The Honickman Foundation

2010 CDS / Honickman First Book Prize in Photography Winner

Benjamin Lowy
Iraq/Perspectives

Benjamin Lowy, a war and feature photographer, has been selected as the fifth Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography recipient for his powerful and arresting color photographs taken through Humvee windows and military-issued night vision goggles of a war ravaged Iraq. Lowy's collection of photographs was created over a six-year period.

Internationally renowned photographer, William Eggleston judged the 2011 competition and selected Lowy's work from over two hundred entries. In choosing Lowy's photographs, Eggleston said, "Although I like the other photographers' work, I felt the Iraqi pictures made a better book. Benjamin's work is an opportunity to see as an American soldier sees when in Iraq &mdash nobody's ever shown that, especially through night vision goggles."

William Eggleston will write the introduction for the book, Iraq/Perspectives, which will be published in fall 2011 by Duke Press in association with CDS Books of the Center for Documentary Studies.

To photograph in the open was impossible for Lowy, so he came up with this brilliant and new approach to documenting the war; and in doing so, he captures the desolation, tension and anxiety of both the U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi civilians.

Lowy adds, "The urgency and anxiety among the soldiers were as palpable as the terror in the faces of the Iraqi civilians. More often than not, the rest of Iraq — like the rest of us — is left in the dark. But I hope that these images provide the viewer with momentary illumination of the fear and desperation that is war."

Benjamin Lowy's career as a conflict photographer has also taken him to Haiti, Darfur, and Afghanistan, among other places.

Lowy received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2002 and began his career in 2003 when he joined Corbis and embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division to cover the Iraq War.

In 2005, Photo District News chose Lowy's Iraq images as some of the most iconic of the start of the 21st Century. His photographs have also 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.

Lowy's work has been collected in several gallery and museum shows and 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.

The next CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition will be held in 2012. More information and guidelines will be available August 2011.

Resources

Rolling Stone Magazine: Behind the Scenes with Jon Stewart

Ben Lowy will appear on 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' on December 5, 2011.

Interview with Joerg Colberg

Afghanistan

Libya

On Being a Conflict Photographer

Other Recent/Current Exhibitions

About the Prize

Recent Photography Winners

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