Dutch photojournalist Geert van Kesteren’s Baghdad Calling is unique in photojournalism first for its innovative use of the book medium, a compendium of newsprint interspersed with smaller, glossy pages with text and photos.
But the content of the book is just as surprising as the format it comes in.
The dramatic book, outwardly reminiscent of a UN field manual, mingles van Kesteren’s professional shots of Iraqi families and daily life with his subjects’ own photos, snapshots of the country and their surroundings taken on cell phones and digital cameras.
What makes van Kesteren’s project so impressive is that he largely manages to avoid some of the most challenging aspects of photojournalism. How do you depict a foreign country truthfully, give that your perspective is that of an outsider? How can photojournalism allow for the agency of its subjects, and their inner lives and experiences? By collecting hundreds of snapshots from the daily life of Iraqis, whether they remain in the country or have escaped to Syria, Jordan or Turkey, van Kesteren creates a picture and a narrative that simply would not have been possible with a single camera and an individual person.
What makes van Kesteren’s project so impressive is that he largely manages to avoid some of the most challenging aspects of photojournalism. How do you depict a foreign country truthfully, give that your perspective is that of an outsider? How can photojournalism allow for the agency of its subjects, and their inner lives and experiences? By collecting hundreds of snapshots from the daily life of Iraqis, whether they remain in the country or have escaped to Syria, Jordan or Turkey, van Kesteren creates a picture and a narrative that simply would not have been possible with a single camera and an individual person.
