UnEmbeded!

Originally posted at The Blog and the Bullet.

Zoriah, who was an embeded photojournalist in Iraq, blogs:

A few hours after posting my story on the suicide bombing in Anbar Province, I was woken up by a young marine who took me to receive a phone call. A high ranking Public Affairs Officer told me that they were requesting that I remove my blog post immediately. I asked on what grounds, as media rules state that wounded and killed soldiers may be portrayed in images as long as their name tags and identifiable features are not shown. I made very sure my images followed those guidelines, and questioned a large number of soldiers on base to see if they could find anything at all that would identify the dead. I did this primarily out of respect for the families.

I truly labored with the decision to post these images and I still do. But in my heart of hearts I know that people need to see and feel the reality of this horrible situation. How can things change if all that comes out of Iraq are sanitized, white-washed images of war designed for mainstream media outlets who focus on making money, not on the quality and truth in what they report?

Echo of Bullets

I did a multimedia piece on the crustcore Marxist Asian band Echo of Bullets for [X]press online. I did the pictures for the piece and came up with the idea. Hope you all enjoy it. The three minute piece can be found here.

First and Last Post for 2006!

I just thought I’d make a post before the end of the year. While I work on my first big entry, check out this website for the PBS documentary RACE - The Power of an Illusion. In addition to the transcripts for the 3-part documentary, it contains a plentiful amount of information and resources that you can browse through. Thank you to Tim Ponti for forwarding this site to me!

Have a safe and Happy New Year, everyone!