Shooting Project By Matt Hevezi, USMC
Day in the Life of  the United States Armed Forces

     During the shooting window, I felt an enormous pressure to produce the best possible images. I trusted my own style and did not change my approach which is to shoot for "feel." What I mean is that I wanted to go after an image that the audience could look and get mental with; an image that would evoke some heady imagination of what might have been like, or felt like, to be any one of the subjects in the frame at the location and moment in time.
     The frame selected above was one of about 20 frames from Marine infantrymen on an Okinawa jungle patrol during a security halt in a stream bed. The light was really good, I thought, for black & white. It was so quiet out there and the Marines' postures while they were waiting to move out again had a soft, almost peaceful, feeling going on. I was pretty sure the frames from this halt would be pretty nice. It was the combination of peacefulness and tension before the attack that I think gave these frames their life and character. For equipment, I worked with an FM2 body and three lenses ... a 20mm/2.0, a 50mm/1.4 and a 105mm/2.0. For film I used Kodak TMX 400. I also shot some digital stuff and a few rolls Kodak E100 chrome. At twilight, I shot a couple rolls of Fuji 800 color negative. I had no idea about how the editing process worked once the shoots were mailed off to the editing team.
     Nearly all communication with my assigned editor, Florence Nash, came to a screeching halt. I am not sure why the editing works that way, but I assume it is to minimize photographers from individually lobbying their images for selection. I heard that the Okinawa photos were well received by the editing team in New York and that there were nine images from Okinawa in the final group up for consideration. That news was encouraging. But I was very anxious to see which photos made it; not just ones from Okinawa, but from all the military shooters. I think many the images produced by the military PJs that made the book are very beautiful. I am glad the publishers agreed to give the military photographers the opportunity to shoot.
     I thought the decision to include us military folk was very generous. But I also think it allowed us to showcase our collective abilities to produce high level work alongside the best of the best. Shooting for DITL was a great experience. I only wish I could have made it to the May 8th opening in D.C. of the exhibit to meet the many PJ heros whose names and images appear on the book's pages. I hope people who get the book and spend time with the images of "our" DITL existence will come to better understand the men and women in uniform and appreciate their service just a little bit more than before.  - MH

Matt is an active duty Marine combat correspondent serving at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He can be reached at HeavyZ@aol.com

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