Pictures of Half-Truth

Abstract

A dreadlocked soldier leaps into the air. He has his rocketpropelled grenade launcher on his back. His battle cry roars into the melee of sounds and twists his face into this face that has often gone unseen: The face of a soldier enjoying war. Chris Hondros took this photo. He caught the soldier's rejoicing in this picture and it was broadcast and printed all over the world; it was a photo of exhilaration that became the face of Liberia's fourteen-year civil war.But what side was that soldier on? What was he fighting for? His motivations aren't in the photograph. They can't be seen in the dust and sunlight and low, graffitied buildings and crumbling bridge. All that can be seen in Hondros's photograph is a man who loves war. That is the truth of this picture.The soldier's name is Joseph Duo. He was a child soldier when he enlisted in President Charles Taylor's army to fight against the rebellion. "I was happy at that time because I was defending my country," he said, through an interpreter, to Smithsonian Magazine. 1 But that deeper cause of his happiness cannot be seen in the photo. Hondros himself noted his picture's ambiguities: "Does it celebrate war or is it, you know, something else?" 2 It has often been noted that different captions can change how a photograph is viewed. And it has been noted, more often, that a photo is assumed to be true. Between these two facts lies the power of political photography: The photographs are true, but that truth can be used to achieve different ends.Photography is uniquely fluid when compared to other visual arts. Duo is in that photograph and he's thrilled with his work. These facts cannot be denied. But headline that photo with "WAR CRIMINAL'S CHILD SOLDIER FIRES ON REBELS," and the picture's meaning becomes very different than it would be underneath the caption "REBELS REJOICE IN FALL OF DICTATORSHIP."For over a century, photography has been a tool for swaying and holding public opinion. It has documented the twentieth century's causes and ideologies, their impacts, and their atrocities. These photographs, and other examples of political photography, echo through history. They are pictures of half-truth, and they come from a space