After the American Civil War, World War I is the first conflict to discover the immense power of photography. Through the prism of this new medium, we measure the strength that will be the first shots that will “sweat” front. Captured first by some amateurs, spontaneously and without ulterior motive; the images are, a few months later, under the control of the army. This is the beginning of a major media offensive.

Questions then arise: How can we show the war? What is the role of the war reporter? What is the power of images? And what subtle game did the protagonists of the conflict give themselves in the name of the freedom to inform?

In order to best answer these questions, the film “Photographers at the front” takes two major axes of reflection.

Viewers will meet again in 1914 with these soldiers and photographers accredited by the military, who took pictures to testify to the atrocities of war and life at the front. And in parallel, contemporary photographers and historians will comment on the clichés taken a century earlier, telling this great human and technological adventure.