When it clicks

Great news photos become more than just an image

If you are not close enough, your photograph is not good enough, said the Hungarian war photographer Robert Capa. He was at work when he stepped onto a landmine and died. It’s a dangerous job. But it is able to tell the world about the most horrific things done by humans to each other – proof like nothing else that, yes, absolutely, that happened. The winning picture of this year’s World Press Photo competition is that of a young Palestinian boy, with both arms severed. It brings the brutal destruction of Gaza ‘close’ to those far away, and not just in kms.

Over time, some photographs become emblematic of large historic events. Like the one of a naked girl fleeing a napalm bombing, which refuses to let American atrocities during the Vietnam War fade into collective amnesia. Or the one titled Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima that represents American heroism in World War II. Photographers of TOI, India’s newspaper of record, have also taken readers close to the most troubling events, again and again. The frontal photo of a man pointing a pistol at a policeman and threatening to kill him during the 2020 Delhi riots, and photos of Ajmal Kasab that helped establish his guilt in the 26/11 attacks, are just two of the most haunting examples.

The camera may be the most important invention since the printing press. But at what point, how many photographs later, do viewers grow immune to the horrors captured in these? When do these stop afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted? The sad truth is that no one book or photo can end a war – that power continues to vest with men in power and their generals. And yet, the truth of the greatest photos is also indisputable. These are humanity’s conscience. However much we wring our hands at their limits, we would be more uncaring without them.