Photographs of the great game

Abstract

Since the discovery of photography, the camera has been a silent witness at countless theatres of war, presenting a story that is ofteh as objective as any written account. The conflicts in the Crimea and in India in the 1850s were the first to allow the photographer an opportunity to report publicly on the progress of a war. Given the developments in photographic techniques, however, the camera still lagged some distance behind the main action and was usually relegated to documneting the carnage left in the wake of a victorious force. Omar Khan's book tells many stories, but perhaps the most presistent and enthralling is the journey of the photographer from the back of the army, straught into the frontline in Afghanistan. The story is surprisingly emotional, as a thrilling narrative of tribal war and the history of the British Raj are interwoven into the lives of two relatively forgotten men who devoted theri lives to photography.