Soldier photography: visualising the war inIraq

This article focuses on the production and dissemination of photographic imagesby serving US soldiers in Iraq who are photographing their experiences and posting themon the Internet. This form of visual communication – in real time and communal – is newin the representation of warfare; in earlier wars soldiers took photographs, but these werenot immediately shared in the way websites can disseminate images globally. This digitalgeneration of soldiers exist in a new relationship to their experience of war; they are nowpotential witnesses and sources within the documentation of events, not just the imagedactors – a blurring of roles that reflects the correlations of revolutions in military and mediaaffairs. This photography documents the everyday experiences of the soldiers and itshistorical significance may reside less in the controversial or revelatory images but in moremundane documentation of the environments, activities and feelings of American soldiery atwar.