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Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography
Iraq | Perspectives
Selected by William Eggleston as Winner, The Center for Documentary Studies / Honickman First Book Prize in Photography
Benjamin Lowy’s powerful and arresting color photographs, taken over a six-year period through Humvee windows and military-issue night vision goggles, capture the desolation of a war-ravaged Iraq as well as the tension and anxiety of both U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. To photograph on the streets unprotected was impossible for Lowy, so he made images that illuminate this difficulty by shooting photographs through the windows and goggles meant to help him, and soldiers, to see. In doing so he provides us with a new way of looking at the war—an entirely different framework for regarding and thinking about the everyday activities of Iraqis in a devastated landscape and the movements of soldiers on patrol, as well as the alarm and apprehension of nighttime raids.
“Iraq was a land of blast walls and barbed wire fences. I made my first image of a concrete blast wall through the window of my armored car. These pictures show a fragment of Iraqi daily life taken by a transient passenger in a Humvee; yet they are a window to a world where work, play, tension, grief, survival, and everything in between are as familiar as the events of our own lives. . . . [In] the ‘Nightvision’ images . . . as soldiers weave through the houses and bedrooms of civilians during nighttime military raids, they encounter the faces of their suspects as well as bystanders, many of whom are parents protecting their children. . . . I hope that these images provide the viewer with momentary illumination of the fear and desperation that is war.”—Benjamin Lowy
Benjamin Lowy’s powerful and arresting color photographs, taken over a six-year period through Humvee windows and military-issue night vision goggles, capture the desolation of a war-ravaged Iraq as well as the tension and anxiety of both U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. To photograph on the streets unprotected was impossible for Lowy, so he made images that illuminate this difficulty by shooting photographs through the windows and goggles meant to help him, and soldiers, to see. In doing so he provides us with a new way of looking at the war—an entirely different framework for regarding and thinking about the everyday activities of Iraqis in a devastated landscape and the movements of soldiers on patrol, as well as the alarm and apprehension of nighttime raids.
“Iraq was a land of blast walls and barbed wire fences. I made my first image of a concrete blast wall through the window of my armored car. These pictures show a fragment of Iraqi daily life taken by a transient passenger in a Humvee; yet they are a window to a world where work, play, tension, grief, survival, and everything in between are as familiar as the events of our own lives. . . . [In] the ‘Nightvision’ images . . . as soldiers weave through the houses and bedrooms of civilians during nighttime military raids, they encounter the faces of their suspects as well as bystanders, many of whom are parents protecting their children. . . . I hope that these images provide the viewer with momentary illumination of the fear and desperation that is war.”—Benjamin Lowy
120 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 23, 2012
So this book contains photographs of Iraqis and Iraq and it grants the viewers unique perspectives. Fittingly, the title reflects the purpose of the collection. Most of the photographs have been taken through windows, well the first portion has been anyway and this has such an interesting effect on both the viewer and the place/people being viewed.
The windows make the distance between the viewer and the viewed very much present and explicit. There is no "empathizing," rather I feel that these photographs deliberately remind you that you do not know these people and you are merely looking in on their lives: you are the strange ones and not them. I think that is a very pertinent comment on how we view people we are not familiar with. Apart from the distance and the "Otherness" created, there is also a sense of displaced time. I don't know if I make sense but I feel that the windows could be looking out at any time and not necessarily the time we understand it to be.
The second portion of the collection is full of photographs taken by placing a night vision goggle in front of the lens of the camera. This creates an eerie, unsettling green effect that displaces you and makes everything seem ominous and sinister. The pictures taken are very powerful. The greenish tint of people sitting scared in a tiny room. Prisoners with their hands tied together and you look at them wondering if they are all dead. You feel the sense of fear when looking at these pictures and you wonder whose fear it is that you are feeling: the people being viewed or the soliders who wear the goggles.
This is a powerful collection of photographs and for a book without words, it says a lot.
The windows make the distance between the viewer and the viewed very much present and explicit. There is no "empathizing," rather I feel that these photographs deliberately remind you that you do not know these people and you are merely looking in on their lives: you are the strange ones and not them. I think that is a very pertinent comment on how we view people we are not familiar with. Apart from the distance and the "Otherness" created, there is also a sense of displaced time. I don't know if I make sense but I feel that the windows could be looking out at any time and not necessarily the time we understand it to be.
The second portion of the collection is full of photographs taken by placing a night vision goggle in front of the lens of the camera. This creates an eerie, unsettling green effect that displaces you and makes everything seem ominous and sinister. The pictures taken are very powerful. The greenish tint of people sitting scared in a tiny room. Prisoners with their hands tied together and you look at them wondering if they are all dead. You feel the sense of fear when looking at these pictures and you wonder whose fear it is that you are feeling: the people being viewed or the soliders who wear the goggles.
This is a powerful collection of photographs and for a book without words, it says a lot.
April 14, 2019
Lowy’s perspective of the Iraq War is a valuable one, and unlike that of other conflict photographers I’ve seen. The simple framework of shooting a series through the windows of a humvee, and another through night vision is great. But Lowy is also just a good photographer who knows how to find the shot, seeing what many of us wouldn’t, and being quick and lucky enough to capture it.
With both perspectives I feel cut off from the subject, prevented from getting close enough to understand and connect. So it was during the Iraq War, attempting to know and understand what was happening via the mediated filters average citizens depended on for information; so it is now, looking back through the lenses of histories written. Despite all the time and effort spent trying to get close to that horrific war, I’m forever at a remove, unable to get close enough. It’ll always be this way. Lowy gets that. Makes it part of the narrative and perspective. I’m very glad he did.
With both perspectives I feel cut off from the subject, prevented from getting close enough to understand and connect. So it was during the Iraq War, attempting to know and understand what was happening via the mediated filters average citizens depended on for information; so it is now, looking back through the lenses of histories written. Despite all the time and effort spent trying to get close to that horrific war, I’m forever at a remove, unable to get close enough. It’ll always be this way. Lowy gets that. Makes it part of the narrative and perspective. I’m very glad he did.
February 20, 2012
This book isn’t a "good read" so much as a "good view," but some more text would’ve been appreciated in understanding context.
These pictures of modern Iraq are divided into two sections, "Windows" and "Night Vision." The first part features daytime shots taken from a Humvee window, most of which show the signs of war – burned out cars, armed soldiers, razor wire atop concrete barriers – with the occasional and weirdly normal picture of a woman buying eggs at the market or girls walking alongside a road. The second part gets eerie as all of the photos are tinted green due to the camera used, but also because of what the camera sees. We starts with views of empty streets and a little kid peering over a wall Kilroy style and end with images of Iraqis huddled together, some with zip ties on their wrists and duct tape over their eyes.
Unfortunately, there is next to no text to give the reader some context, some information as to what they’re looking at and why the subject of the photo was important enough to include in the book. I learned far more about some of the pictures watching Ben Lowy’s December 5, 2011 interview with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" than I picked up from the book itself. I’ve included a link to the interview so you may see it for yourself.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon...
These pictures of modern Iraq are divided into two sections, "Windows" and "Night Vision." The first part features daytime shots taken from a Humvee window, most of which show the signs of war – burned out cars, armed soldiers, razor wire atop concrete barriers – with the occasional and weirdly normal picture of a woman buying eggs at the market or girls walking alongside a road. The second part gets eerie as all of the photos are tinted green due to the camera used, but also because of what the camera sees. We starts with views of empty streets and a little kid peering over a wall Kilroy style and end with images of Iraqis huddled together, some with zip ties on their wrists and duct tape over their eyes.
Unfortunately, there is next to no text to give the reader some context, some information as to what they’re looking at and why the subject of the photo was important enough to include in the book. I learned far more about some of the pictures watching Ben Lowy’s December 5, 2011 interview with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" than I picked up from the book itself. I’ve included a link to the interview so you may see it for yourself.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon...
December 31, 2011
Lowy's collection illustrates Iraq at war as a world within a world unto itself. It recalls many pictures taken and sent home by my brother and his Marines while they were deployed. Lowy's photographs capture the distance that simultaneously exists within the intimacy of war.
March 22, 2012
The point of view is more interesting than the photographs.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews