The Beautiful Terror

It's very troubling that this image is so beautiful. This was on the front page of nytimes.com yesterday. It was from the recent suicide bombing in Baghdad. It's got that apocalypse-now-nine-eleven-i-can't-believe-i'm-thinking-about-how-visually-aesthetically-beautiful-this-is thing. But there's also the angle of the shot where this photographer was clearly thinking about taking an artistic shot - pointed out nicely by the soldier looking at the camera. What was the thought process there? Was s/he thinking about the prize photo in the midst of this trauma, was s/he compelled as an artist to document this tragedy, or ... I don't know.