This is from a book report on a forthcoming project of photos and notes by an army nurse in Iraq, Riley Sharbonno, in collaboration with Monica Haller; in Aperture 196 (Fall 2009):
… Many events during my time in Iraq were too complex, too horrific, or beyond my understanding. There were simply too many things I witnessed there in a given day to process, so I stored them as photos to figure out later.
Pictures create a concrete reality. At least I know these things happened. They continue to serve that purpose.
Photos provide the chain of events that lead your mind into a state where it is okay to kill somebody. If you don’t remember the sequence of events that took you there, you can believe you were a monster.
You can find out more about this project, here. The .pdf file available from that page is pretty interesting.
-Julie
