Marion Enste-Jaspers : faces of war - the October issue of German GQ presents portraits of German soldiers in Afghanistan

Hamburg-based photographer Jens Umbach shot 16 portraits of soldiers in a mobile studio in the Masar-i-Sharif military camp, Afghanistan. These feature in a 14-page spread in the current October issue of German edition GQ.

German military deployment in Afghanistan is usually presented from two perspectives: we usually see the soldiers in battle situations, where the individual is pushed into the background. The images focus on war and politics.

The second photographic layer we are used to seeing in Germany is the soldier as a tragic victim. Jens decided against both. He refrained from any political interpretation and shot portraits of the men as they were.

Jens comments: “I didn’t want to provide an answer, I want people to ask the right questions. Of course one of this questions is: is the deployment right? Can we risk the lives of these men? If you look into their faces you might see war weariness, fear, exhaustion, courage and determination. And perhaps the latter will serve to provoke many”.

He has certainly achieved something for the viewer, both of GQ or here on GoSee: drawing attention to the men we have sent to war by representing all serving soldiers.