A War photographer has the most demanding profession. A job that he has to perform in spite of himself. A profession where subjectivity, emotion and revulsion have to be side-lined. He does not have the time to even contemplate on his action, ruminate over the ethics of of photographing. It is a job in which the earliest bird gets the worm.

The first stanza illustrates how the dark room offers the photographer the space to analyze his photographs objectively as well as subjectively. The different pictures spool out into an ordered sequence as though reechoing their silence, and their heart rending agonies. The setting of the gruesome sequences are relived. Their logical categorization is juxtaposed against the abruptness of the corresponding situation, and the illogicality of the reason for the war. The room is gloomy and filled with an eerie red light at once symbolic of spilled blood. The red glow at once reminds us of The Sanctuary Lamp that is symbolic of Gods eternal presence, and is therefore never extinguished. The photographer and his actions within the dark room are likened to a priest and his preparations to intone a mass. This seems like a deliberate attempt on part of the poet to juxtapose the sanctity of the latter, against the unholiness and worldliness of the former.…