Local photographer featured on PBS documentary

WEST MILFORD — A few minutes with Paul Fusco and it becomes clear that his disagreement of the war in Iraq is absolute. A few more minutes and the depth of his empathy for the families of the fallen comes through. The 76-year-old West Milford resident has spent the past few years attending and photographing over 30 funerals for soldiers. He has done this despite the fact that the president forbid it. “Since the beginning of the Iraqi War, the government has consistently tried to divert media attention, an obvious example of that effort being the closing of Dover Air Force Base to the press so the rows of flag-draped coffins ready to be shipped to grieving families could not be seen by the public,” he stated. Fusco is no stranger to war, having served in Korea from 1951-53 as an Army photographer. After returning to the states, he went to college and then to work for LOOK magazine. In 1973, he became a member of Magnum which is a co-operative agency for freelance photographers. In 2004 he tried to sell some of his funeral photographs and was turned down by every major magazine — the same magazines in which he has regularly been published. The collectives works, which he calls Bitter Fruit, came to the attention of someone at PBS. The resulting documentary will be on AIR: America’s Investigative Reports, a show on channel 13 WNET tonight (Friday, Oct. 6) at 10 p.m. The documentary focuses on Fusco’s and Kael Alford’s photographs. Alford shot her pictures in Iraq. The photos on this page were taken primarily during 2004. The names under the photos are those of the soldier being grieved.