189 - Ben Brody

A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers

Ben Brody is an independent photographer, educator, and picture editor working on long-form projects related to the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their aftermath. He is the Director of Photography for The GroundTruth Project and Report for America, and a co-founder of Mass Books.

His first book, Attention Servicemember, was shortlisted for the 2019 Aperture - Paris Photo First Book Award and is now in its second edition.

Ben holds an MFA from Hartford Art School's International Low-Residency Photography program. He resides in western Massachusetts.

On episode 189, Ben discusses, among other things:

• How he got into photography.
• How 9/11 influenced his decision to join the army.
• The mandate he was given by his superiors.
• Reappropriating the reappropriated.
• How the media’s portrayal of war becomes a ‘feedback loop’.
• Vernacular vs. ‘professional’ images of war, as exemplified by Abu Ghraib.
• Why he went to Afghanistan as a civilian photographer.
• Circumventing the restrictions of the embed program.
• His new book 300M and how it came about.

Referenced:

• Kurt Vonnergut, Slaughterhouse Five
• Ed Clark
• Joe Sacco
• Shabana Basij-Rasikh

Website | Instagram | Books | 300m (video)

“I felt like there was a space in culture to make a photobook that was narrated by a totally ordinary soldier, who was not some scary CAG operator or CIA spook. And also by a pretty ordinary photographer, not like a famous photographer with a storied history who’s really invested in a cult of personal celebrity. When I made Attention Service Member and now 300M, which is almost like an epilogue to Service Member, I had the luxury of having probably seventy five photobooks already about the global war on terror that had come out before me. So I was able to analyse those books and assess, ‘what hasn’t been done before?’”

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