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Award-winning British photojournalist and combat photographer Paul Lowe was killed in a stabbing on a popular hiking trail near Los Angeles, and authorities say his 19-year-old son Emir has been arrested for the murder.

Police had responded to an incident at a post in California’s San Gabriel Mountains after receiving reports of an assault with a deadly weapon. Once officers arrived they found a “white male adult suffering trauma to his upper torso,” later identified as Lowe, who was pronounced dead at the scene, the LA County Sheriff’s Department said.

A white male adult was seen driving away from the scene and was subsequently involved in a solo traffic collision a few miles away, the sheriff’s department said, adding that “The male was detained pending further investigation.”

Emir Abadzic Lowe, Paul’s son was the arrested man, with law enforcement pointing to both critical evidence and eyewitness testimonies to tie him to the brutal crime. The young man was promptly charged with one count of murder for his father’s death, while the county medical examiner determined that the 60-year-old photographer had died from a stab wound in the neck.

 

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Amra Abadzic Lowe, the wife of Lowe for nearly three decades, revealed to the New York Times that their son Emir has battled mental health challenges, having been hospitalised for psychosis several times in the past year alone.

Emir had originally intended to visit the United States for just a few days, but according to Amra, he ended up staying for over two months. In a heartfelt effort to bring his son back to the UK, Paul had flown to California, hoping to persuade Emir to return home.

“Mr. Lowe and his son had been driving around the mountains in the Los Angeles area […] and had gotten out of their car to admire the views just before the incident occurred,” the Times reports.

People across the photography community are now paying tribute to the renowned photojournalist.

Christian Paul Lowe was best known for documenting a number of major world events over the decades, most notably the conflict during the Bosnian War that led to the breakup of the former country of Yugoslavia. His books from this period include Bosnians, Reporting the Siege of Sarajevo, and Photography, Bearing Witness and the Yugoslav Wars, 1988-2021: Testimonies of Light.

Other topics he focused on included the fall of the Berlin Wall, the destruction of the Russian city of Grozny, Nelson Mandela’s release, and famine in Africa. Lowe was a Professor of Conflict, Peace and the Image at London College of Communication.

“[Lowe’s] main research interests lies in photojournalism and documentary photography and the role of art and culture in post conflict societies,” the photographer’s bio on the university website reads. “He is particularly interested in the relationship of photography and conflict, and the effect of photojournalism on public discourse.

“He is currently working on research around the ethics of representations of suffering, especially around the concept of bearing witness to trauma, and also on the materiality of the photograph.”

 

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[source:petapixel]