War and Photography

Résumé

Amulets and Dreams: War, Youth and Change in Africa
edited by Omar Badsha
photographs by Guy Tillim and Omar Badsha
text by Julia Maxted
UNISA Press, 2002, 162pps, £38.95, ISBN 1868882306

I live in Britain. So, for the most part, there are two sorts of photographs of Africa that I see in the mass media. They may be described as the horrific and the terrifying. The first category is made up of pictures of famine or disease or the effects of war and mass murder. The second consists of pictures of men (it is usually men, although for added spice it is sometimes women) with guns, knives, ammunition belts, axes and— for real commercial possibilities—some elements of “traditional magic”.

War and Photography

Amulets and Dreams: War, Youth and Change in Africa
edited by Omar Badsha
photographs by Guy Tillim and Omar Badsha
text by Julia Maxted
UNISA Press, 2002, 162pps, £38.95, ISBN 1868882306

I live in Britain. So, for the most part, there are two sorts of photographs of Africa that I see in the mass media. They may be described as the horrific and the terrifying. The first category is made up of pictures of famine or disease or the effects of war and mass murder. The second consists of pictures of men (it is usually men, although for added spice it is sometimes women) with guns, knives, ammunition belts, axes and— for real commercial possibilities—some elements of “traditional magic”.