Heathcliff O'Malley at the Frontline Club

I went to a slideshow presentation of the British photographer Heathcliff O'Malley at the Frontline Club tonight. He covered, inter alia, just after 9/11, the prequel and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I thought that his best images were the images he took before the wars began and shortly after the US led coalition occupied Kabul and Baghdad. What struck me most – and of course this is with a great dose of the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge we have now – that one could already see subtle signs in his images that both wars would soon run into difficulties and end up in a big mess. He had a few very telling images that showed the relationships between civilians and the US army that suggested that the relationship would end up as a troubled one…