Tales Gone By

How do you shoot a story about events long gone by? Usually, you document the current impact of those events. You show the people and places as they are now, the scars of past trauma.   You also look for environmental images to illustrate concepts: some subjects in my current project have bad, bad dreams. This little girl, a relative of Antoine Goff, is perfect dream demon in this shot:

What if, instead, you do wish to talk about tales gone by? I’m going to try photographing scenes, as Kratochvil did about Abu Ghraib. As a photographer, perhaps it’s legit to make comments about what I know, what I read, as well as recording actual events. Toward that end, I’ve purchased a fancy toy gun and contacted actors via Craigslist.org. Now, the question is…will it work? Or will this experiment just look like, well, cheap shots?