by Jon Lackman | 14 January 2009 | Photography
André Gunthert discusses Gaza images on his blog:
Scandalized by the Jan. 7 issue of L’Humanité, Alain Korkos, columnist for Arrêt sur images, published an “Open Letter to Pierre Laurent“, in which he condemned the usage of this “unbearable photo,” which shows a dead child buried in rubble in the Gaza Strip (taken by Fadi Adwan of the Associated Press). Comparing this image with Frank Fournier’s photograph of the young Omayra Sanchez published in Paris-Match in 1985, Korkos accuses L’Humanité of imitating “the logic of Paris-Match,” of having sought to shock in order to “sell an idea and, secondarily, a paper (or vice versa)” … [His comparative] method here shows its limits … Is it pertinent to associate an image of Omayra Sanchez, a victim of a natural catastrophe, with that of the young Kaukab Al Dayah, a civilian victim of war acts? … To glimpse a connection between these two images is only possible if one perceives the Israeli invasion of Gaza (and its inevitable “collateral damage”) as a tragedy for whom no one, except fate, is responsible.
