The Visual Landscape of the
Vietnam Veteran:
Constructing Place Through the Combat Snapshot
Jen Tiernan
I can remember, as a child, carefully looking through my father's photographs from Vietnam, holding them by the edges only and paying close attention to the order of images piled in the small storage box. These photos were made between 1968 and 1970 and my father was young, tan, muscular and surprisingly happy looking for a man at war. As we looked through the images, my father recollected stories of water skiing off the back of his minesweeper, barbeques and quiet sunny days that passed rather uneventfully. My image, or reality, of Vietnam came directly from my father's photographs and stories. Does my father, looking at these images almost 30 years after he left Vietnam, use his photos and stories in the same way that I do to recreate his experiences in Vietnam? Do these images, along with memories, aid in his construction of a personal Vietnam landscape, and is this a process many veterans go through?
Questions such as those above are only a small example of the project undertaken for this conference, which is part of a much larger entity -- my thesis. I am interested in the personal combat photo collections of Vietnam veterans and how (or if) they use the images to reckon with their experiences during the Vietnam war.
Several issues, beyond the photographs themselves, must be considered in this analysis. Why did the veteran photograph? Where did the photos end up after processing? Does the veteran still have all his/her images? How often do they view them? How are the photos stored? These are just some of the questions I ask veterans about their collections. Their answers say much about how an individual can use something like a combat snapshot to create a sense of place out of a traumatic experience.
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A basic understanding of Home Mode photography is helpful in creating the framework for this study.
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View a selection of photos from the collection of Craig Tiernan.
