Photographic representation fact and the aestheticization of war within the contemporary photography

Whether the art is a representative action or not is an ongoing argument today. Apart from other representation systems, the photography which records what actually exists in a certain past is a significant component of this argument. The photography was evaluated as a copy rather than a fictional representation due to reasons such as its; high resemblance level, dependency to its object, limited allowance of its technical recording feature to the interference of its creator. But however, the multi-pronged production within the photography practice emerged in time, verified that the idea could also be expressed through a vision of outer reality. The technical and thematic preferences of the photographer within the production process, are the most important aspects that proves the representation characteristics of the photography.Besides enabling aesthetical creativity, the main feature of the photography is being a documentary recording. Used in the visual recording of the social and natural events, the photograph is one of the most important means in documenting and communicating the wars. Looking at the historical development of the war photography, its obvious that within the initial periods where the technical opportunities were determinative, mostly the battlefields and the rear frontlines were photographed. Through the invention of small and portable cameras, the war photographer could manage to be in the heart of the conflict and had the possibility to record closely. Television broadcasting and afterwards changeover to digital broadcasting, dramatically affected the war photography, in order for reflecting the reality more impressive and for competing against the other visual medias such as the television, the war was represented with scenes where shock, violence and aesthetical tendencies are more prominent.Together with the altering global economic structure, the nature of wars also changed. Through this alteration, also the war photography was formed by the facilities provided by the digital opportunities and by the impact of artistic traditions. Representing the witnessing dimension of the war, the photojournalists both create the beauty through their individual aesthetical modes comprising of losing the war and also represent the beauty itself. Besides, the increase in the personal interpretations of the photojournalists caused the transformation of the representation within the war photography. In order to understand this transformation, aesthetical tendencies within the contemporary war photography were examined and it was discovered that; some circumstances were occurred were the photojournalists express themselves through the war emerging from the representation characteristics of the photography and the photographers who approach the war as a theme express themselves. It does not seem as the discussion will reach to an end that the ultimately produced aesthetical scenes are either the copies of war reality or the consequences of an activity which does not integrate with war reality.