SOLDIER

The Soldier portraits were made with the cooperation of the military at Fort Drum army base. The soldiers I met were between tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In making these portraits, I hoped to photograph the invisible. I thought that by looking in the face of a young person who had witnessed something unforgettable we might imagine what he had seen or done, or not done.

“The posture is vulnerable and startlingly intimate, as if these young men and women were facing someone in bed or on a stretcher, and the results are riveting. Opton catches soldiers both on guard and off, looking out and looking inward simultaneously, and we can only imagine what they’re thinking, what they’ve done, and what they dread.”
- Vince Aletti, The New Yorker