Opton, Suzanne. Soldier and Citizen by Suzanne Opton.

Blue Sky Book 37. Blue Sky, 2014. Title also found as Soldier + Citizen. Close-up portraits of military men and women, including veterans. Wraps, 46 pages, fine except very small nick at top edge of front cover. Summary:

Soldier / Citizen is a powerful, minimal exhibition monograph documenting a critically acclaimed portrait series by American photographer Suzanne Opton. The book presents an intimate, psychological examination of the human cost of the post-September 11 wars, specifically focusing on American soldiers returning from combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Core Content & Conceptual Framework

1. The Vulnerability of the Horizontal Gaze

The core of the book consists of large-format, close-up portraits of active-duty soldiers at Fort Drum, New York. Moving away from traditional, heroic military portraiture—which typically features soldiers standing upright, in uniform, looking down at the camera—Opton instructed her subjects to lay their heads flat on a table. This unusual, horizontal perspective strips away the rigid posture of military hierarchy and armor, presenting the soldiers' faces in a state of stark vulnerability, reminiscent of a soldier resting, in confinement, or deceased.

2. The Weight of Combat Experience

Opton’s tight framing forces the viewer into an uncomfortable, intimate proximity with the subjects' eyes and facial expressions. The text and visual layout categorize the soldiers by their deployment status and the length of time they spent in combat zones. The portraits act as a visual ledger of trauma and resilience, capturing a range of complex emotional states:

• The Thousand-Yard Stare: Eyes that appear emotionally detached, reflecting the psychological strain of navigating roadside bombs and urban warfare.

• Youth vs. Experience: The unsettling contrast between the soldiers' young, smooth features and the intense, aged expression carried in their eyes.

• Dissolution of Identity: The transition from a collective military unit back to an isolated, vulnerable individual citizen trying to process the surreal nature of home.

3. The Dialectic of "Soldier" and "Citizen"

The accompanying essays and minimal text explore the profound social chasm between the small percentage of the population fighting the wars and the civilian public back home. Opton uses the dual title to challenge the viewer to look past the political rhetoric of wartime patriotism. By presenting these soldiers simply as ordinary human beings subjected to extraordinary psychological stress, the narrative investigates how a society reconciles the institutional training of a warrior with the civilian identity of a citizen.

Historical Significance

Soldier / Citizen stands as one of the defining visual art projects of the early War on Terror era. Opton's provocative imagery transcended the gallery wall, famously appearing on massive public billboards across major American cities. By subverting the conventions of military portraiture, the publication remains an enduring, haunting meditation on the invisible mental wounds of modern warfare.