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发表于 2011-6-14 11:34:28
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英文版:
A horrific portrait speaks of human cruelty, dignity
If our eyes are small lakes that reflect our hearts, the nose could be compared with a peak symbolizing our self-esteem. We stick our "noses in the air." People put our "noses out of joint." A portrait of a woman with a horribly disfigured nose must shock anyone into silence.
Just such an image was selected as the World Press Photo of 2011 from among 108,000 entries. It will be on display at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography until Aug. 7. The picture is extremely disturbing and hard to look at. A young Afghan woman, whose nose was literally hacked off, looks directly at the camera with grim determination, her eyes filled with fear and sorrow.
According to the caption, she fled from her violent husband and took refuge in her parents' home. But the Taliban pronounced her guilty of "running away," and let her husband slice off her ears and nose. The portrait asserts the woman's dignity.
The composition of the photograph and the expression on its subject's face reminded me of a similar picture taken by Shomei Tomatsu 50 years ago. The subject is Tsuyo Kataoka, a survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The right half of her face is scarred. She said it was painful to expose it, but trusted Tomatsu enough to sit for him.
After the picture became known around the world, many photographers came to take her picture--or rather, pictures of her keloid scars. "Mr.Tomatsu was the only one who also took pictures of the unscarred left side of my face," she recalled. Any discriminating judge of photography can tell immediately if a photographer is more interested in a subject's scars than her whole person.
The World Press Photo exhibition reminds me anew of how much sorrow there is in the world. It pains my heart. Only a very fine line separates the mission of journalism from capitalizing on human suffering. Writing this daily column, I know I can never be careful enough not to cross that line. |
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