{"id":54695,"date":"2024-01-31T21:18:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T20:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=54695"},"modified":"2025-01-31T00:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T23:46:07","slug":"the-spectacular-short-film-of-the-comcam-of-finland-showing-its-armed-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/01\/31\/the-spectacular-short-film-of-the-comcam-of-finland-showing-its-armed-forces\/","title":{"rendered":"The spectacular short film of the COMCAM of Finland showing its Armed Forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As an amateur photographer, for years I have been following the Combat Camera (COMCAM) units of various armies with great interest.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/04\/04\/the-numbers-of-land-air-and-naval-resources-that-finland-incorporates-into-nato\/\">The numbers of land, air and naval resources that Finland incorporates into NATO<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/06\/07\/mina-puolustan-tata-maata-finland-shows-its-artillery-systems-after-the-russian-threats\/\">\u201cMin\u00e4 puolustan t\u00e4t\u00e4 maata!\u201d Finland shows its artillery systems after the Russian threats<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><strong>COMCAM are soldiers specialized in capturing photographs and filming<\/strong>the activity of their armies in areas of operations. Their work is not merely advertising: <strong>they have a very important role in information operations (IO) and specifically in psychological operations (PSYOPS)<\/strong>. In fact, in some armies COMCAM are assigned to psychological warfare units.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53501076209_cf08d7d7fa_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>There are armies that have COMCAM that are true artists<\/strong>, such as Latvia and Finland. The big difference between the COMCAM of these two countries is that in other armies soldiers are trained for this work, while <strong>in Finland and Latvia, professional photographers from civilian life receive military training to carry out COMCAM missions<\/strong> strong> and contribute their knowledge to the Armed Forces.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53501076234_294e3261db_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The difference is clearly observed in the works that these two Baltic countries do, of fabulous quality. Proof of this is, for example, <strong>the spectacular short film published by the COMCAM of Finland a week ago<\/strong>, showing their activity (in the video we see the six COMCAM active in the Finnish Defense Forces) and that of its Armed Forces (the video is in Finnish, you can activate the automatic subtitles in English in the bottom bar of the player):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Combat Camera Showreel 2023 \u2013 Finnish Defence Forces\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5psqCJv2fTM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The description of the video, published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@puolustusvoimat\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the YouTube channel of the Puolustusvoimat<\/a> (Finnish Defense Forces), notes the following: <em>\"<strong>The combat camera, i.e. the combat camera unit, describes the actions of the defense forces in all conditions.<\/strong> The cameramen COMCAM fights with the force of gravity, so that defense forces can <strong>transmit the image directly from the center of events.<\/strong> COMCAM is a strong information operations capability.\"<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53500775031_ca4b8d4d34_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Regarding the recruitment of this unit's professional, the video description states: \"<em><strong>Cameramen are media professionals<\/strong> who receive versatile combat training. <strong>Each year, the COMCAM unit selects 6-10 photography professionals for demanding recruit training.<\/strong>Those who have completed service are assigned to wartime COMCAM missions.\"<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53500775051_c45a465315_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The results of this way of understanding a COMCAM unit are visible in the video itself<\/strong> and in the screenshots that you can see in this post.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53501076229_73d00ac087_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The philosophy of this form of recruitment is clear: <strong>people with real talent for photography and film are rare<\/strong>, and their knowledge can provide great help in the aforementioned information operations. <strong>Does it make more sense to recruit soldiers to act as photographers, or to recruit photographers to do their work in an army?<\/strong> I encourage you to contribute your opinion in the comments.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53501076244_da50c884ec_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As an amateur photographer, for years I have been following the Combat Camera (COMCAM) units of various armies with great interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,11550],"tags":[14595,13611,18261,15418,18739,18738],"class_list":["post-54695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-defense","tag-combat-camera-comcam","tag-finland","tag-finnish-air-force","tag-finnish-army","tag-finnish-defense-forces","tag-finnish-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}