Lucas Suarez - Weekly Artist Post #2

Luc Delahaye

1. Luc Delahaye is a French photojournalist who is known for his photographs depicting global conflicts, events, and issues. In the above photographs, Delahaye is in the midst of war and provides the viewer with a chilling scene of what is occurring in different parts of the world. Delahaye uses both a medium and large format camera to capture his images. In the first photograph, Delahaye vantage point is from a distance, and provides the viewer with a eerie skyline with an empty street and black smoke in the distance indicting a gunfight took place. In the second photo, Delahaye takes a haunting photo of a killed Taliban fighter killed moments before the photo was taken. The focus of the photograph is of the fighter that lays dead in a ditch and life taken from him. The last photograph comes from the conflict in Bosnia. It was taken immediately after an explosion in the street that left many dead and injured. The focus is on the injured woman, who is lying in front of perhaps a dead body, while the blast also killed her dog. 

2. The intentions of Delahaye's photographs show the viewer a firsthand look at global conflicts that are occurring almost daily. Delahaye, who is a photojournalist, gives a close up perspective at the results of war. In the first photo, Delahaye uses a wide shot to show an empty Baghdad with smoke rising to the sky. Next, he uses a sharp image of a lifeless body, lying in a ditch following being killed at the scene. Lastly, the focus and color of the woman who is covered in blood, shows the brutality of war and how civilians are largely effected by war.

3.  When I look at these three images, I am immediately drawn to the fact that Delahaye is documenting the scenes of war. All three images come from a firsthand experience of what is occurring in global conflicts. These images are not typically shown to the public, however Delahaye does a fantastic job of taking these photographs for how they are and does not alter them in any way. It is also haunting to see the empty streets of Baghdad, a once populated city in Iraq, but is now war torn. Also, the lifeless body of a human being, lying in a ditch. As well as, the color of blood that is covering the woman lying in shock in the street at the death of her dog and the injuries she is sustaining.