Alan Hagman6

Have a good night. Thanks all.

18:33Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

Bye, Alan. Thanks!

18:35Alan Chin

OK, I better get on the road to Toledo…

18:35Michael Shaw

Well, it’s not the smoothest ending in the world, but maybe we’ll call it here. Thanks to all for coming. You’ll be seeing more chats soon, with a much slicker interface and maybe multimedia as well. Thanks!

18:35Hariman

Happy trails.

18:35Michael Shaw

And good luck to Alan Chin in the media storm of Ohio!

18:35Denise/ BAGnewsSALON

This was great – thank you all for your participation!