A victim of a landmine

This reminds me of an idea I had a while back ( non-medical people who hear it laugh it off ). If newspapers would post photos of homicide victims everyday , maybe, just maybe people would become more aware of the problems of society . Then again , weegee had tons of them but that never changed a thing . Not to be too picky , but could the image be a bit brighter ?

Eerie.

This photo promotes the cause so very well you don't need any words to state anything. A wonderful story about Aki Ra taking care of the boy - all due respect for the courage and persistence in his efforts.

Clever idea. Great photojournalism!

Thank you for taking this. I would not lighten the photo (might lighten the impact).

Daniel, thank you to also send such pictures that remind us of the condition of other people that have to struggle with problems that are more serious than any of our dicussions about photography. I cant even rate such a picture, I respect those doing it, but to me I cant find a sense in rating aestetic or originality here, we are talking about more serious things, this is life and death, this is the horror of war and conflicts and the willingness to live anyway.

Jean

With the background added in, even more so.

Thanks for sharing the story with us Daniel.

 

Our car was actually stopped on a back road as we traveled to visit a Hmong village in Laos while a demoltion team set off a piece of ordinance from the Vietnam war era.

The most frightening stat: at the current pace of removal it will take 400 years to remove them all.

What a world in which to raise children.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Unpleasant but an extremely original and artistic appraoch to the problem of land mines. This is more effective, I think, than most any photo the anti-mine people are using at present. Of course i haven't seen everything they are using in their campaigns, but most of it is just sad legless people. This is more immediate in a strange way than those photos. Perhaps because it's so darn direct.

This is an incredible image in a incredible folder. I find your photography inspirational and moving. Awesome job.

Just a question about your commentary above. How would his parents have been killed by the Khmer Rouge? If he was 13 when this was shot then he was born in 1989, ten years after the reign of the Khmer Rouge ended.

Hmm.

 

Good Point, that bears looking into.

The KR were driven out of power in 1979, but fighting continued in more remote areas - including the provinces north of Siem Reap - until the final government offensive in 1997. That same year saw a peak in landmine injuries - largely soldiers going up into KR jungle teritory, but also peasants returning to land that the KR had vacated. So the boy's parents could have been caught up in that last campaign. Casualties now are down to about 700 or so a year.

 

ICBL (the International Campaign to Ban Landmines) has a photo-library, and many NGOs go there for their pics - http://www.icbl.org/imagelibrary/Photographers. This would be a good image for them, but I'm afraid they can't afford to pay...

Thanks for the tip Phillip. I would consider giving them the image. I will look into it.