War photography changed how people perceived war and how news publications reported armed conflict. While people may not fully understand the grim reality of war by reading a news article, they often immediately grasp it by viewing graphic pictures of war.
War photography has always been controversial, both in terms of the explicit nature of combat photography and potential military censorship of images. Both issues are as true to day as they were when Mathew Brady’s team first took pictures of the American Civil War during the 1860s.