Sadly last Saturday (March 29th) veteran war photographer and Pulitzer Prize winner Anja Niedringhaus of the Associated Press was murdered in Afghanistan.  She and news reporter, and Kathy Gannon, were shot in the back seat of their car by an Afghan Police Commander with an AK-47 assault rifle. Ms. Niedringhaus was killed instantly, Ms. Gannon gravely wounded.  They were covering the Afghan elections.  It can truly be said that this is only the latest incident in a war where the boundaries between friend and foe have become inexorably blurred.

We have spoken often of the important role that press photographers have played not only in covering the events of the day, but also in bringing personal reality to gruesome realities.  And it is ultimately this reality that comes to shape world opinion.  Before photography war was a detailed story written in a newspaper.  With photography, with video the world was transformed.

And it is not just war correspondents.  According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, 1054 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992, fourteen already in 2014.  They cover not only war but: corruption, crime, human rights, and politics.  One has to marvel at the bravery of these correspondents, as we watch them reporting in their flack jackets from darkened balconies.  One has to wonder about their motivation and bravado. Why not jut stay home in secure comfort?  But without doubt they enlighten us in ways not otherwise possible and the world is indebted to them all..