I was struck yesterday by some photographs on the BBC.   These images deal essentially with old wars and conflicts and they, perhaps, suggest that with time even the most terrible and seemingly unresolvable conflicts can in end reach some level of closure – unfortunately only to be replaced by other vicious conflicts.

The first of these is an image by Peter MacDiarmid of Getty images showing the reinterrment northern France of fifteen British soldiers who were killed a century ago in battle near the village of Beaucamps-Ligny.  The remains were found in 2009 during drainage work.   This is one of those breath stopping moments.  You wonder about what was and what might have been.

The second is a set of images, a set of photographs of Londonderry taken by French photojournalist Gilles Caron in 1969.These recently donated images will be on display at the Void and City Factory Galleries in Derry from 28 October until 20 December. This was the first battle in what became euphemistically referred to as “The Troubles.”

Back in 1969, most press photographs were in black and white.  Here you realize that they must be in black and white.  Color would be superfluous.  There is such an intense and stark, gritty reality to the use of monochrome.  These images are masterpieces, fantastic in there ability to say all that needs to be said without the encumbrance of words.  Consider the look on the face of the young, stylish woman in heels, clutching her handbag as she stands on a street corner turned battlefield.  She is out of place in her own home. And then there is the man in a gas mask against a wall on which the universal expression is written, “We Want Peace.” Three words and a single photograph that in the end say everything about wars and conflicts past and present.