Long Live Photography

It feels familiar. In the sense that it is a lot of grief. An unprocessed grief. The young girl doesn’t know why her mother had to die. Yasir Iqbal was a witness to history, a history that carries the weight of a lot of fear for even speaking about it, when he took the photo of the young woman held together by women. Her mother has been killed in shelling in Uri, a border area, after Operation Sindoor was launched as a reaction and retaliation to Pakistan’s alleged involvement in the Pahalgam terror attack last year. A picture speaks a thousand words. This one was a million silences composed in one frame.

Newsrooms in general are struck with cost-cutting measures and massive layoffs, and where writing and photography are superfluous. We don’t linger anymore. We don’t do pauses anymore. We move on. From this to the next. In an instant.

But even as I am part of a dying breed of those who believe that content is not story and an image is not always a photograph, I know that this recognition will always be a humbling experience for us and for those who insist that we need to show numbers to justify our jobs. A journalist is someone who knows how to wait. A journalist is someone who knows why a pause is worth it all. In an age of over-consumption, a pause can make a difference.

That night we had a heated discussion in the newsroom. We had two options for the cover on the issue that told stories of those who lived on the border and how wars and conflicts have become a part of their everyday lives and they never chose it but they suffer the consequences. It was in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack last year. The other photo, a very strong one, was the photo of a Pakistani soldier against the backdrop of demolished buildings. He looked at the camera with a fearful gaze. Almost struck by the flashlight.

We argued for and against the photo for hours. I asked everyone to vote. We, who wanted the photo of a grieving girl, lost.

I remember not having slept that night. I sent both images to a trusted group of friends asking them which one made them feel more.

The cover had already gone to the press. In the morning, I went and changed the cover. Not because the other photo was not strong. I did it because the girl in the photo haunted me. It was a loss that was heavy. There was something unsettling about this photo. It was something that made us uncomfortable. There was grace. There was a recognition of a young girl’s state in a war of not her choosing.

My friends said this photo showed us the other side of war. Not jingoism, not heroism, not nationalism. This was about the people in the war. We were writing about humans in the war and not about war’s necessity. No wars are needed. We live in an age of wars and it makes us look at the killed as numbers.

But I remember that night with awe. Newsrooms must debate and argue. They must think through our stories and our images. This is the time for more of that. To hold on to our convictions and to agree to disagree. That’s the kind of newsroom we must have. A newsroom that holds its own, where reporters and editors and photojournalists have the space for holding multiple viewpoints.

Yasir is a brave photographer. Courage to look at loss like that and capture it is not many of us can do. An award is an acknowledgment. The photo should have not been there. The girl should not have lost her mother.

Outlook’s reporters and photographers have relentlessly been pushing stories that must be out there. And we do this despite everything. We know that this journalism is not what goes viral. This is what stays with us in our quiet moments.

In the end, there is one line I remember from a book about wars. Written by a woman.

“There can't be one heart for hatred and another for love. We only have one, and I always thought about how to save my heart.”

―Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War

This is saving our hearts. Thank you World Press Photo for recognising Yasir’s commitment to his craft in a place like Kashmir.

We have one heart. And it must be for love.