Lisa Presgraves ART 333-01 Prof Colby Caldwell
Photo Book: The Endangered Sea Bats The concept for this book was to use photographs and stories collected from current and prior service military members which depict a side of military life that is rarely seen by civilians. To the general public, military members are stereotypical figures: obedient drones of low intelligence, war mongers, or selfless heroes. These are one dimensional viewpoints that don’t come close to representing the reality of military life. The first published book that I began to model my photo book after was Engaged Observers. This collection featured the work of several photographers and covered different topics. The second chapter, “Vietnam Inc.”, was the most relevant for my topic as it captured troops in action. It was, however, typical of photojournalism that covered military personnel. The images portrayed soldiers in the midst of a war, interacting with locals in potentially offensive ways. For example, one photograph showed a soldier bathing a Vietnamese child in a bowl while village folk looked on. It was accompanied by text that explained that American soldiers were convinced that locals had poor hygiene which was confusing to the Vietnamese people who bathed several times a day. The story ends with a local woman cursing the soldier for washing a child in her vegetable bowl.