A decade ago, Chris Hedges titled his analysis of the addictive
power of war War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. If war truly
is a force that gives us meaning, photography is a force that
gives us a means by which to envision that meaning. In
War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath,
which runs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, through February
3, 2013, photography’s ability to capture every aspect of
war—from beginning to end—becomes almost troublingly clear.
Dedicated not just to the thick of the fight, but also to the
events leading up to as well as the consequences thereafter,
War/Photography demonstrates how deep our need is to picture war
as a means to understand it and, perhaps, avoid it.
Unfortunately, in an age of dehumanized battle where automated
drones strike from above, we may be losing the genre of war
photography itself, just when we need it more than ever.
War/Photography breaks down the process of war into 26 different
categories, from the moment of conception (such as