Aerial photos: a flexible instrument of propaganda

The Huppauf piece we read last week had some interesting interpretations of wartime aerial photography.  Personally, I have only worked with aerial photos in the context of earth science courses, where the goal is to locate features such as fault lines, landslide scarps, drainage patterns, etc.  In other words, there was absolutely nothing politically charged about it.  This article, however, made me conceptualize aerial photography in a totally new light.  

Huppauf theorizes on the nature of aerial photos: “Aerial shots do not represent sensuous or moral experiences of space . . . It not only eliminated smells, noises, and all other stimuli directed at the senses, but also projected an order onto an amorphous space by reducing the abundance of detail to restricted patterns of a surface texture.  In photographs taken from a certain altitude, only objects of a certain minimum size will be represented; smaller objects, in particular human bodies, will not be there, and cannot be made visible even with magnifying glasses or through extreme enlargements” (57).  

So I looked up some photos of the Korean War shot from aircrafts to see if Huppauf’s argument rang true.  This one of the bombing of Seoul bridges caught my eye --

It certainly seems that the photo remains at a cold, artificial distance from the event of the bombing.  Although the photo allows us to glean the geologic impact of the bomb, we can only imagine the effect that it had on the people and structures nearby.  The explosion evidently took place extremely close to main roads and buildings, but from looking at the picture, we cannot tell whether the area had been evacuated or if, on the other hand, civilians were present and suffered injuries and property damage.  

The caption reads (http://taylorempireairways.com/2010/05/dod-images-korean-war/): “Airview of bombs dropped by U.S. Air Force, exploding on three parallel railroad bridges across Han River, southwest of Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea. Bridges were bombed early in war to delay advance of invading North Korean troops.”  This caption emphasizes the strategic value in destroying the bridges and thereby slowing the advance of enemy forces.  It says nothing of the human damage incurred.  

Another site, by the military historian Belvin Alexander, features the same photo, but with a different caption: “U.S. bombs drop on railway bridges at Seoul in early July, 1950. The broken highway bridge at the right was blown without warning by South Korean themselves early on June 28, sending hundreds of fleeing South Korean soldiers and civilians to their deaths.”  (http://www.bevinalexander.com/korea/korean-war-photos.htm).  Clearly, a different meaning is ascribed to the photo on this webpage.  We are informed that the bombing took place without notice and killed many soldiers and civilians.

These two contrasting captions for the same photograph illustrate the mailability of aerial photos.  Because the viewer cannot see details, he/she can only learn about the human aspect of the event from the photograph’s caption.  I can therefore see how the owner of an aerial shot would have an enormous amount of power in shaping the public’s perception of war.  Since photographs are often received as "real" depictions of events, and ariel photos lack all trace of human bodies or 'sensuous experience', it is very easy to insert a flexible meaning while retaining the facade of objective reality.

--Sarah T.