we wouldn't want to see our soldiers 1) without their 'gear' on
2) in a prone position
3) being human
4) being someone we can relate to (just in case they get blown away in an unjust, illegal and immoral war)
US soldier featured in the Soldier Billboard Project. Photographer: Suzanne Opton
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
A series of portraits of American soldiers set to adorn roadside billboards in Minneapolis, site of next week's Republican convention, was abruptly cancelled by the billboards' owners, which feared they would be deemed disrespectful to the US military.
Although the artworks neither display images of violence nor are gruesome, the media company that owns the billboards said it feared pedestrians and motorists would mistake them for images of war dead.
The photographs show the faces and close-cropped heads of nine youthful soldiers lying peaceful and prone, flat against a surface.
"They don't look dead," said Suzanne Opton, the photographer of the series, entitled Soldiers' Faces.
"It's like you see someone opposite of you with their head on the pillow. We see our lovers and our children in that pose. They look like the heads of fallen statues, and they afford the viewer an intimate look at the face of the young person whose life is at risk, and that was the point.
"When you see soldiers on the news you have no idea who they are. They're representing the United States and they have all that gear on. I wanted to get past all that".
The shots of troops in between deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan by a New York City artist were to run in five US cities..............
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