The photographer Benjamin Lowy was recently awarded the Duke Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography for his book “Iraq | Perspectives.” The book documents Lowy’s time covering the war in Iraq and reveals the U.S. soldiers’ experiences as seen through their night-vision scopes and their armored Humvee windows. Recently Lowy sat down with me to talk about both his book and his life as a conflict photographer. Here’s a selection of his photographs and what he had to say.





1 / 9 Chevron Chevron “I went to an art school where we didn’t discuss documentary photography. I was interested in studio photography and portraiture because I wanted to be a comic-book illustrator. I was taking a lot of studio portraits so I could trace them and put them into comic books. I would go to the bookstore and pull out fashion books and just trace people. One day I accidentally pulled out James Nachtwey’s ‘Inferno’ and I sat there for hours looking at every page. It changed my perception of photography. Looking at that book forever altered the course of my life. I graduated college in 2002 and covered the D.C. sniper case that year. I photographed in the West Bank and Israel before that, but travelling to Iraq in 2003 was really my first attempt at conflict work. I was twenty-three when the war started.”

All images appear courtesy Benjamin Lowy/Reportage by Getty Images.