Iraq | Perspectives

Benjamin Lowy is a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2002 and began his career in 2003 when he was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to cover the Iraq War. Lowy's career as a conflict photographer has also taken him to Haiti, Darfur, and Afghanistan, among other places. Lowy's photographs have appeared in such publications as the New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ, Stern, National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal, and Rolling Stone, and his work has been recognized by American Photography, Foam Magazine, POYi, Photo District News (PDN's 30), World Press Photo, and Critical Mass. His work has been exhibited at San Francisco MOMA, Tate Modern, Open Society Institute's Moving Walls, Noorderlicht Photofestival, Battlespace, and the Houston Center for Photography, among others. Lowy's photographs from Iraq were chosen from over two hundred entries as the fifth winner of the biennial CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography.

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)