from the series Iraq Persepectives I, 2005 – present
all images © BENJAMIN LOWY

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Iraq Perspective was BENJAMIN LOWY’s attempt to visualise the perspective from which he had to experience Iraq – namely through the widow of an armoured vehicle. These images not only make the danger of everyday Iraq palpable; LOWY’s windows are also a metaphor for the barriers that stand in the way of real dialogue.

I began this project as a response to what I felt wat the general inability of people back home to comprehend what Iraq is like. Most people have never really seen or felt the effect of war. Confronted by a level of violence so high that walking on the streets  to photograph is tantamount to suicidal behavior, I found myself confined to working iwth American soldiers, spending most of my time going on various missions while looking at the landscape of this broken country. My only view was through the inches-thick bulletproof window of an Army Humvee.

BENJAMIN LOWY was born in 1979 and received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2002 and began his career covering the Iraq War in 2003 for Time Magazine. Since then he has covered major stories in Afghanistan, Darfur, Chad, Haiti, Indonesia, China, and other various worldwide locations. LOWY’s work from Iraq and Darfur have been collected into several gallery and museum shows, including London’s Tate Modern, and the San Francisco MoMA.