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
Industry Reviews
TIME Magazine editors voted Iraq | Perspectivesas one of the best photography books of 2011 "The smooth, black, hard cover consists of two separate projects shot in Iraq, where Mr. Lowy spent years documenting the war for various news outlets...the cool detachment of the photographs seems appropriate" Jonathan Blaustein, APhotoEditor.com "The publication of Iraq | Perspectives recognises Lowy as the winner of the Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition, judged this year by William Eggleston. The printing is excellent and most of the 96 pictures run full bleed. Lowy's use of light and colour comes through more effectively here than in online presentations of the same images. The book brings yet another dimension to these pictures, placing them in a visual narrative that gives the work even more power." Leo Hsu, Foto8 "It is an important, memorable and arresting photobook, and for all these reasons I'm left rather without anything to say. This book is hard for me to talk about simply because the work speaks so extraordinarily well for itself." Sarah Bradley, Photo-Eye "Benjamin Lowy's Iraq | Perspectives is a worthy recipient of the Honikmen First Book Prize in Photography competition judged this year by William Eggleston... Straddling the line between art and photojournalism, Lowy depicts both the US presence in Iraq as well as everyday Iraqi experience by "shooting" through Humvec reinforced windows and military-issue night vision goggles... A powerful visual narrative of the horrors of war." Hotshoe, February 2012 "Lowy's photos are unmistakably scenes from Iraq - ruined buildings, street vendors, kids with missing limbs, billboards for newly minted cellphone services. In Lowy's images, we see daily life returning to this country, but the children shown have known little but this forlorn landscape. Dreariness is all. The most original component of Lowy's book is the thematic divisions. The first part consists of images captured through the windows of military Humvees, while the second part consists entirely of green night-vision images and yields the most intimate moments, including Iraqi civilians being intimidatd and detained in what appear to be their own homes." - David Fellerath, The Independent Weekly "Lowy's photographs of both daily life and the terror of warfare were taken through the windows of a Humvee and through military-issue night vision goggles. They provide a revealing perspective on what he describes as 'the fear and desperation that is war.'" - Shelf Unbound "Whether looking out of armoured car windows or through green-tinted night-vision goggles, the military has little opportunity to connect with the local people or everyday life, as Lowy's shots make chillingly clear." - British Journal of Photography (named one of their best books of 2011)
