Photojournalist Bill Putnam spoke Monday evening on capturing the emotional and physical tolls of war during an interview at a Must See Mondays event at the Walter Cronkite School.
Putnam, whose work has been featured in the Boston Globe, Washington Post and Newsweek, among other publications, said he started with photojournalism in the army in the late 1990s. While deployed to Iraq he met a magazine bureau chief, leading him to return to the Middle East as an embedded journalist, he said.
Putnam is part of the Conflict Zone exhibition, which collects images from journalists and combat photographers on the front lines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The exhibit will be on display at the Cronkite School until April 3.
“War can be beautiful in some really obscene way,” he said as he described his approach to depicting conflict. “Warfare can also be extremely isolating. . . . War is ultimately about killing people.”
Putnam also discussed the difficulties involved with photographing war while remaining impartial and ethically documenting its events.
“Everyone’s line is different,” he said of the importance of knowing when to put the camera down. “Even in the midst of all that, I knew I needed to keep some sense of who I was, which is important.”
Most of the photographs shown during the event were displayed in black and white. Some depicted soldiers, the daily lives of civilians and political events. He said he chose black and white because Iraq and Afghanistan are “monotone” in color.
“There’s been a great tradition of black and white war photography that I think still has relevance to today’s work,” Putnam said. “I think Iraq and Afghanistan lend themselves stylistically to black and white work because of the environment.”
Despite decades of professional experience, Putnam decided he wanted to earn a college degree. He is currently a student at American University where he is studying broadcast production.
Kristin Gilger, associate dean of the Cronkite School, introduced Putnam at the event and said it is important for a journalism school to portray the realities of war.
“I got a call early in the summer of last year from a woman who said, ‘We have this traveling exhibit of war photography with work from dozens of war photographers,’” she said. “I was intrigued and she sent me a link to the images online and I was blown away by the depth, breadth and quality of the work.”
Deanna Dent, a former Cronkite School student and current adjunct professor, conducted the initial interview with Putnam before opening the room up for questions.
Architecture sophomore Luis Avila said he came to the event because of a long-time interest in photojournalism.
“I’ve always wanted to hear someone speak who has had first-hand experience with war photography,” he said. “You sacrifice a lot to be able to do something like that. I don’t see myself ever being able to sacrifice as much as these guys do, so I’ve always wanted to listen to someone who experienced it first-hand talk about it and see what it was like for them.”
For his closing words, Putnam discussed the difficulties of adjusting to life outside of war and the emotional challenges he has faced.
“It’s tough to come back to this after seeing all that,” he said. “I know that if I live to 100 I’m still going to be wrestling with some of the things that I saw.”
Interested readers can view prior “Must See Mondays” lectures in the Cronkite School’s video archive. Next week’s event will feature panel discussion on an investigation of gun rights and regulations by former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and ASU students in the News 21 program.
Contact the reporter at travis.arbon@asu.edu.
