Certain objects and images are the property of war---guns, tanks, camoflauge clothing etc. Others are essentially associated with peace---people holding hands, perhaps, peace symbols, smiling children. Some objects and images however, occupy a kind of nether zone, and can be part of a vision of war or one of peace, depending on their context, on how they are used. For me, the camera, and by extension, the photograph, is one of these flexible icons. Nearly all of the photographs that have made their way from the MIddle East into my peaceful western Canadian world have depicted atrocities. They have catalogued violence, captured moments of hostility and aggression, of pain and fear; they have been used as evidence of crimes and as justification of further crimes; they have documented and in some way perpetuated the war. In my life, in my vision of peace, that is not what the camera is. In peacetime, the photograph has to do with leisure, not with grim newspaper headlines. There are so many better things one can use a camera for.

Noah Drew, Vancouver British Columbia Canada