Death in Syria – How Global Post’s Tracey Shelton Captured Her Iconic War Images

Tracey Shelton, a photojournalist working for Global Post was on the Syrian civil war front lines in the city of Aleppo, covering a group of rebel fighters who were manning a barricade position. She was using a Canon 7D DSLR camera to take video as the fighters prepared for the possible approach of some tanks. They were caught unprepared and her camera captured the moment when they were killed by a tank shell. The resulting images have become some of the most direct examples of just how suddenly death can come in war. They are a shocking reminder of war’s brutality. The bravery she must have to sneak around those streets with only a camera to defend herself from snipers, tanks and rocket propelled grenades is astounding. I think I would simply put my camera away and run.

DSLR News Shooter has an in-depth article about the photographer.

The photo of Tracey Shelton is by Niklas Meltio.

The original video of the terrible moment in a short documentary is shown here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJh67GjjPI

Here is an interview with the photojournalist about how she got her images:

Lest We Forget is a Short Film with a Long Memory

Lest We Forget is a short civil war film directed by Brandon McCormick and produced by Whitestone Motion Pictures.  It’s the kind of short film I don’t see much of anymore.  Very simple and well-produced.  I really like its fearless punch and its call to the audience to not forget.  Because we do forget.  We forget everything.  We want to forget.  In fact, we’ve been seeing a lot of wonderful old-fashioned folk come out of the woodwork around this country to put on a country fair display of their rancid all-American racism.  This film is for that guy at the town hall meeting on health care reform who decided to tear up the poster of Rosa Parks.  Boy did he forget!  That guy should watch this film and think about it a lot.  Then put himself out with the garbage.  Because I really don’t care whether a guy like that remembers or not.  He’s really just a hole in the road that needs to be paved over.

But the one great thing about all this raging racism coming out, much of which is directed at President Obama, is that it does in fact come out.  We see the bigots.  Yes, indeed… we know who you are.