'Soldiers' On Tour

Photographs © Ellen Susan

Last summer, when we published a Web feature about Ellen Susan's remarkable series of U.S. Soldier Portraits using the collodion wet-plate process, the project had not yet been widely seen. But now it has — to use a show-biz term — Gone Nationwide.

Exhibitions of Susan's images are making the rounds in various venues around the country. In Portland, Oregon, Susan's work will be shown alongside a Robert Rauschenberg exhibition from July 2 through August 2 at the Blue Sky Gallery. In Savannah, Georgia, where the portraits were made, a show runs from tomorrow through July 8 at the Jepson Center at the Telfair Museum. In Boston, the work is at the Photographic Resource Center through July 1. In San Francisco, it's part of a group show of collodion work July 18 through August 28 at the Rayko Photo Center. Meanwhile, PDN has featured the work in its June issue, on newsstands now, and the Savannah-based The South Magazine published it in June/July.

"Many people realize that there's some connection with past forms of photography," Susan says of the public reaction to the project. "Lots of people bring up the visual connection to the past, particularly to the military past, and their point of view about that connection, and I like it when that happens."

This work, in which evocative portraits are accompanied by written statements from the soldiers, seems to have an almost Rorschach-like effect on viewers. "A lot of people see the soldiers' comments as overwhelmingly positive and pro-Army," Susan says, "which pro-Army people tend to like — and anti-war people tend to be slightly disturbed by."

She adds that the soldiers actually express a variety of opinions about military life. "Some  are in favor of the war, some are not, many just see it as a job to do," she says, "but all are unhappy about the long deployments and the short time in between."

Susan says the project was sparked by a feeling of empathy for the soldiers' plight as the United States fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But some viewers have questioned her motives. "What's interesting is that the soldiers almost always ask, 'Why are you doing this?' Whereas a lot of civilians believe that they know, and that I'm doing it for the reasons that support their point of  view," she says.

The soldiers' reactions to their portraits — which require subjects to sit still for up to 30 seconds — are mainly positive. "Many times they will comment, 'I look so serious/angry/sad,' because of course, no one can really smile for the duration of the long exposures," Susan says. "The process can bring out a lot of facial detail, and sometimes this can be unflattering, so there have been times when I sensed a little disappointment, which I can understand completely," she adds. "Sometimes it works the other way. One very ordinary-looking guy came away with an image that made him look like a movie star. Needless to say, he was pleased."

Susan plans to continue making and showing this series of work. With many of her subjects repeatedly redeployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, she keeps an eye on the icasualties.org website to check the names. (So far, among her subjects, there have been no casualties.) "I haven't become close friends with them, but I do think and worry about them," she explains. "Which is, of course, a byproduct of one of my stated intentions — that I wanted to know and show soldiers more as individual personalities and less as abstract concepts." — Jack Crager