It is obscene to write about photographs depicting the starvation of a group of people while it is still going on. This particular obscenity ties in with the larger obscenity of the neoliberal, globalized world in which it has become impossible for individual citizens to disassociate themselves from ills caused, however indirectly, by their actions, whether it’s the purchasing of products, the payment of taxes, or the election of others from a very narrowly defined pool of candidates (all of them supporting the status quo). But the mechanisms underlying all of this obscenity can be broken. That breaking can happen at the level of the individual, and it will have to happen there first. The following thought aim to locate some of the cracks that, with just enough labour, might widen enough to produce the tearing that have the potential to make things better.
There is a photograph I saved to my phone that shows a woman (the photographer is Mahmoud Issa; you can see it above). She is clad all in black, and she is holding her starving child. She is depicted standing erect in the middle of the frame in front of what looks like a partly painted concrete wall. There is a window (boarded up) to her right, and behind her (to her left) is what might or might not be a bed. Whether or not the lump that I want to believe is a pillow is in fact that I don’t know. It might also be a small concrete block. The woman’s eyes are closed, and her right cheek rests against the child’s. The child is very severely malnourished. The spine very sharply delineates the middle of her or his back, the ribs are visible, arms and legs have been reduced to sticks. Looking at these arms and legs, I hold my breath: they might break in half if too strong a gust of wind arises (or maybe a bomb’s pressure wave). This is a photograph from Gaza, the home of roughly two million Palestinians that has been largely reduced to rubble and that is now being subjected to a starvation campaign by the Israeli government. Most experts in international law, including leading Israeli human-rights organizations, have concluded that Israel is committing genocide.
When I first came across this photograph I was struck. Over the course of the many months of war in Gaza I had seen many photographs from there. Many times, I had been shocked by what was on view. There have been many photographs of death, injury, and starvation. And yet, this photograph felt different. Maybe “different” is not the right word. In principle, this photographs is not different than many others. In any case, the word “different” carries an implication that I do not intend to make, namely that all of the other photographs I have seen fail to do something that this one does. It’s difficult to avoid the trap of thirsting for that one photograph that somehow gets to stand for the enormity of a war. And there is something ghastly about how in the world of news photography, some photographs of suffering get awarded — as if it were a good idea to hold a competition that is rooted in other people’s misery.
The French philosopher Roland Barthes famously coined the term punctum to describe the one aspect of a photograph that makes it resonate with a viewer. According to Barthes, every photograph has a punctum, and it can be different for different viewers: something in a photograph, some detail, triggers a response. This particular photograph resonated with me more than most of the others ones I had seen, and that says a lot about me, almost nothing about the other pictures, and certainly nothing about the situation in Gaza. When I see Issa’s photograph, I see and feel a mother’s deep love and affection and care for her child. Her face resting against her child’s — it brings tears to me eyes every time I look at the photograph. That the child is starving is almost secondary. But of course it is not. Still, I maintain that the love, affection, and care were already in place before the starvation. And I desperately hope that the child and the mother will be able to find the food that will allow for this love, affection, and care to remain in place for a long, long time. I also connect these two people and their situation to all the others who are not depicted. All human beings — regardless of who or where they are — are deserving of the same love, affection, and care. And food, of course.
If you were to believe the majority of photography critics, writers, and historians, the above makes no sense. Photographs, we have been told for a long time, have lost their power to move us. If, and this is the main argument, photographs had any power, all the pictures published from wars, famines, and other man-made disasters would have resulted in an end to those wars, famines, and other man-made disasters. It’s an easy and seemingly convincing argument to make. It is usually tied to what is called compassion fatigue (when someone’s prolonged exposure to suffering leads them to cease caring). Here is the problem: If you were to believe that photographs of mothers holding their starving child have lost their power, why did I feel compelled to save one on my phone, to look at it over and over again? Is there something wrong with me? Maybe I have not looked at enough photographs from Gaza to arrive at the compassion fatigue I am supposed to be experiencing?
Alternatively, something might simply be wrong with the way photographs of wars, famines, and other man-made disasters are discussed in the world of photograph — and beyond.
On 28 July 2025, German news magazine Die Zeit published an interview with Steffel Siegel, a photography historian and theorist. There was a different photograph of a mother holding her child that serves as the main image for the interview. Herr Siegel, the Essen based historian was asked, can the images from Gaza still touch us? (All translations from the original German are mine.) Of course, they can, Siegel replied, and they should. […] However, the use of “still” in your question hints at the following: There exists something like an evolution in time of this type of being moved. The more frequently we are confronted with such images, the more we reflexively resist. These words are a neat summation of the idea of compassion fatigue that I outlined above.
I have a lot of respect for Siegel’s work. In the interview, he took on the role of a spokesperson for the professional world of photography. In all likelihood, a different spokesperson would have produced identical answers (however differently they might have been phased).
But let’s dive in. First of all, who is the “we” in we are confronted with such images or the more we reflexively resist? According to a poll conducted in May 2025, 80% of Germans do not support Israel’s military actions, given the high number of Palestinian civilians that are being killed or injured. If it is true that the more frequently we are confronted with such images, the more we reflexively resist, how did those 80% of Germans arrive at their opinion? And how is it possible that in March 2024, it was only 69%? (While there is much to be said about Germany and its support of Israel, I want to focus only on how photographs function here.) Something doesn’t seem to add up: the more Germans saw what was and is happening in Gaza, the more they were and are opposed to it. Actual polling thus directly contradicts the idea that frequent exposure to photographs leads to people caring less and less. Instead, in this particular case, it was the actual opposite. Well, you might argue, the poll does not say that the Germans actually care. Strictly speaking, that’s true. But the 11% who changed their minds must have cared enough to do that, right?
I also find Siegel’s statement curious that there exists something like an evolution in time of this type of being moved. I don’t know this evolution from my daily life. Or rather, I do know how my feelings and emotions might change. For example, when I lost one of my cats earlier this year, I printed out a photograph I had taken of her and hung it up in my office. I am just as moved by the photograph now as I was in the first days after her death. My grief has largely receded, but my love for this particular animal who was a trusty companion for many years of my life has remained unchanged. I might miss her differently now than I did when I would travel for weeks. But I still miss her. I don’t know how long I will miss her. But I know that I miss her just as much as the (other) cat whose photograph I use as a background image on my phone.
We all know from our daily lives what enormous emotional power photographs of loved ones or of special occasions can have. What is it that lends some photographs this power, while other photographs are said to come with emotional expiration dates? I personally do not think that a theory of photography in which some photographs operate and function very differently than others is particularly helpful. After all, how would one go about differentiating which photographs falls into which category? In the end, part of the problem here is that when photography is being discussed, what is being omitted from the discussions is the viewer’s actions and role. The logic of the narrative that long exposure to images leads viewers to ultimately resist does provide insight. But it’s not insight into photographs and how they work. Instead, the real issue is how we use photographs and what we do (or not do) after we have seen them.
Siegel’s conversation with Die Zeit contains a number of other common misconceptions around photography that are not disconnected from the issue at hand. It’s worthwhile to dive into them. Thinking about an added value of images from Gaza, Siegel asks: Do they help us to more properly understand where the roots of this conflict lie? Well, obviously, they do not. Anyone interested in understanding the roots of this war would be much better served by reading one of the many books that already have been written about it (if you’re curious, Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine gives you a lot of information). But Siegel’s question points at a severe mistake that is made by many professionals working in the world of photography. Photographs are able to depict facts and events. But they are unable to explain anything. Photographs are created in very short moments in time — how would they be able to simultaneously encompass a lot of additional information? I get it, we all expect certain things from photographs. But when they fail to deliver, it is absolutely necessary to ask why they fail to deliver. If a photograph does not explain something, the problem clearly is that I expect it to do that. Even the most factual images that very few people would question do not explain anything. An X-ray image of a broken arm tells the doctor that there is a fracture. How the arm was broken is not explained by the image. Thus, if all those photographs of war or famine have not been able to make war and famine impossible, that’s clearly not the photographs’ fault. It’s ours. And the “we” here is all of us — not just those working in photography (in whatever capacity).
Inevitably, the conversation in Die Zeit moves to the questions of propaganda and authenticity. (Again, while I have much to say about Germany and its support of the war, I will not do so here.) Speaking about propangada, Siegel notes that we are supposed to get moved into a specific direction. But we must not necessarily allow ourselves to do that without our assent. If images despite their urgent clarity had the power to make us think and ask questions, then that would not be bad. While this sounds good and convincing, it’s actually really problematic. To begin with, the implication is that images from Gaza are propaganda for Hamas (this is a widely used approach in the German media). The reality is, though, that images can have more than one role at the time, and they can play out very differently for different groups. For example, the propaganda images produced by the far right in countries where it is active and/or in power are seen very differently by those opposed to the far right. Propaganda images coming out of North Korea look weird if not outright ridiculous to many people not living under somewhat similar circumstances. Furthermore, if a photograph can serve as propaganda for a terrorist organization, that does not necessarily mean that it can have no other meaning and/or purpose for anyone else. It is true, the photograph of the mother holding her starving child saved on my phone could serve as propaganda. But I maintain that photographs are not per se propaganda — just like they also cannot explain anything. Photographs are merely photographs. Their use in specific contexts is what can make them propaganda. And that’s an enormous difference.
Furthermore, Siegel’s assertion that if images despite their urgent clarity had the power to make us think and ask questions, then that would not be bad contradicts the logic behind compassion fatigue. Photographs either have the power to make us think and ask questions, or they don’t. It can’t be both at the same time. It also can’t be the former some of the time, and the latter some of the time. If photographs have the power to make us think and ask questions (which I would argue they do), the logic of compassion fatigue collapses: why are we not thinking and asking questions? Is it the photographs’ fault? In other words, compassion fatigue becomes disconnected from photographs. Photographs clearly have an enormous power and appeal. After all, we look at photographs all the time. As I noted above, it does not make sense for some photographs to lose their power over time, while other photographs retain it. It is true, many photographs have enormous emotional value. But speak to anyone about a photograph of a loved one who is long gone. You will encounter a lot more than “merely” emotions. There will be thoughts, memories, and much more. This is what gets me about most photography criticism (or “theory”): it claims that photographs have a lot of power, and it then separates our emotional responses from our rational thinking, as if they existed independently from each other. Furthermore, emotions are typically viewed as bad. It is always stressed that questions have to be asked or that we have to think. The problem is, though, that when you dismiss people’s emotions (typically because emotions are said to be deceiving, leading us to rash or wrong conclusions) that does not necessarily mean that your thinking will arrive at the right place (after all, people come at the wrong conclusions all the time).
Speaking about a different photograph of a malnourished child (and their mother) than the one on my phone, Siegel says the image is particularly complicated because it omits all context. We see two human beings in the great existential need, but we don’t know anything specific about this situation. We are confronted with a photograph that is likely to cause a lot of emotions but without being given additional context. Therefore, you have to ask: which function can this photograph have in a journalistic context? Siegel’s concluding question is very important. It concerns journalism — but not photography. Ignoring the journalism aspect, what comes before the question is extremely disconcerting: if there is a photograph showing a mother and her starving child, what exactly would added context serve? Are there contexts in which it is OK for a mother and her child to starve? Do we have to know where exactly they’re starving or why they’re starving? If we experience emotions while looking at the photograph, will those emotions fade away, given some added context? Or would those emotions become less valid given the context? Do I have to worry about feeling bad when seeing the photograph of a starving mother and her child, knowing that somehow (it shudders me to write this) “they had it coming”?
I could not have foreseen this, but just a few days after I started writing these words, what I just outlined actually materialized. A number of well-established media (including a number of German ones) wrote that a photograph of a starving child in Gaza lacked additional information, namely an underlying medical condition. I think that if you consider yourself a serious journalist, and you end up writing something like that, you need to have a long look into the mirror and ask yourself some very serious questions. Is that what you went to journalism school for: to basically deny or explain away a person’s suffering? If anything, that kind of added context makes things even worse: it’s not only not OK to starve children, it’s also even worse (assuming that such comparisons even make sense) to starve sick children. Honestly, to what extent have basic considerations of human dignity and compassion faded into the background for Western news organizations to create this relativity of suffering, where one group’s suffering is worth a lot less than another one’s? Where supposedly a photograph of a starving sick child is misleading if viewers aren’t told about the underlying medical condition?
What the fuck are we even doing here? (My hands are shaking with rage as I’m typing these words.)
In light of the preceding, you will not be surprised to read the following. I think that it’s a serious mistake for photography historians or critics to dismiss the role emotions play when people look at photographs. Of course, emotions make it very difficult to understand photography. In real life, though, a viewer of a photograph does not look at it and then immediately jumps to the typically very cerebral conclusions that so many photography critics prefer. And emotions also are not necessarily the worst aspects when thinking about a photograph. It is true that the emotional power of a picture can overwhelm one’s critical thinking. At the same time, when critical thinking dismisses emotions — as is too frequently done in the world of photography, then photography’s true power will not be properly understood. And one needs to understand very clearly what is actually going on: Only when critical thinking is used to dismiss emotions it becomes possible to project one’s own and one’s society’s moral shortcomings on photographs. The fact that they now arrive in huge numbers might add the convenient talking point that it is this supposed flood that numb one’s and one’s society’s very basic emphatic and critical facilities. But that is a red herring that diverts from the issue at hand, namely a willingness to follow down that path in the first place. Down that path, it is then possible to claim that a photograph of a starving child is misleading if it doesn’t mention the child’s underlying medical condition.
We urgently must allow ourselves to feel the pain we experience when we look at some photographs — whichever they are individually, regardless of the consequences. However uncomfortable this might make one feel, this will still not even be remotely comparable to what is being depicted. If you are unable to imagine another person’s suffering why are you even looking at photographs? What’s the point? For me, one of the most ghastly things to witness was the willingness with which some people simply dismissed those who were slaughtered by Hamas in early October 2023, while others now dismiss the deaths in Gaza. If one’s emotions are conditional on what is being experienced, then I’m not sure that what you’re experiencing are actual emotions. Love and compassion do not come with restrictions. As I noted above, this is not a photography problem. But restricting emotions becomes a problem when it creeps into looking at and experiencing photographs and then trying to come to conclusions about what they depict (as is clearly the case in Germany).
Furthermore, the problem with the polarized environment of the internet is not just that emotions run high and that there is too little thinking. The opposite is also true. The vicious cruelty that is especially employed by the far right is based on a complete denial of some of the most beautiful human emotions: love and compassion. And in this cold neoliberal world, if there is anything that we desperately need more of it’s love and compassion. Applying love and compassion makes it impossible to write about missing context in a photograph of a starving child. If a photograph we see in the news is able to make us feel compassion for those in its frame, then we must not dismiss this for any reason. We must not allow that compassion is belittled or explained away, given that supposedly there is no context or nor larger background. Instead, we must allow ourselves to sit with the feeling of compassion and embrace it. Of course, we will never actually feel another person’s pain. But we can allow ourselves to be as moved as we might feel — without any ifs or buts. That’s where we need to spend some time, before we then engage in talking about photographs — and, possibly, in acting, in doing something (whatever it might be) later.
And we must also realize that it is never OK under any circumstances to allow for a mother and her child to go without food. Never. That is one of the base positions that we must not give up on. The moment you can conjure up circumstances where you conclude it is OK and that you need more information or context, you’re on a very, very dark path — at the end of which nothing good can be found other than your own moral bankruptcy.