Service

Reviews / Votes

"Fans of Platon's work will find much to like in this new book. The reproductions emphasize the inky blacks and crisp contrasts in his black-and-white images. The lettering of the title on the book's cover looks like it was stamped into metal, reminiscent of dog tags. The pages are thick, as if the ink sits heavily on the page. The result is a book that feels both sturdy and raw, a repository for strong emotion."
-PDN: Photo District News

"Platon, a master of minimalist studio portraiture, doesn't think of himself as a photojournalist. He considers a portrait session an 'event' in which subjects pose as 'a demonstration of their existence' and experience. His 'charming and seductive' nature, Biondi notes in the book's introduction, helps his subjects open up in front of the camera."
-Slate

"In Service, a new photobook published by Prestel, Platon presents a collection of images which explores the wide-ranging and often surprising effects of war on soldiers, on families, and on society at large. It is a comprehensive study which moves from the surreal to the brutal to the tragic, a dizzying survey of the scale of war . . . In his work, Platon seeks connection above all things, learning peoples' stories and responding to them in such a way that affords his work its trademark intimacy. He is a humanistic photographer, and Service - with its expansive portrayal of the characters and dramas, small and large, of war - presents violent themes with great sensitivity."
-Feature Shoot

"Before Service, most of Platon's photographs had been done in a studio. Outside that setting, his images became freer and more emotionally charged. Some of his most compassionate pictures were done on location. His photojournalistic images, which he took with his Leica, were most surprising to me. They were action-packed. They had an immediacy that was almost the opposite of his carefully crafted portraits. Platon's ability to be fluent in a number of photographic languages ... is one of the reasons his work from this project ... is so compelling. Perhaps the most moving pictures, like the one of Elsheba Khan cradling her son's gravestone, are those taken at Arlington cemetery."
-Elisabeth Biondi, The New Yorker

"Platon has built his portfolio photographing world leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Aung San Suu Kyi. But leading up to Barack Obama's first election, he wanted to shift away from politics and humanize the big issues instead. In doing so, he would show the flip side to power: service. He embedded himself alongside the men and women who make extraordinary sacrifices every day to serve in the United States military. He focused on training leading up to their deployments, and he documented their returns from war."
-CNN

"The book results from a project that began back in 2008, an assignment Platon took on after he was appointed as Richard Avedon's successor as staff photographer at the New Yorker . . . First, he spent time with troops while they trained in a simulated Iraqi village at the U.S. Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, before they were deployed. Then he waited for them to return. When it was possible, he photographed them again -- or the loved ones who survived them."
-NPR

"The essay, published now as a book, is a visual diary of U.S. soldiers and their families before and after their tours of duty, following soldiers through graduation at West Point; training in a staged Iraqi village; aboard the USS San Antonio moments before setting sail; and their return home to their loved ones. The images examine what patriotism means for the families of those who fight: A young man's t-shirt reads 'Iraq veteran against the war'; an African American woman stands proudly in full military regalia; a double-amputee stares directly from his wheelchair; and, in arguably the most important image of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, an American Muslim mother cradles the grave of her soldier son. All in harsh black-and-white.
-TIME