#us soliders

“A Grunt’s Life” was a photojournalism project by Damon Winter when he served in Afghanistan in 2010. His photos were awarded 3rd place at Pictures of the Year International, but this caused some controversy, as some said that using the app to create vintage-looking photos had violated the rules for the contest. However, this controversy didn’t focus on other issues these photos might bring up: if these photos were manipulated in other ways, with a goal to manipulate others- if A Grunt’s Life could actually be a form of military propaganda. 

“Perhaps this is a reason for the popularity of faux-vintage war photos: saturated, vignetted, faded, scratched and portrayed on simulated photo paper, Hipstamatic war photos frame contemporary conflict as like the wars our parents and grandparents fought.” - Nathan Jurgenson

The faux-vintage creates a certain kind of nostalgia for the present, and Winter was not the only one to employ the use of apps on his army photos. David Guttenfelder is another solider journalist who used the Polariod format offered from ShakeIt Photo when he served in Afghanistan (Simons).

By making use of the app Hipstamatic, Damon Winter brings up all sorts of questions about the ethics behind spreading social media content about the military that could potentially be misleading or shed a positive light on the job. 

The first picture below invokes comfort, coziness, and a sense of closeness to others that one might find at a slumber party or sleep away camp. Winter even admits to the resemblance in his statement: “We had spent so much time with these men and they had become so comfortable with us that we really got to see a rare and honest glimpse into their lives — which for us sometimes resembled more a summer camp with guns than a military operation for the men on the ground.” (Myers)

The other photo is also affectionate in a way that men are usually deprived of because of social norms, but when a macho military man does it, it makes it seem as if this is type of human contact is accepted when in a solider setting. 

Hipstamatic’s distinct color tones and “vintage” feel make these photo seem old or timeless, and another contributor to that ache for the past is sleeping in a dog pile will often times conjures up childhood memories. These photos make contemporary war feel like the ones “our parents and grandparents fought”, once again grounding this job with the familial and affectionate.

In a live statement on Poynter.org, Winter said “At the heart of all of these photos is a moment or a detail or an expression that tells the story of these soldiers’ day-to-day lives while on a combat mission. No content has been added, taken away, obscured or altered.” (Estrin) However, photos of war have been altered for a very long time in order to cause the biggest impact on the viewer. For example, “Brady and Gardner made visible carnage that was previously hidden from civilian view, but to do so they purposefully rearranged corpses on the battlefield for heightened impact.” (Alper) While I think that this can potentially be seen as manipulation or a misleading tactic, it seems that even though they rearranged corpses, there were still corpses and carnage existing in the first place. How can we know that nothing was changed, even slightly? Is it morally acceptable to tweak small parts of an image so that its effect becomes more dramatic, especially for a subject like war that could have a large impact on public opinion?  

Some effects of putting such an harrowing experience in a nostalgic and overall positive light could be stronger than we realize. For young men who are thinking about joining the military, would just one image of Afghanistan being shown to them as “a summer camp with guns” tip them in favor of enlisting? This photoset “makes the unfamiliarity of war more comfortable and familiar for mass consumption” (Alper), and because of societal norms limiting men’s friendly affection towards each other, I would jump to conclusions and say that every man experiences feelings of isolation to some degree and are deprived of normal levels of affection from other men in today’s society. 

Because these photos could potentially sway young men in favor of enlistment, could this content actually be classified as ‘propaganda’? 

That’s for you to decide!

Works Cited

Nathan Jurgenson (2011). “The Faux-Vintage Photo: Full Essays (Part I, II, & III)” in Cyborgology.

Meryl Alper (2014). “War on Instagram: Framing Conflict Photojournalism With Mobile Photography Apps” in New Media & Society, 16(8), pp. 1233-1248.

Simons, Jon, and John Louis Lucaites, editors. In/Visible War: The Culture of War in Twenty-First-Century America. New Brunswick, Camden, Newark, New Jersey; London, Rutgers University Press, 2017.

https://www.poynter.org/news/damon-winter-explains-process-philosophy-behind-award-winning-hipstamatic-photos

Women are not the only victims of violence. Men go and serve in the army, risking their lives and leaving their family, to protect your sorry ass to say stupid shit about them.

Photos of the day - December 26, 2014

A little girl pulls a sled through a snow-covered forest in a park in Berlin, a Palestinian protester wearing a Santa Claus costume uses a sling in the West Bank, U.S. soldiers fire a mortar during exercises in Afghanistan, an Acehnese woman cries during prayer at a mass grave to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia, a mahout decorates his elephant while preparing for the Elephant Festival at Sauraha in Chitwan, south of Kathmandu, Nepal.  These are some of the photos of the day (Getty Images/AP/Reuters)

Photo Credit: from top Sean Gallup/Getty Images, Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo, Lucas Jackson/Reuters, Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images, Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

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