I went to the preview of a new exhibition of photographs from Iraq yesterday, The Space Between by New York-based German photojournalist Christoph Bangert. The space they were displayed in, Manchester’s Artland Gallery, is fairly cramped but the images are mostly awesome.

Bangert spent nine months in Iraq in 2005/6, shooting for the New York Times. Part of his time was spent embedded with US troops but other times he worked independently. I found his images fascinating…the scale they were displayed at allowed you to really look at them in a way you probably wouldn’t if you saw them in a newspaper or magazine.

Not that all of these would be suitable for mainstream publications. While many really highlighted the humanity of his Iraqi and American military subjects and some had a definite flash of humour, others were pretty gruesome – victims of terror attacks and wild dogs, for example. But hey, I guess that was life in Iraq at the time…and may well continue to be the case.
I’d recommend it to anyone who is going to be in Manchester between now and mid-March.