WARS: Middle East
The second in a series of four essays revolving around a common theme

“It’s not actually the dead, the physical destruction, that takes the toll: It’s this sense of this endless cycle. It’s hard to go and watch the similar sort of circumstances play themselves out over and over again.”

- Christopher Anderson

Magnum In Motion begins a new format, a series of four essays in which photographers' imagery, experiences, and commentary come together to explore a given theme.

"WARS," the inaugural series was launched on the Magnum In Motion home page on March 19, five years after the war in Iraq began. It will be published in Slate in four episodes.

Our point of departure was a quote extracted from Magnum photographer Philip Jones Griffiths' 2006 interview conducted in London by Magnum In Motion. The British photographer and author of the book Vietnam Inc. (1971) said with tongue in cheek, "Photographers are either mud people or sand people. I'm a mud person." Three photographers covering conflicts today were asked to react to this quote in light of their own experiences documenting wars.