17 ms·

"The most striking thing about the Gaza photo is that it" is real, those are in fact dead children, digital editing notwithstanding.

swombat 13y ago
There are dead children all over the world, and plenty of pictures of them. A photograph is notable not because it shows dead children, but because it shows an emotionally poignant scene that reverberates with its audience. If the photo's made up, it's no better than a poster. It can be drawn with skill and make the same point, but it is not a photograph and so does not deserve a photography award.
- capex 13y ago
  The emotionally poignant scene draws its weight from the fact that its showing dead children, not the photographer's technique.
  - gbog 13y ago
    The dead children just make it worse ethically. There are thousands ways to make a political point, the ones using dead bodies or suffering kids should be out of question. It is despicable.
    - jellicle 13y ago
      You seem to have things backwards. It is despicable to kill children. It is not despicable to point out that they are dead.
      - blots 13y ago
        What's more despicable about killing children than about killing people of other ages? Yet it's the children that are frequently used for political arguments. And that is disgusting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_interests_%28rhetoric%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_interests_%28rheto...
        danmaz74 13y ago
        What's more despicable about killing children than about killing people of other ages? Perhaps the fact that they can't defend themselves? Or that you can't say that you just made the world better eliminating some dangerous terrorists? Or the fact that they had their whole life to live? You only have to choose.
        bjterry 13y ago
        Medical (and other) interventions that are effective on children are judged as more valuable than those that are effective on the extremely elderly due to the concept of "quality adjusted life years" (QALYs)[1]. Of course, people's emotional reaction to children being killed is merely based on evolutionary adaptedness, and has nothing to do with whether its morally justified for them to feel a particular level of outrage. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year
    - blocking_io 13y ago
      This argument makes absolutely no sense. The 'political point' here is that children are being killed. If you can't use the dead bodies of children to illustrate this, then what can you use? Digitial manipulation is irrelevant to the fact that this was a real funeral with real dead children.
      - DanBC 13y ago
        A different point is that we are so numb to images of dead children that those photos need to be manipulated so we take attention. That's pretty chilling.
        blots 13y ago
        Whenever I see photos of suffering children in a political context for me it is the "look at those poor children, clearly the [opposing group] are poor evil" argument. Which is not about the children anymore, it's about diverting your attention from the cause of the problem. And this argument is used over and over on any occasion. How can you not become numb to that?
        blocking_io 13y ago
        It's not much of a stretch to say anyone killing children is (if not evil) in the wrong.
      - gbog 13y ago
        My argument is that there are some limits to what can be exposed to the public. You won't show on tv pictures of abused children to fight against children abuse. As a father, each time I see dead children I can't stop imagining it could be my kids, it hurts deeply, striking very intimate chords. I don't think it is ethical to strike these chords. These kind of pictures can be used as proofs if needed, but should not be public.
        blocking_io 13y ago
        It's not ethical to encourage you to feel empathy? OK. You're entitled to your opinion but it's stupid.
waps 13y ago
Frankly, looking at the other fotos I find it quite hard to believe those children are even dead. Firstly, muslims would never show images of dead people, but brushing that aside (and that would require explaining why hamas would have no problem with showing a few palestinian atheists world-wide. Also would those people behaving against islam's principles be in a large angry mob on the streets of Gaza ? I mean, that is avoided by most pious muslims in Gaza I hear). Where are the wounds ? A bombardment kills by using shrapnel - lots of it - as bullets, or by crushing. Obviously these children haven't been crushed. The right child's face is full of sand, but the white burial clots is immaculate. They are lying flat ... euhm ... how did that happen ? (In case you don't know there's a reason they call a corpse "a stiff"). If they died through bombardment they wouldn't have been lying, they would have been curled up. Since nobody collects dead bodies immediately after a bombardment (would have to be in 2 hours or less), they would experience rigor mortis in the curled up position. At that point the only way to get them into a lying position would be to break all of their bones, which takes time and a lot of effort. The bodies in the picture are obviously not experiencing rigor mortis, they are flexible and move with the arms of those men ... so what is it ? Either these kids died in the last 60 minutes before the picture was taken (where's the blood ? I hear even muslims have blood. And ahem, all muscles relax, which would color such an immaculate burial cloth yellow and brown for reasons I won't go into, again where are those discolorations ?). Furthermore the eyes wouldn't stay closed. Or they're past rigor mortis, dead for at least 3 days ... so why is there skin wet ? Why is there no loss of skin tone ? And frankly a corpse 3 days old smells to the point that no emotion will allow you to ignore that, and the smell is easily detected from 10 meters away in open air (no matter how exiting a medical student tells you it is, never open a drawer with a corpse, just don't, you'll still smell it constantly a week later). The easy explanation for all of this is very, very simple : those kids are alive (they even look like they're holding their eyes closed, although that could be an impression). Lying about it would be perfectly in line with islamic practice (probably important for large angry mobs in gaze, don't you think ?), it would explain the lack of wounds, lack of blood/other bodily fluids, the eyes, the skin tone, the flexibility of the children, everything. That would of course mean that it is a complete lie, and the photographer is very likely complicit.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

swombat 13y ago

There are dead children all over the world, and plenty of pictures of them. A photograph is notable not because it shows dead children, but because it shows an emotionally poignant scene that reverberates with its audience. If the photo's made up, it's no better than a poster. It can be drawn with skill and make the same point, but it is not a photograph and so does not deserve a photography award.

capex 13y ago
The emotionally poignant scene draws its weight from the fact that its showing dead children, not the photographer's technique.
- gbog 13y ago
  The dead children just make it worse ethically. There are thousands ways to make a political point, the ones using dead bodies or suffering kids should be out of question. It is despicable.
  - jellicle 13y ago
    You seem to have things backwards. It is despicable to kill children. It is not despicable to point out that they are dead.
    - blots 13y ago
      What's more despicable about killing children than about killing people of other ages? Yet it's the children that are frequently used for political arguments. And that is disgusting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_interests_%28rhetoric%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_interests_%28rheto...
      - danmaz74 13y ago
        What's more despicable about killing children than about killing people of other ages? Perhaps the fact that they can't defend themselves? Or that you can't say that you just made the world better eliminating some dangerous terrorists? Or the fact that they had their whole life to live? You only have to choose.
      - bjterry 13y ago
        Medical (and other) interventions that are effective on children are judged as more valuable than those that are effective on the extremely elderly due to the concept of "quality adjusted life years" (QALYs)[1]. Of course, people's emotional reaction to children being killed is merely based on evolutionary adaptedness, and has nothing to do with whether its morally justified for them to feel a particular level of outrage. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year
  - blocking_io 13y ago
    This argument makes absolutely no sense. The 'political point' here is that children are being killed. If you can't use the dead bodies of children to illustrate this, then what can you use? Digitial manipulation is irrelevant to the fact that this was a real funeral with real dead children.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      A different point is that we are so numb to images of dead children that those photos need to be manipulated so we take attention. That's pretty chilling.
      - blots 13y ago
        Whenever I see photos of suffering children in a political context for me it is the "look at those poor children, clearly the [opposing group] are poor evil" argument. Which is not about the children anymore, it's about diverting your attention from the cause of the problem. And this argument is used over and over on any occasion. How can you not become numb to that?
        blocking_io 13y ago
        It's not much of a stretch to say anyone killing children is (if not evil) in the wrong.
    - gbog 13y ago
      My argument is that there are some limits to what can be exposed to the public. You won't show on tv pictures of abused children to fight against children abuse. As a father, each time I see dead children I can't stop imagining it could be my kids, it hurts deeply, striking very intimate chords. I don't think it is ethical to strike these chords. These kind of pictures can be used as proofs if needed, but should not be public.
      - blocking_io 13y ago
        It's not ethical to encourage you to feel empathy? OK. You're entitled to your opinion but it's stupid.

waps 13y ago

Frankly, looking at the other fotos I find it quite hard to believe those children are even dead. Firstly, muslims would never show images of dead people, but brushing that aside (and that would require explaining why hamas would have no problem with showing a few palestinian atheists world-wide. Also would those people behaving against islam's principles be in a large angry mob on the streets of Gaza ? I mean, that is avoided by most pious muslims in Gaza I hear). Where are the wounds ? A bombardment kills by using shrapnel - lots of it - as bullets, or by crushing. Obviously these children haven't been crushed. The right child's face is full of sand, but the white burial clots is immaculate. They are lying flat ... euhm ... how did that happen ? (In case you don't know there's a reason they call a corpse "a stiff"). If they died through bombardment they wouldn't have been lying, they would have been curled up. Since nobody collects dead bodies immediately after a bombardment (would have to be in 2 hours or less), they would experience rigor mortis in the curled up position. At that point the only way to get them into a lying position would be to break all of their bones, which takes time and a lot of effort. The bodies in the picture are obviously not experiencing rigor mortis, they are flexible and move with the arms of those men ... so what is it ? Either these kids died in the last 60 minutes before the picture was taken (where's the blood ? I hear even muslims have blood. And ahem, all muscles relax, which would color such an immaculate burial cloth yellow and brown for reasons I won't go into, again where are those discolorations ?). Furthermore the eyes wouldn't stay closed. Or they're past rigor mortis, dead for at least 3 days ... so why is there skin wet ? Why is there no loss of skin tone ? And frankly a corpse 3 days old smells to the point that no emotion will allow you to ignore that, and the smell is easily detected from 10 meters away in open air (no matter how exiting a medical student tells you it is, never open a drawer with a corpse, just don't, you'll still smell it constantly a week later). The easy explanation for all of this is very, very simple : those kids are alive (they even look like they're holding their eyes closed, although that could be an impression). Lying about it would be perfectly in line with islamic practice (probably important for large angry mobs in gaze, don't you think ?), it would explain the lack of wounds, lack of blood/other bodily fluids, the eyes, the skin tone, the flexibility of the children, everything. That would of course mean that it is a complete lie, and the photographer is very likely complicit.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]