Comments on: SCENES FROM A LIBERATED BAGHDAD

SCENES FROM A LIBERATED BAGHDAD

hard rain — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 03:36:23 -0800

War Photography Visual insight and more from the photographer Simon Norfolk.

By: algreer

algreer — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:12:12 -0800

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.

By: Onanist

Onanist — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:31:01 -0800

Great stuff, thanks!

By: speug

speug — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 08:00:04 -0800

Excellent! Thank you...

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 09:50:15 -0800

Another thanks.

By: lisa g

lisa g — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 11:00:44 -0800

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.

By: lisa g

lisa g — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 11:05:21 -0800

(AfghanIstan) And here is his own website.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 11:16:26 -0800

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.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 11:32:43 -0800

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...

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 12:42:48 -0800

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.