Personal Narrative: My Experience Of Photography During World War I

18th October 1915,
As a photographer, all I crave is to capture the essence of each improbable moment. I take various photos of Canadian soldiers that enrolled into the war and Indian enlistees. But the horrendous experience of having to witness the trenches carves an image into your head, like being drawn on a canvas into your brain but instead of a paintbrush a rigid razor. Not even a photo can embark sufficiently on the trauma of trenches that I have to experience almost everyday. It was a hellhole, for some Passchendaele for others where they mark there ground to the gateway of heaven. The nights are cold and wet, rapid wind sweeps the rain across no mans land. The wind penetrates the polyester fibers through my light army green sweater with preposterous ease and every drop of

The coldness caused trench foot to run fungal infections which bred in the gunge. The crammed full pools of feces and urine caused the whole place to reek of a sent that stained your sense of smell. Rats fed on anything, up and including dead or alive bodies, eating men 's food and personal belongings. But worst of all, they sometimes grew to the size of a cat feasting off of the plentiful corpses that lay around. The constant sound of shooting guns and cannon fire would ring in your ear, as you can hear excruciating shouting of wounded and hurt soldiers or the undaunted attackers sometimes cheering or often laughing diverged into a background haze. Slowly the lice would breed on men, and could not be washed off completely because the little microscopic eggs would nestle in seams and aligning’s of the soldiers clothing. Also, artillery shells would crash repeatedly into the trenches, multiple men you would see suffered from shell shock. I hope the war ends soon. This war is the greatest evil that has been created to corrupt our souls. The hands of the soldiers were stained in the the enemy’s blood and guilt. All I can see is humans which makes me start to speculate,