With powerful and almost prophetic words she defined conflict journalists as witnesses who strive to tell painful and cruel stories “with accuracy and without prejudice”. She stated that in spite of “all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. [...] Our mission is to report these horrors of war. Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price.”

War reporting has a history that is as long as that of war itself and visual representations of conflict – through painting first and photography later – have played a fundamental role in revealing horrors and atrocities. Photographers have been on the frontline since the 1850s and have pictured war with a groundbreaking level of intimacy and vividness. War photography, however, has a number of different declinations and may endorse different agendas: it can bear witness, give evidence, tell firsthand stories, provide vital strategic information, shape ideas and perceptions. Margins are often blurred and the distinction between objectivity and propaganda is a matter of fine balance.

Corporal Simon Longworth is one of the thirty six photographers professionally trained by the British Army; he is both a soldier and a photographer. His job rests on a subtle cusp: he has a unique access to the war theatre yet his images are framed within the rhetoric of serving his own country's pursuit of specific geopolitical interests. His photos are a challenging and important entry point to question the multifaceted role of images in narrating wars and conflicts.