This photograph, is taken from Guilad Kahn's "Armoured Touism" series; a collection of images made through the window of an armoured people carrier, while embedded with US marines in Afghanistan. Using the theory of the gaze in relation to what it is possible to learn from his artist's statement, Kahn used the frame of the window to as a powerful diegetic tool, to visually show the divide between the locals and the marines. The subjects looking in, only get to see their occupiers through bulletproof glass and the camera, acting as the viewpoint of a hypothetical soldier shows how their interaction is similarly stymied (except for the gunner...). The little girl, looking up from an impotent position is reflective of the US' imperialist dominance and speaks of the hegemonic control it wields through the materials of global capitalism.
A limit to the indexical veracity of Kahn's testimony (although he unashamedly holds an outspokenly pejorative view of the situation) is that he works within the confines of the mass media as a whole. His bio states that he has contributed to most of the worlds notable news publication, however, these institutions are within and actively ideologically bolster the system through which these injustices are possible, mediating his work and framing it for their purposes. Also, his embedding with the army (a controversial tactic for a photojournalist to employ) strips him of full autonomy. Even before it is framed and altered for a proffered ideological reading by the editors of the institutions which disseminate it, his work, by peering out from one side of the glass, irrevocably connects him to a specific party in the conflict.
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