It is said that the first casualty of war is truth. But in the arena of war photography, the truth is never simple. Drawing on an incredible range of imagery from the Imperial War Museum's vast collection and other major archives around the globe, expert curator Hilary Roberts presents a new perspective on the role of image manipulation in this field over the past 170 years,exploring the consequences for our understanding of historic and contemporary conflicts.
From the staged scenes and hand-coloured Daguerreotypes of the Crimean War at the very beginning of conflict photography to the AI-generated protest and propaganda imagery of today, Roberts explores the myriad ways in which layers of meaning can be added, erased or changed completely. As The Camera at War so powerfully reveals, sometimes this has been done in order to present a closer approximation of the truth, and sometimes for the causes of national morale, subterfuge and control of the winning narrative. Witht he current wars in Gaza and Ukraine, conflict is on the public's mind nowmore than ever.
Hilary Roberts is an independent curator of photography. She joined the Imperial War Museum's (IWM) Photograph Archive as a junior curator in 1980. As the Archive's Head Curator (1996-2013), she oversaw the development of IWM's photographic collections and the Archive's transition to digital photography, before moving to a research role. A specialist in the history and practice of conflict photography, Hilary has numerous broadcasts, publications and exhibitions to her name, including IWM's highly praised trilogy of exhibitions Don McCullin: Shaped by War (2010-2012), Cecil Beaton: Theatre of War (2012) and Lee Miller: A Woman's War (2015-2016). Hilary was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Award for Curatorship in 2017.
The Camera at War. 170 years of weaponizing photography
Hilary Roberts
Ilex Press, with IWM
£40, 256 pages, hardcovers.
Comments