Photos: The personal snapshots of American soldiers who fought in Iraq
Rediscovered images from an ephemeral war
Think of the Iraq war. What comes to mind? Prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib? The flag-draped coffins of fallen servicemen and women? Some of the most indelible images to come out of that war weren’t made by professional photographers—and chances are those are the ones you remember most.
The rise of amateur digital photography in the 2000s created a paradigm shift in depictions and perceptions of war.
Until the 21st century, documenting battle was largely the professional photographer’s purview. Careful visions framed what the public could see and, in turn, what would be remembered to history. The notion that news photography could help end hostilities by exposing the truth was established in the 20th century—particularly Vietnam—as cameras got smaller and easier to use.
Iraq may have been the first major war where personal photography was accessible to nearly any soldier on the ground.
By 2003 digital cameras had almost replaced analog film. In Iraq soldiers toted compact point-and-shoots, or disposable cardboard film cameras, snapping innumerable pictures of what they were witnessing. The range of these images is vast, but a large proportion are marked by the boredom and camaraderie experienced by young men at war.
After the war, many of these pictures sat on hard drives or stored away in boxes. They were never meant to emerge as a public archive.
A recent initiative by artist Monica Haller, The Veterans Book Project, collects and publishes the stories and visual materials of recent American war veterans. The books, which Haller calls “objects for deployment,” offer succinct, at times heart wrenching narratives of soldiers’ lived experience fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The pictures are technically rough. Pixelated or out of focus at times. The are also exceedingly honest. Personal snapshots can get to something no embedded news photographer can. A heightened sense of intimacy or candidness, the credibility of involvement. The constraints of life as a soldier are felt in the hurried manner in which many of the pictures have been shot. Like war, they’re messy, fitting the volatile experience they reflect.
Photographs made by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan courtesy Veterans Book Project.
