Last weekend in Houston, Texas opened an expansive and unprecedented exhibition about war and photography titled, War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath. Filled with powerful images, books and equipment from more than 280 photographers from around the world including many award winning photographers who flew or drove to the opening events making it unforgettable:

James Nachtwey, Don McCullin, Dick Durrance, Susan Meiselas, Nina Berman, Kate Brooks, Gary Knight, Paul Lowe, Peter van Agtmael, Jonathan Torgovnik, Michael Christopher Brown, Carolyn Cole, Heidi Bradner, Donna De Cesare, Gay Block, Jim Goldberg, Suzanne Opton, Sara Terry, Jason Howe, Louis Palu, Marcelo Brodsky, Bertrand Carrière, Edouard Gluck, Hayne Palmour, Erin Trieb, Reynaldo Leal, Adam Ferguson, James Nakagawa, Howard Castleberry, Peter Riesett, Rachel Papo along with the co-curators Anne Wilkes Tucker, Will Michels and Natalie Zelt and war experts Hillary Roberts, and John Stauffer, along with many others from the field.

At the opening night viewers could study the vast array of pictures starting with the 1846 war between the United States and Mexico and continuing with photographic records of conflicts up to our times.

Not only are there images from every facet of armed conflict from preparations to battle and its aftermath. There are many portraits of those involved in wars from combatants to civilians including many children. Everything you could imagine has been covered: media coverage, training, fighting, rescues, burials, grief, prisoners, medicine, refugees, faith, executions, memorials, essays and remembrance.

It is an emotionally powerful experience that leaves you wondering why people continue to feel ignorance, insecurity, hate and greed over other peoples that leads to armed conflicts. War will never end. They are like grass fires. You put out one only to start battling another. That is the way some people on our planet will always be.

On Saturday was a symposium with three panels of photographers and co-curators. The first was composed of Carolyn Cole and Jonathan Torgovnik who discussed their careers and the similarities and differences between Cole working for a newspaper and Torgovnik working for magazines especially his passionate project to photograph women who have been victimized by the horrible act of rape in Rwanda for his “Intended Consequences.”

For the second panel, Susan Meiselas and her colleague from Magnum Photos Jim Goldberg spoke about their careers and especially how they ask their subjects to be involved in their projects. Meiselas spoke about how she returned to Nicaragua to re-visit many of the people photographed during the civil war of the 1970s. She also described how she not only photographed the Kurdish people but worked with them to help preserve their photographic history. Jim Goldberg talked about how he asked the people he photographed to write about their lives to go with his photographs of the rich and poor. Goldberg searched for street children and asked them to describe their lives on the run in a project he titled Raised by Wolves. Goldberg photographed and spoke to refugees who ran from the oppression of their homelands.

The last panel was composed of the legendary photographers Don McCullin and James Nacthwey who have probably covered more conflicts than any others living photographers. They discussed their concern for their subjects and their sensitivity to help people whenever they could. They spoke about their dedication and passion. When asked if there was a difference between them as photographers and their images, they replied they were witnesses and their photographs were their testimony.

Robert Stevens

War Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath
From November 11th, 2012 to February 3rd, 2013
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005,
USA
T : (713) 639-7300