January 1, 2008

As the year closed out, Benazir Bhutto’s death underscored the fragility of the situation in Pakistan and the border regions of Afghanistan. The assassination also revealed, yet again, how public lives – and public violence – are relentlessly documented in photographs. No sooner had photojournalists’ cameras caught the suicide-bomb explosion that was triggered to assassinate Bhutto, than an image surfaced showing a would-be assassin with his head wrapped in a shawl (below, top), and another showing what was purported to be a man firing a gun at Bhutto just an instant before the bomb was detonated (middle). And yesterday came another photo – equally murky and subject to misinterpretation as the other two: an x-ray of Bhutto’s skull (bottom).

Even unto death, our days are parsed out in pictures.

BHUTTO'S PURPORTED ASSASSIN #1

POSSIBLE ASSASSIN #2

BHUTTO SKULL X-RAY

...CLICK HERE for previous posting on the impact of news photographs on the situations in Pakistan and Burma.