Kids with Guns
May 6th, 2009 | By Akilah Johnson | Category: CritiquesPhotojournalist Tim Hussin’s audio sound slide depicts boys in Salt Lake City, Utah playing a game of war with toy guns. The only audio that accompanies the black and white images are the boys’ breathless voices, the sounds of their guns and low music track.
Interesting. Very different from what I remember playing war/guns as a kid. They seem to have a greater concept for the lingo, the way to move, etc. It gives this eerie sense that the fiction kids have these days bleeds into reality well.
It would be much more useful for audiences to provide the link on this sight, but after finding it on my own, I found that this is a very powerful piece of photojournalism. It says alot about how much war and violence can have an influence on the younger generations. This project tells so many layers of a story without any dialogue. It’s just pictures and natural sounds for the most part, but it says alot about how children absorb the tough realities that we deal with.
This is really powerful imagery.
This is one of the more compelling uses of photojournalism I have seen so far. The photography is beautiful but the concept itself is mildly disturbing. It definitely forces a person to rethink what we all take for normalcy and consider the idea that these seemingly basic actions can have an adverse affect on children that we never bothered to conceive.
Great piece, you really see that the kids have an understanding of what happens in a fire fight. The best part was the end where the gunfire, and voices stop, all thats left is silence. The pictures of the kids playing dead at the end is somewhat frightening though.
Gave me chills. Seems like these children took all the actions straight out of a video game and applied to it their version of war. The photojournalism is excellent- it seems he really immersed himself with the children and captured them genuinely.
This is really powerful and quite scary. I especially liked the image of the big house with the child holding the gun in the bottom left corner, because he almost blends in, but once you see him.. you see him!
Not only is this a terrific song by the group, Gorillaz, but it also a terrific piece of multimedia journalism. This piece had a slightly comedic undertone, but this was completely overshadowed by the dark, war-torn sense of reality that was chosen as the lens for this piece. The added sound effects were priceless and it made it seem more like a scene from Saving Private Ryan than a bunch of children running around playing war games with plastic guns. Point blank, these kids were really serious. This provided an interesting piece of social commentary on the way in which children view violence, understand the concept of war and the time in which we live in. Sure, children have been playing with toy guns since the gun has existed, but in a world where we constantly question the moral reality behind violence in the media and the effect that it has on children, this piece has a lasting effect. One has to wonder how much of this is play and how much of this is the result of cultivation from the media. It is the “mean world syndrome” brought home.
How would I see it?