Abstract
A Portfolio by paul shambroom the celebrated photographer takes us on a tour of the domestic war on terror.
Photographers show us things we might not ordinarily see. That's what Paul Shambroom did in his book, Face to Face With the Bomb: Nuclear Reality After the Cold War (2003). That collection of photographs of missiles, silos, and warheads gave us an uneasy familiarity with the ordinary objects of a cataclysmic arsenal. Through his exhaustive research and his unprecedented access, Shambroom was able to create images made all the more disturbing for their matter-of-factness.
Shambroom has now focused on the security apparatus that has flourished since 9/11. In a statement he says, “I am photographing training facilities, equipment, and personnel involved in the massive government and private sector efforts to prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks within the nation's borders. First responders and law enforcement officers train in large-scale simulated environments such as ‘Disaster City’ in Texas and ‘Terror Town,’ an abandoned mining community in New Mexico purchased with funds from the Department of Homeland Security. This work examines issues of fear, safety, and liberty in post-9/11 America.”
The series is called “Security,” and he is in his third year of work on it. “I felt I needed to do something to describe the way the world changed since 9/11,” he says. “I was compelled to respond, to look at aspects of American power. I didn't want to repeat images that we've all seen elsewhere. I hope to add to the dialogue, but not in a didactic way. My goal is to present images that are compelling and provocative without instructing people how to react.”
He confines his work to the United States rather than being embedded with troops in a foreign country. “It makes more sense to photograph the impact on the culture I know from within,” he adds.
In thinking about the project, he decided that training facilities had the most visual potential and would best sum up how the government is preparing for future attacks. Also, he adds, “The simulated environments used for training evoke the broader question of ‘what is real?’ in our response to 9/11.”
“SWAT team approaching house” (“Terror Town,” Playas, N.M., 2005). Shot in a straight documentary style, this photo does not give any clues about the observation bleachers or the trainers that are just behind the camera. “I wanted to avoid any overt irony or criticism of how the photos were done,” Shambroom explains.
Shambroom anticipates that he will put another year or so into the project and then publish the results as a book. Here is a sampling of the work so far.
“Decontamination foam test,” “Disaster City” (National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center, Texas Engineering and Extension Service, College Station, Tex., 2006). This could be mistaken for a car wash, if it weren't for the Hazmat suits. Notice the open driver's side window and the flat rear tire. The charred walls of the building in the background were from a previous fire training exercise. There is the hint here of daily life in a post-apocalyptic environment.
The photographs below have a harmonic relationship to the portraiture of nobility and leadership favored by such British painters as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. The poses are mannered, posed; the subjects are serious and purposeful. Each of the individuals participated in the image's creation. Shambroom showed them Polaroids so they could see how they looked during the process. Here are the new archetypes of responder roles, law enforcement, and counterterrorism. Below left: “Urban Search and Rescue” (Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, N.M., 2004). Below right: “Police SWAT, camouflage” (“Terror Town,” Playas Training Center, N.M., 2005). Bottom left: “Bomb suit, robot” (148th Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Minnesota Air National Guard, Duluth, Minn., 2005). Bottom right: “Level A HAZMAT suit, yellow” (“Disaster City,” National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center, Texas Engineering and Extension Service, College Station, Tex., 2004).
At New Mexico Tech, trainers demonstrate the effects of various types of bombs. For car bombs, they use a shaped explosive that projects the car from 50 feet onto a concrete wall. They do this over and over, several times a week. Students help load the explosive (the same variety as used in the Oklahoma City bombing), get into buses, and drive to an observation bunker to evaluate the results. At left, top: “1987 Honda Civic, 300 lbs ANFO [ammonium nitrate/fuel oil] explosive” (2005). At left, bottom: “1987 Toyota Celica, 500 lbs ANFO explosive” (2005). “Once you feel the concussion of such an explosion as it hits your chest, you'll look at news accounts of bombings in a different way,” Shambroom says. Pipe bombs are set off at various distances from plywood cutouts to study the effects of shrapnel. Above: “Explosives test dummy” (2005). Among the many dummies, this one caught Shambroom's eye because it “looked like his heart was ripped out.”
Above, a crew prepares to enter a test facility from a long-abandoned nuclear-powered cruise missile program. The training exercise involves placing low-level radiological sources at various locations in the building and filling the facility with smoke. The object is to discover the sources with detection equipment, and discover “victims” and pull them out. What you don't see in “Radiation check” (National Center for Combating Terrorism, Nevada Test Site, 2005) are the trainers with their clipboards or the smoke machine.
The image at right, “Untitled” (Peacekeeper missile W87/Mk-21 reentry vehicles [warheads] in storage at F. E. Warren Air Force Base, Cheyenne, Wyoming, #4002/18, 1992), is from Shambroom's book, Face to Face With the Bomb. There is an undiminished and terrible majesty in the midst of these plastic-shrouded munitions. And–seen through the prism of a post-9/11 world that stockpiles nearly 27,000 nuclear weapons–it is a reminder that the quest for security remains as elusive as ever.