Image credit: Ben Lowy/Getty Images
Last week, I interviewed Ben Lowy, a war photographer who decamped to Iraq at age 23 and makes images that shed light on far-flung corners of the human condition and wind up on the cover of Time in the process. The same week, Fairfax fired 30 photographers and outsourced the bulk of its photography to Getty Images – proof that clinging to the halcyon days that saw journalists rewarded for their storytelling efforts might be incompatible with the wider project of making a living.
However, I believe that no amount of fear-mongering about the decline of print or unwillingness of news organisations to fund assignments that matter can erase the journalistic urge to dismantle invisible regimes of power. Lowy might admit that a family and mortgage have quashed his desire to enter war zones, but his work shows that it’s worth risking everything to shed light on what lies beyond the frame.