Poems
Poem 3: 'War Photographer'
Extract
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows...
Location
Duffy reads the poem from a cemetery close to her home in Manchester, and as she reads it we see a photographer at work in a darkroom printing a negative of the classic Vietnam War photo of the young girl burnt by Napalm running down the road. The figure in the darkroom is photographer Ken Guest, a film and stills cameraman who has covered conflicts in Afghanistan and Cambodia.
Summary
At the time 'War Photographer' was written, Duffy was friendly with Don McCullin and Philip Jones Griffiths, two very well-respected stills photographers who specialised in war photography. She says in the programme that what interested her in writing the poem was the photographer and the difficult decisions he or she might have to make while taking pictures in a war zone.
The poem contrasts the peaceful sounds and security of the darkroom where the photographer is printing his pictures with the 'nightmare heat' and chaos of the battle zone. The soft red glow of the safelight is set against the colours of the battlefield - blinding flashes and 'blood stained into foreign dust'. The screams and chaotic noises of the war zone are contrasted with the quietness of the darkroom - 'as though this were a church and he / a priest'.
The vivid and bitter memories of the photographer - 'the cries / of this man's wife' - associated with the photographs he has taken in difficult situations are contrasted with the casual involvement of the photographer's audience - the readers of the Sunday papers, whose editor has chosen 'five or six' of the photographer's most dramatic pictures for their Sunday morning entertainment.
In the final two lines of the poem the reader is confused (perhaps intentionally) as to who 'they' are. Is the photographer staring down from his aeroplane as he returns to the battlefield looking at the houses of his readers who 'do not care' - or is he leaving the battlefield where it is the dead who 'do not care'?
What Carol Ann Duffy Said
'Those photographs are in the background but I'm more interested in the photographer... in the dilemma of someone who has that as a job... to go to these places and come back with the images.'
Carol Ann Duffy - Passwords 1998
What the War Photographer Said
'Working in a war zone is a compromise... between the perfect shot and staying alive.
'The dilemma for the photographer... is the question of what to do - do I take the photograph? Or do I do something to help?
'The editor's evaluation between a good photograph and a bad photograph can be different from the photographer's... I would perhaps choose images that an editor wouldn't... because I remember all the associations connected to that photograph... it may just be a body, but I might know whose body that is.'
Ken Guest - Passwords 1998
