War Porn

Do I exploit my subjects? Is it morally justifiable to work as a photographer in war zones and disaster areas? Why are we all so attracted to images of other people's misery? Am I producing 'War Porn'?

As a photographer covering conflicts for international publications, Christoph Bangert is regularly confronted with the dilemma between truthful documentation and (self-) censorship. Using his images taken during the past ten years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza, Bangert started an experiment: What would happen if we suppressed our need for self-censorship for once? The result is as shocking as it is honest.

Designed by Teun van der Heijden, Chiho Bangert and Klaus Kehrer, the book is also a collector's item:
The small format, open spine binding, rough cover material and typewriter font are reminiscent of a handmade, personal journal. Some of the pages are not cut apart, but have a perforation which can easily be ripped open. This way the reader can decide just how much he wants to see, how much he can take. Spreads between these "hidden" images, naturally, are open to view.

Christoph Bangert (born 1978)studied photography at the Fachhochschule Dortmund and at the International Center of Photography, New York. He graduated from ICP in 2003. Bangert was a semi-professional rally driver for four years. In 2002 he shipped an old green Land Rover from Germany to Buenos Aires and in six months, drove from Argentina, 22,000 miles to New York City. The journey resulted in his first book titled Travel Notes.
Bangert has worked in Palestine, Japan, Darfur, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the US, Lebanon, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Iraq, where he spent about nine months in 2005 and 2006 on assignment for The New York Times. His work from Iraq is collected in the bookIRAQ: The Space Between.
His pictures have been published in leading international publications and he regularly photographs on assignment for The New York Times, Stern Magazine and Neue Zurcher Zeitung.
Bangert won awards from World Press Photo, POYi and others and participanted in the Joop Swart Masterclass. After completing a 14 month long overland journey with his Land Rover across Africa he published a book called Africa Overland with National Geographic Germany in 2013. In recent years he started to compete in motorsports events again, particularly desert off-road rallies. Currently he is working on a long term project about the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Christoph Bangert lives in Uster, Switzerland.