Explosive war images largely the work of amateur photographers

THE explosive photos of abuse in an Iraqi prison drive home a defining fact of 21st century life — that the pervasiveness of digital photography and the speed of the internet make it easier to see into dark corners previously out of reach of the mass media.

Some of the most shocking or memorable photos from the Iraq war were almost certainly taken by soldiers or government contractors and zipped around the world with an ease that never existed in the days of film.

"With the technology now, the amateur photographer is as capable as a professional journalist and is operating with the same tools: Digital camera, laptop and an internet connection," said Keith Jenkins photo editor of the Washington Post Magazine.

"You have this whole rogue operation of civilians with digital cameras who have access to things the media don't," he said.

Photos from Abu Ghraib prison of hooded, naked Iraqi men piled in a pyramid near a grinning US captor and a hooded man standing with wires running from his outstretched arms have caused an international uproar since they appeared on CBS TV last week.

The New Yorker magazine published similar photos. While CBS did not return calls, The New Yorker confirmed the photos were shot with a digital camera, but did not disclose the source.

The Washington Postreported it had obtained 1,000 digital images from Iraq, some showing prisoners being abused and humiliated.

"The iconic images coming out of this war may be the amateur photographs of Iraqi prisoners," said Peter Howe the former director of photography for Life magazine and curator of an exhibition on the Iraq war now running at the International Centre of Photography in New York.

Soldiers in Iraq commonly have laptops and digital cameras, said Sheryl Mendez, New York photo editor of US News and World Report magazine, who has spent four months in Iraq covering the war.

Because digital cameras have features like automatic focus, they have made it easy for anyone to take technically good photographs.

Combine that with rapid internet connections and images of the war that previously might not have been seen have found a huge international audience.

A civilian contractor in Kuwait, Tami Silicio, broke a Pentagon ban on photographing soldiers' coffins when she shot two images with an inexpensive Nikon Coolpix camera and emailed them to a friend, hoping to show the dignity given to US war dead.

The friend called The Seattle Times' photo editor, Barry Fitzsimmons, then forwarded him the photos.

"It was one of those one-in-a-thousand calls you get," Mr Fitzsimmons said.

He then contacted Ms Silicio in Kuwait. After the pictures ran on the front page of The Seattle Times and were picked up by other papers, Ms Silicio and her husband were fired from their jobs in Kuwait.

"Look at what this picture has done," Mr Fitzsimmons said. "It's internationally known. It may make a lot of changes in how things are done in the military."