Photographers in the Battlefront

While covering a war zone, did you ever feel emotionally tied to the drama of someone you were photographing?

GC: Emotions arise whenever you witness human drama. However, over the years, you become more professional and learn how to manage these feelings in a better way, even in situations where chaos has taken over. Those who are not used to dealing with catastrophe will be much more affected than in my particular case. The professional challenge means you being able to tell a story without it overly affecting your emotional side.

FD: In several moments. When covering an event like this, I end up spending a lot of time in places where I am photographing. Hardly ever do I photograph for just a few days and leave right after. Sometimes I spend months or return several times over a few years to tell a story, so I end up creating ties with people and also the places I am photographing.

For a photographer working in regions of conflict is there something that balances the value and importance of aesthetics versus the denouncement character of a photo? How can the photo of a devastated place be beautiful at the same time?

GC: At times you see beautiful photos but with no story behind them; in others you see photos that are not that beautiful, but their story transforms them into an incredible image. For me, the most important is the story behind the photo. I like to know what I am doing, who are the people involved, and what is happening. Then comes the photo.

FD: As a photojournalist covering conflicts, I believe that the most important is to show the greatest number of people what we are witnessing in front of our cameras. The importance of the mission is to report the absurdities we see and not let these moments be forgotten, without doing nothing to change them. The aesthetics of photography itself is another tool for this, something that is already incorporated in the way I see things and work. I do not try to turn photos of conflicts into beautiful images, but I believe that light and background come together in the moment of the photo to help transmit a message.

In the Syria series, you used real characters posing before a devastating scenario. Given the intervention, do you believe that this is a step beyond the work of a photojournalist?

GC: Everything I show is real. The world I photograph is much more real than the one where I live when I am not working. I am a storyteller, so I try to capture these real characters and put them in front of my lenses so that people can understand. I often come across doctors or professors who, all of a sudden, have to deal with arms or escape the country. The people photographed are real people, like you, me, or any other person.

In addition to international conflicts, your work also involves Brazilian dramas, such as crack users and wars between drug dealers. What similarities and differences do you see when doing these jobs here and abroad?

FD: Yes… I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro and did a lot of coverage on urban violence and drug trafficking issues. One can say that the undeclared war between the police and drug dealers can be easily compared with the declared wars in the Middle East. But I can say that when I compare, for example, a war in Iraq with what we frequently experience in Rio de Janeiro, there are many differences, but unfortunately a few similarities too. For me, the most relevant similarity is that in these conflicts, whether in Iraq or Rio, the biggest victims are civilians, who have nothing to do with the war and are caught in the middle of the crossfire, many times losing their lives, their children, relatives, etc.