Caution: One more year of blips to come!

Part 4: Tokyo on Foot by Florent Chavouet

Part 5: The Cruel Radiance by Susie Linfield

If you've ever tried to read Susan Sontag's On Photography but given up half-way in total confusion, don't worry, you're in good company. I've tried and failed on countless occasions, and I'm sure there are many others. In response to this frustration I went out and got myself a copy of The Cruel Radiance.

In The Cruel Radiance, with its subtitle Photography and Political violence, Susie Linfield compellingly sets out her arguments for the place photography has in documenting the world's atrocities. This is in direct opposition to Sontag who argued that this kind of photography does nothing but desensitize us to violence.

The book has three parts and starts with essays on photography criticism and photojournalism before going on to discuss specific periods of violence from Auschwitz to Abu Ghraib, through China and Sierra Leone. She discusses not only the use of photography by outside parties to document these atrocities, but also the use of photography by those on the inside to commit their crimes and further their political agendas. The final part of the book discusses three famous photojournalists: Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress.

Although not a photobook, Linfield does include an assortment of photographs where appropriate to illustrate the points she is making. Most shockingly for me, was her use of the photograph on the front cover, which she goes into detail in the book. No doubt some of you will have seen this photograph before, but I hadn't. Reading the history behind it certainly proved, to me at least, that these photographs have a place in society.

This is not an emotionally easy book to read, especially since photography for most of us is associated with happy occasions and our friends and family, but it if you are interested in the history of photography it is well worth the read.