SCENES FROM A LIBERATED BAGHDAD

December 2, 2006 3:36 AM

War Photography Visual insight and more from the photographer Simon Norfolk.
posted by hard rain (9 comments total)

Norfolk is an inspiring photographer. I saw an exhibition of his a few years ago - he travelled around war torn Afghanistan with a massive large format camera - an incredible feat.


"They're all shot at 4am"

Amazing photography is all about getting up early in the morning. Damn.
posted by algreer at 4:12 AM on December 2, 2006

Great stuff, thanks!
posted by Onanist at 4:31 AM on December 2, 2006

Excellent! Thank you...
posted by speug at 8:00 AM on December 2, 2006

Another thanks.
posted by maxwelton at 9:50 AM on December 2, 2006

He's great. This is one of my favorite shots by him, from Afghanastan.

He gets a little of the same criticism that Sebastiao Salgado does -- making formally beautiful scenes out of devastating surroundings -- but when the end result is that it makes you look, it works. Particularly when (as with the balloon vendor) he captures a bit of culture-transcending humanity.
posted by lisa g at 11:00 AM on December 2, 2006

(AfghanIstan)

And here is his own website.
posted by lisa g at 11:05 AM on December 2, 2006

Powerful. The staircase at Auschwitz: last steps for how many feet...?

Also see BLDGBLOG's earlier post, Rooms of Algebraic Theology, about Simon Norfolk's supercomputer photos [see his Supercomputers gallery]. More about the godlike MareNostrum computer in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center^, including other Norfolk photos [click for high-res versions.]

BTW, the BCS is looking for a The SysAdmin.
posted by cenoxo at 11:16 AM on December 2, 2006

Norfolk's comment about Roman roads underlying London streets is striking:

Crucially, it needs to be understood that the road system built by the Romans was their highest military technology, their equivalent of the stealth bomber or the Apache helicopter – a technology that allowed a huge empire to be maintained by a relatively small army, that could move quickly and safely along these paved, all-weather roads. It is extraordinary that London, a city that ought to be shaped by Tudor kings, the British Empire, Victorian engineers and modern international Finance, is a city fundamentally drawn, even to this day, by abandoned Roman military hardware.

And here walk all we upon the streets of DARPA...
posted by cenoxo at 11:32 AM on December 2, 2006

The shot of the barrier wall in an illegal Israeli settlement that is covered in a mural of the an alternate landscape behind it that ignores the Palestinian town just behind it speaks volumes.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:42 PM on December 2, 2006