Killer Shots: A Photographic Response to War
Though everything in “Killer Shots” has previously appeared in print, here the photos are insulated from the trivial surrealism that occurs when images of atrocity share pages with advertising. But there are other juxtapositions. Edelman pairs two portaits of exhausted, contemplative men–separated by 20 years and four time zones. Circular hubs figure in the backgrounds of both: the figure in David Burnett’s 1971 Fatigued G.I., Lang Vei, Vietnam sits in front of tank treads while Sebastiao Salgado’s subject in Kuwait (1991) leans against the tire of a vehicle used to cap ruptured oil wells after the first gulf war.
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Many photojournalists welcome the chance to exhibit in a gallery, where their work will not be disfigured by cropping or distorted by captions. But there are risks when a photojournalist strays into the terrain of fine art. One photographer Edelman wanted to include in “Killer Shots” replied by e-mail: “There is no way I could be part of a show with your title! I find it objectionable in the extreme.” He also complained that her exhibition didn’t sound sufficiently “anti-Bush.”
