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The Documentary and JournalismThis shows the half-masked identity of one ofthe “Interahamwe,” the death squads who carriedout the mass slaughter of Rwanda’s Tutsisduring the country’s genocide. Cropping allowsfor the concealment of identity andsubtlety of message. Killers do not walk withsigns saying “killer” on them. They look likeyou and me. It is what they do that makes themwhat they are. So their appearance inspires themind to conjure thoughts of what it is they doand how. By hiding some of the informationand allowing the mind to fill in the rest, thepicture lays the foundation for deeper thought.In this image, the unidentified people in itshazy background help this process by raisingthe question about whether they are killers orsurvivors. There are no dead bodies, so it iseven a more complicated question. We are leftwith an eerie feeling of concealment, borderingon the clandestine. In photojournalism,identity is everything: Faces must be distinguishableso viewers are able to relate to theGoma, Rwanda, 1994.subject.But how can someone sitting in New York with a job and modern life have any affinity with a wounded or dying man from a place and culture sofar removed from their own, or with a murderer of hundreds of countrymen? A galaxy of dissimilarity separates subject from viewer, and there canbe no connecting across this chasm. By not forcing this connection, documentary photographers keep their differences intact while giving viewers thechance to feel and imagine on their own levels, engendering a response—no matter how vague. The main thing is that viewers aren’t bullied or coercedinto an emotion that they wouldn’t naturally have. Perhaps the space in the shot is the distance between the killer and his victims, or the separationfrom the group, distinguishing him from the rest by his actions. These are all questions, not answers. Questions, however, do stir.This shot is a prime example of using slowershutter speeds to create images that go beyondwhat they are. I call this my “Pieta.” Brushstrokes of light transform this mother carryingher dying child into a picture bearing an arrayof religious undertones. This is in no waybelittling the fact of what is really happening.A mother with a dying child is one of the mostdesperate situations a human can face. Why,then, transform it into something that lessensthis tragedy? To my way of thinking, literalimages begin and end and have no other way ofgoing beyond their literal self. A more abstractimage can associate itself with other images ormemories and isn’t asking to be taken in aspure information. It is a prompt for the multitudesof links to come to life, thereby leaving alasting impression through the memories andideas it inspires.Afghanistan, 1988.30 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001