Fritt Ord’s prize for 2024

“Thank you very much, Fritt Ord, for this honor and for the recognition of my work. I am very proud, but also humble. This is a very important confirmation of photography’s documentary power and an honor not only to me, but to all photographers who work in the world’s more troubled areas.

I never thought I would end up spending so much time in conflict and disaster areas. I had almost said the opposite. I remember from my own childhood how afraid I was that there would be a war in my own country. I even had a sentence in my regular evening prayer that there must never be a war in Norway. It was a dangerous time, with the Cold War and not least the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War was special. For the first time, photographers had almost free access to the battlefield. It meant that the horrors of the war could be documented in a different and truer way than before. It brought the senseless brutality of war into the homes of people all over the world.

Those of us who have lived for a while, still remembers the photo taken by AP photographer Nick Ut, of Kim Phuc, the nine-year-old girl fleeing the Napalm inferno, naked and with severe burns. Or Eddie Adams’ photo of Vietnamese police general Nguyen Loan executing a suspected Viet Cong soldier in downtown Saigon. These images helped turn American public opinion against the war, thereby shortening it and the suffering it caused.

American generals later blamed the press for the US losing the war. This shows the enormous influence of the still image. It is something we must never take lightly, and we must always be conscious of how we use photography in today’s reality.

In order to document the conflicts up to the end of the last millennium at all, it was absolutely necessary to have our own photographers present. At the time, we had a special expertise: We were the only ones who could take a picture, develop the film and have the result sent home over an analogue telephone line, so that it could be printed the next day. This is no longer the case.

Every day over 3 billion photos are uploaded to social media. There is also a large collection of images from conflicts and disasters. But in an age of fake news, propaganda, manipulation and artificial intelligence, what can we trust? The media’s most important capital is credibility. During the war in Ukraine, several major media houses were forced to form their own verification groups to ensure that images and videos actually showed what they claimed to show.

Without this work, things could have gone really wrong.

“Sometimes it feels like the only right thing to do is to put down the camera in silent protest.”

That is precisely why it is it has not become less important to have your own photographers present. On the contrary – it is more important than ever before. Because also the individual photographer’s most important capital is credibility. When I put my name under a photograph, readers should be able to trust that the content is correct, no further verification is needed. My name shall be associated with truth. It is a credibility that takes many years to build up, but which can be destroyed by a single mistake.

Among other reasons, photographers should adhere to a very high ethical standard. Because there are so many difficult decisions to make when working in conflicts and disasters.

During the war in Gaza in 2014, several hundred people gathered in a school yard in Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip. They waited for a lull in the hostilities to be evacuated. Then it happens: An Israeli tank fires four shells that hit the school yard. 13 people were killed, among them six children. Dozens of people were injured.

The dead were brought to the mortuary at the Kamal Edwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya. A hundred relatives were waiting outside the mortuary. Inside the mortuary itself, 76-year-old Ahmed Taroush worked. His job was to look after the dead, to make it all as dignified as possible, before the next of kin got to see their loved ones.

But when he has done his difficult work and the doors are opened, it is not the relatives who are first let in. It’s the photographers. As I enter, I see him carefully place the youngest victim on the cold metal table. It is eight-month-old Suha Mosle. She and her mother were both killed while Suha lay in her mother’s arms.

The photographers were fighting for space in the cramped space, it all felt so undignified. Why does it happen like this? We are very aware of the danger of being used for propaganda purposes in any armed conflict, in this case by Hamas.

Sometimes it feels like the only right thing to do is to put down the camera in silent protest.

The first victim I photographed in this war in 2014, was a four-year-old girl named Sarah. She was killed by a shell along with her father and uncle, in a playground outside Rafah, the city which these days awaits an attack by the Israeli army.

After the bodies were collected from the mortuary by male relatives, they were taken to the family’s modest home, so that the women could also say goodbye. The problem was that there were so many photographers present that it was difficult for the women to get close to the dead. It ended with little Sarah’s mother not being able to say a final goodbye to her dead daughter.

It was with bad feelings that I returned to Gaza City that afternoon. Because by what right do we break into people’s lives at a time when they are most vulnerable?

Are we helping to increase the load, a load that may already be at the limit of what a human being is designed to withstand?

These are thoughts that have always followed me when I’ve been out. Ethically speaking, one often balances on a knife’s edge. I only sincerely hope that I have always fallen down on the right side. I would rather not dislike what I see in the mirror every morning.

It always has has been important to me to do my best so that people I meet retain their dignity when I am allowed to photograph them in perhaps the most difficult situations of their lives. That is precisely why the victims’ names have been very important to me. In a world where the conflicts are queued up, it is so easy to reduce people to statistics, to another nameless victim that few care about. The most important thing that gives us identity is our name. We are all unique people, we are a mother’s son, a child’s father, a brother’s sister. Few of us are completely alone in the world, some may sit back in deep sorrow, the violence affects so many.

The least I can do then is to let the victims retain their humanity, dignity and identity, even into death.

It is not necessarily that difficult to take an effective photograph in conflicts and disasters. The drama often takes place right in front of you. But one must be able to cope with one’s own emotions and sensory impressions.

The question is not whether you feel fear, because you do in certain situations. The question is how to handle it. It cannot become paralyzing or cause you to act irrationally. It must be used for something positive, make you even more careful.

Because that’s quite a lot can be done to reduce the risk. The most famous war photographer of all, Robert Capa, once said, “Too far away and you won’t get a picture. Too close and you’re not alive to take it.” It can be a delicate balancing act.

I have always been concerned with reducing the risk as much as possible, both for myself and my colleagues. No photograph is worth an injury or death. When my guardians in VG have shown me the trust it takes to send me out, coming back alive is the least I can do!

But on one occasion I thought I had made the wrong choice.

Early one morning in April 2003, I sat, together with my colleague Kim Riseth, in an American armored personnel carrier on the outskirts of Baghdad. And I was so scared I was physically sick.

The day before, the Americans had carried out a so-called ‘thunder run’ towards the Iraqi capital. It means that a group consisting of tanks, armored fighting vehicles and other vehicles drives towards enemy lines to attract fire. The soldiers try to get an understanding of what awaits in a major offensive. This ‘thunder run’ met with tougher opposition than expected. That afternoon I photographed wounded American soldiers being flown out to the field hospital, which was set up where we were staying.

Later that afternoon, Colonel Perkins held a briefing where he said he would launch an attack on Baghdad early the next morning. Kim and I were offered to join.

That night I spent several hours assessing security. We could not call home and consult with our superiors. It could be intercepted by the Iraqis. What we had agreed upon before leaving home was that we would not necessarily be the first to enter Baghdad. Two other journalists, Julio Parrado from Spain’s El Mundo and Christian Liebig from Germany’s Focus Magasin, considered it too dangerous to join in, so they remained in the camp.

But in the end I said yes, we’ll do it. But when we sat in the gray light in the armored vehicle with the sunroof open, I was terribly afraid that I had made a wrong decision. If I could have changed my mind at the time, I would have.

I don’t have that many photos from the trip into Saddam’s palace. I was terrified that something would go wrong, scared that something would happen to Kim. So I mostly stayed hidden down in the vehicle.

A few hours later, Colonel Perkins receives a briefing over the radio from the place we had left in the gray clearing. An Iraqi rocket had hit the headquarters. Two American soldiers were killed. For me, all human lives have the same value. But I cannot hide that the worst thing for me right then was that the two journalists who had considered it too dangerous to go into Baghdad, Julio and Christian, were also killed instantly. Had Kim and I made the same decision, the same fate would have befallen us.

It’s a quote from Michael Herr’s Vietnam War book, Dispatches, who describes it best: ‘I’m not really afraid of the bullet with my name on it, because there’s quite a bit I can do to avoid it. The bullet I really fear is the one addressed ‘to whom it may concern’.’

In the end, fate and chance decide.

Again – thank you very much, Fritt Ord, you have made this one of the best days of my life.”

Harald Henden

The speech that award winner and VG photographer Harald Henden gave at the awarding of the Fritt Ords Pris
in the Opera on 7 May 2024.

Also read the speech that Fritt Ord’s chairman Grete Brochmann gave at the award ceremony on 7 May 2024 here.