I am a photo editor at a major publication that's been around for more than 100 years, and I have been responsible for sending photographers to Iraq, Syria and other conflict zones over the past seven years.
The short answer is that we do not publish unsolicited imagery from war zones, especially imagery from a completely unknown photographer randomly approaching us via email. In the same way we wouldn't publish a quote from a random citizen claiming to have interviewed Donald Trump, we do due diligence to learn the context of unsolicited images.
Lots of people make the assumption that images are unbiased and truthful representations of an objective reality, and I see many comments here supporting Kai for his "distinct" perspective. I encourage you to read Errol Morris' book "Believing is Seeing", where he discusses the importance of context as related to truth in photography.
Furthermore, especially in a conflict like Iraq or Syria, we do not want to encourage random photo cowboys to show up without the resources that our organizations offer true professionals on assignment in these stories. As journalism got particularly crunched in the early 2000s, we tried this for a brief period and it resulted in many young photographers heading to war zone s to "make a name" for themselves. They were killed and we were blamed for encouraging them.
Lastly, my professional opinion is that Kai's work is amateur. It's what we see from young photographers, relying way too much on aesthetic and situation to try and make an abstract point. Study the work of James Nachtwey, the late Chris Hondros, Don McCullin, even Robert Capa, and you will immediately see (and more importantly, FEEL) the difference.
I am happy to share more if there is interest in starting a dialogue.
The short answer is that we do not publish unsolicited imagery from war zones, especially imagery from a completely unknown photographer randomly approaching us via email. In the same way we wouldn't publish a quote from a random citizen claiming to have interviewed Donald Trump, we do due diligence to learn the context of unsolicited images.
Lots of people make the assumption that images are unbiased and truthful representations of an objective reality, and I see many comments here supporting Kai for his "distinct" perspective. I encourage you to read Errol Morris' book "Believing is Seeing", where he discusses the importance of context as related to truth in photography.
Furthermore, especially in a conflict like Iraq or Syria, we do not want to encourage random photo cowboys to show up without the resources that our organizations offer true professionals on assignment in these stories. As journalism got particularly crunched in the early 2000s, we tried this for a brief period and it resulted in many young photographers heading to war zone s to "make a name" for themselves. They were killed and we were blamed for encouraging them.
Lastly, my professional opinion is that Kai's work is amateur. It's what we see from young photographers, relying way too much on aesthetic and situation to try and make an abstract point. Study the work of James Nachtwey, the late Chris Hondros, Don McCullin, even Robert Capa, and you will immediately see (and more importantly, FEEL) the difference.
I am happy to share more if there is interest in starting a dialogue.