Former soldier documents Afghanistan with photography show
When Jeremiah Ridgeway left film school at age 22 to enroll in the United States Army, he felt that although his life was heading in an exciting new direction, his hopes of someday becoming an artist were finished. As he puts it, three years later: “I thought I gave up the dream once I did something like that, that everything’s over with once you make that decision. It turned out it wasn’t.” As he now explains, the digital camera that he bought before heading to basic training in March of 2005 would change the course of his life almost as much as the decision to enlist. During his time stationed in Afghanistan, where he was to remain for 18 months as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, he began taking photographs of his surroundings in order to document, in vivid detail, the day-to-day lives of soldiers and civilians in a war zone. Now these photos are collected in a new show at the Dead Cow Gallery, entitled “Ground Level,” which opens Nov. 7 and which will run through Nov. 30.
Ridgeway, now 25, speaks with modesty, humor, and grace about his time in Afghanistan, as well as the upcoming exhibition and the enormous amount of media attention his photos have generated. Thus far, they’ve been featured twice in National Geographic magazine, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle, JPG magazine, and on the website of the BBC. He explains that the work featured in “Ground Level” grew out of his desire to document the mostly unseen hardship that soldiers face on a day-to-day basis. He speaks about the bleak surroundings and nearly impossible assignments his unit, 371 Cavalry, faced: “We were living in a hole for four months on a mountain. The living conditions, no one could even imagine.” The unit was expected to secure and help to build an economy in a large, rugged, and dangerous area of land, a task Ridgeway explains was unrealistic: “It’s so much ground for one unit or division to be covering. My squadron alone covered 250 miles of mountains. I mean, how can you do that with 400 people? And how many of those people are actually combat soldiers?”
These stories of impossible logistics and deplorable living standards speak to Ridgeway’s underlying missions in displaying these photos: he hopes to disseminate a more thorough and realistic image of what it truly means to serve during wartime, as well as to counter what he sees as a troublingly widespread lack of knowledge about the current situation in Afghanistan. He admits that he too learned little about the country before his time there: “I never knew anything about Afghanistan. I’m hoping I can educate my family or somebody about it. And also the danger of being there too, being wounded. … I’m not looking for respect or thanks for being a soldier, just them realizing what soldiers are going through over there.” He also insists that the photos aren’t meant to be partisan; rather than add fuel to the arguments made by either hawks or doves, he simply hopes to make real the many individuals who fought and sometimes died alongside him.
 To this end, his photos document many of the disheartening and disturbing aspects of soldier life in Afghanistan, as well as odd moments of surprising beauty: a group trying to salvage a Humvee burnt after an attack, a lone private paying his respects before a makeshift memorial, two men ducking in the face of an ambush, a soldier looking into the camera as starkly beautiful jagged blue mountains pierce the sky behind him. One of his most arresting images is of another man in his unit, Spc. Westbrook, his face twisted in agony as a fellow soldier bandages his hand, which had been partially blown off in an attack (though he received shrapnel wounds in his neck, hands, and face, Westbrook made a good recovery and regained most of the use of his mutilated hand). His images of Afghani civilians are also haunting: a small child seated on a table, looking solemnly at the camera, a rifle leaning incongruously on the wall next to him; men crouching and covering their eyes to protect themselves as a U.S. helicopter takes off, spraying dirt and debris into their faces; an Afghan security guard patrolling a U.S. encampment, extremely young and achingly thin, untied sneakers on his feet and a gun in his hands.
All this is a long way off for Ridgeway today. For the time being, he’s living in Santa Cruz, enjoying the stability and quiet of his post-war life and taking classes in photojournalism at Cabrillo College to improve his technique and expand his knowledge of photo theory and composition. Although technically the Army could call him up at any point between now and 2013, he thinks this is unlikely. He also has no future plans to voluntarily re-enlist: “It just wasn’t for me,” he says. “I just wanted to experience it and move on. It was a stepping stone.” Yet his future plans are surprising: “I want to get back to Afghanistan,” he explains, this time as a civilian photographer embedded in his old unit. They redeploy in January; he hopes to meet them in June or July, after school ends for him. As he explains, “I want to be a professional photojournalist. I just want to do hard documentary work,” and right now, due to his knowledge of the area and the work the military is doing there, he feels uniquely qualified to document Afghanistan. He’s hoping for sponsorship or a grant to pay for his plane ticket and living expenses for the month-and-a-half he’d be there, slightly more than $3,000 in total. Ridgeway remains convinced that there is a story still waiting to be told in Afghanistan, teven now that the might and attention of the United States are in large part being directed elsewhere. He is determined to help tell this story. And maybe the world will even listen.
Jeremiah Ridgeway’s photos will be up until Nov. 30 at the Dead Cow Gallery, 1040 River St. For more information, visit lightstalkers.org/jeremiah-ridgeway.
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