Craig Barber is a Vietnam veteran who was stationed as a combat marine from April 1966 to December 1967 in the central region between Da Nang and Chu Lai, though not a photographer during his tour of duty. He has returned to Vietnam every year since 1995 to photograph in an effort to better understand what happened there. He works with homemade pinhole cameras constructed out of cardboard and tape, and his finished negatives are made into platinum prints. Barber’s technique evokes the look of 19th century photographs. The inherent blurriness of the image produces imprecise scenes, which mimic a dreamstate or dimly recalled memories.
In a recent journal entry Barber writes: The lack of discernible change is jarring at times. More than once, as I have wandered in the small hamlets searching for images, I have felt on patrol. The weight of my pack feeling all too familiar and the tripod feeling as a weapon. I am not in the midst of flashbacks, I am in complete control of my faculties, yet deja vu runs deep within my veins while winding my way along narrow dirt paths and bamboo groves, scattered hooches and barking dogs, water buffalo and rice paddies, fishing villages and coconut trees; it would be impossible NOT to remember events.
A resident of Brooklyn, NY, Barber has shown at the Oravska Galeria, Slovakia, and the SE Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL, as well as in Seattle, New York, and San Francisco. He received a B.A. in Photography from State University, New York and has since given workshops nationally.
On assignment for LIFE magazine, Englishman Larry Burrows spent nine years as a combat photographer in Vietnam, until his death in a helicopter crash in 1971. He was the first photographer to photograph war extensively and satisfactorily in color. Burrows writes, "It is not easy to photograph a pilot dying in a friend’s arms and later to photograph the breakdown of the friend. I didn’t know what to do. Was I merely capitalizing on someone else’s grief?"
Burrows’ photographs illustrate the escalating role of the United States in Vietnam-from advisors in 1962, to full combatants in 1968. His collection of 18 dye transfer prints, "The American Intervention," is a potent legacy, leaving open a window to a place in time, Vietnam, where human folly and frailty were often unmasked and ambiguity was the order of the day.
Recipient of the Order of Iron Mike (U.S. Marine Corps) 1967, Magazine Photographer of the Year, 1966, British Press Pictures of the Year, 1965, 1966, and the World Press Photo, The Hague, 1966. Burrows’ photographs have been published in Life, Time, Newsweek, London Sunday Times Magazine, London Telegraph, Paris- Match, Stern, Quick, etc.
Mark Sloan
Curator of the Halsey Gallery
College of Charleston
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