Photography is not only capable of striking the viewer's imagination with the grandeur and beauty of human achievement. Equally, it can depict in detail the ugly scale of grandiose catastrophes that produce the worst flaws in human nature. Similarly, art, especially contemporary digital art, is not always created with the aim of pleasing the viewer with views of a utopia. Far more often, works of art are created to instill fear and indignation in the hearts of the public, not only toward others, but also toward themselves. For this fear and indignation are powerful motivating factors that are as powerful as the power of pleasure.

One need only look at the panorama of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant made by the Soviet photographer and cameraman Vasily Kositsyn to get an idea of the depth of the abyss into which humanity can sink under the blinding madness of war. Kositsyn created a panorama of four shots in which he captured the factory in 1943, or rather what was left of it after the famous fierce battle. One shot was unable to capture the scale of the total destruction that had turned the engineering marvel into an impenetrable steel jungle. Kositsyn's images captured for posterity the horror that man-made weapons were capable of producing, crushing giant supporting structures like trivial stalks of grass. With dispassionate protocol precision, the photograph preserved the memory of every minute detail of the catastrophe in order to shock future generations with the memories of their ancestors. For only a mechanism could be so resilient as not to falter and turn away in the face of the consequences of such profound suffering.

Artem Loginov, for "History of One Photo"