Fotoğrafın Krizi Vahşeti Fotoğraflamak by Geoffrey Batchen

Since the publication of Susan Sontag's groundbreaking book *On Photography*, it has become impossible to look at photographs, especially those of violence and suffering, without questioning our own role as photographic 'voyeurs'. Does the proliferation of these images desensitize us? Or do these images stir our sense of justice and motivate us to act? Are we consuming the suffering of others? How should we react to these images?

The Crisis of Photography: Photographing Violence brings together essays by prominent contemporary writers on photography such as Rebecca Solnit, Griselda Pollock, Geoffrey Batchen, Shahidul Alam, Fred Ritchin, Alfredo Jaar, Ariella Azoulay, John Lucaites, Robert Hariman, Susan Meiselas, and Barbie Zelizer to answer these questions and offer close readings of images to reveal the realities behind the photographs, the photographed, and the photographers. From the massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee to the atrocities committed by the Belgian Kingdom in Congo, from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to the famine in China and the apartheid regime in South Africa, a wide range of photographs are examined. Each essay focuses on a particularly iconic image, offering a distinct approach and context to make us look at the photograph more closely, again. In addition, four photo essays in the book present the work of the photographers who took these photographs of atrocity and the artists' own reflections on these photographs.

The essays in this book map the historical and geographical context of atrocity photographs and address our current concerns about these disturbing images. The Crisis of Photography: Photographing Atrocity is an important book not only for the insights it offers about photography, but also for the thoughts it provides on injustice and suffering in the human world.