Multimedia: The Longest Road Home, a soldier's funeral

...Jeremy, just as I wrote earlier when you shared the Photoshelter pics, it is a strong, poignant and powerful story. I think the silences and gaps of black and click are essential to the loneliness and emptiness of the story. The liturgical music is perfect as well: again, those gaps of silence and pain and breath….

i would have wished for inclusion of the image of the general standing alone watching…that is also a remarkably complex and important photograph, particularly in light of the story…maybe the addition of that image as well…the thread of the 1st (the picture of Spc. Steven Jewell) image to the last of his mother (riverrun) is the great horror of this story…for in life it is usually the opposite…

as i wrote before:

profound and heart-clock work…particularly the initial images in the funeral parlor and the images with space at the funeral…the silence and loss and wind-tough space…

Taking my photographers hat off, what startled me and struck me about the funeral was how empty, how “few” people seemed to be there: another example of the bereavement, that a soldier dies, we (I for certain) would think it would have generated more people and yet that IS the sad and profound truth of these funerals…all the families who day after day (in the states and in Iraq) bury their sons and daughters and family members….the funeral sequence, is as Erica has pointed out respectful and profound, and not simply because they’re images of a funeral or fallen soldier…the silence in the photographs is remarkably heart-breaking…and i feel grief after having looked at them…all that silence…all that emptiness, all those families, here and abroad, who shoulder grief and the sorrow of the breaking of their families, alone….

i was struck by the enormity of the emptiness…and that this family (like all the others) is so alone in their grief…

that profound truth is conveyed clearly in your photographs and that is the strongest compliment, as a photographer, that I can write…

unending….really, the space of that cavernous grief….

thanks jeremey….

bob

Bob, Thank you first and foremost for the kind words, your opinion is always well put and concise, little of this do I see elsewhere so when it comes over, I note it. Although I would never pretend to know what his mother or other family members are going through, I can feel the loss as one who has lost too many friends to early, before they found what I knew they deserved. And I think that is what hurts me the most about this. I was told he was lost, wandering, did not know what to do with his life, a place I can definitely feel and knew, until his son was born then found purpose where he could. But it was over too soon. As someone said better than me, it is always a saddest day when a parent outlives their child. Thanks for looking and thinking
Jeremy

Jeremy:

you are very welcome!....

indeed: that’s the real pain here, all those parents burying their children…and the importance of that remarkable first photograph as the beginning….

thanks for sharing…

bob

ps., by the way, here is your photograph that I think you might think about including: it, in the context of the story, is very significant….:))

http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-img-show?G_ID=G0000Bvs8cgoZzcw&P_ID=&start=24&pagtotal=30

jeremy,
beautiful pictures, filled with respect and emotion.
I really felt that you documented this with the utmost respect for the family left behind.

Very impressive piece, Jeremy.

Thank you all for taking a look and for your comments. I really appreciate all of it.

Jeremy I just photographed the funeral of a friend. He was 28 years old.

It was the hardest gig I have ever done.

This story is very affecting work, and I do congratulate you. You got it right. And that is very important.

Hi Lisa, Thank you for the kind words.
As you put it, getting something like this “right” is really the most important aspect. And for me too, it was one of the hardest things I have ever photographed.
Jeremy

Jeremy, Well done. I have watched this 3 times,over the last 2 days, and I think you showed great respect.
I think you ‘got it right.’

hi Jeremy,

the images are great and the music works well with it… the red bothers me since it is distracting and detracts attention from your work… but this is a design comment.

Thank you Sarah and Narayan. The red is a bit distracting, I agree, but that is the template the paper uses for all their slideshows, so it had to stand. Glad you all took a look
Jeremy