Sound files, though not integral to the story, allow Peress to speak about certain elements in detail. One of the associated forums allows feedback specifically on the photo work and lets Peress and Ritchen reply to various comments. The forum notes are the usual editorial ones of access and responsibility and deal little with the extended implications of this latest use of photography. No one, it seems, has considered at length the implications of the photographic idiom on the Web, the McLuhanesque consequences of photography freed from the confines of material reproduction. The great power of photography has been traditionally controlled by print media.
Photographs are by nature ambiguous samplings of reality, easily taken out of context.
This power is that of a particular view over the general consensus, individual voice overcoming corporate policy. The pressure has been ably deflected by Peress and Ritchen. The Sarajevo project, while conforming to one media company's greater needs of covering a big story, attends as well to the new medium's capacity for the fast transmission of an individual vision. In refining the flow of picture information to its basics, Peress increases their impact. His punches are, so to speak, telegraphed rather than delivered as freight.