Portraits of Soldiers Before, During, and After War

[morningfog]

Photographer Lalage Snow, who is currently based in Kabul, Afghanistan, embarked on an 8-month-long project titled We Are The Not Dead featuring portraits of British soldiers before, during, and after their deployment in Afghanistan. Similar to Claire Felicie's series of monochromatic triptychs, Snow captures the innocent expressions of these men transformed into gaunt, sullen faces in less than a year.

The three-panel juxtaposition allows the viewer to observe the physical changes a stationed soldier in a war zone goes through. Time is sped up for these men under the beating sun, amidst combat. Regardless of age, the boys that went in came back as men with experiences beyond their years. As weathered and worn as their skin or sunken in faces may appear, it's their dilated eyes that are the most telling.


Private Chris MacGregor, 24



Private Ben Frater, 21


More: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/lalage-snow-we-are-the-not-dead

[undergroundpanther]

1. Scary

It reminds me of my old pictures,how I looked so vibrant in first grade,and how I seemed to fade in second grade,but year after year I have that crushing of the soul look and in high school I wasn't there in my picture or in real life,mentally.I know my traumatic situation happened over a longer period of time,but it is scary how my eyes looked before2nd grade,during second grade and after school was done .It looks like theirs after the war. I have ptsd,my war was growing up in a place that hated me.

If I had a scanner I'd show my pics,it is a dramatic change from grade 1 to 2, after those years I looked more out of it,my eyes people tell me carry an intensity.

BTW trauma can change your DNA.Literally,as well as scar your brain. My brain has been scarred. I still have ptsd symptoms and go to therapy for it. Sometimes it never goes away.

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/05/04/genetic-changes-show-up-in-people-with-ptsd

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18865-trauma-leaves-its-mark-on-immune-system-genes.html

http://www.mailman.columbia.edu/news/news-headlines/trauma-induced-changes-genes-may-lead-ptsd

http://www.veggieboards.com/t/116732/psychological-trauma-causes-genetic-changes-passed-on-to-next-generation


Maybe these pictures show those changes.
Since your very genetics and brain are changed via Trauma,be it by war,disaster,accidents,rape,child abuse etc.
Maybe pretending you have control over your moods,memories,feelings about what happened isn't a simple thing to resolve.
How do you fix a scarred temporal lobe, or scarred mutated genes?

Pretend,meditation,other 'new age' techniques,drug it away to manageability?
Saddest thing is our culture still blames the victims.

[DollarBillHines]

2. I know those eyes.

Thousand-yard stares.

There was a time, forty years ago, when I actually dreamed that I would never see those eyes in young men evermore.
DBH

[closeupready]

3. You can really see the anger and sadness there.