Starting my WW1 Project

[lemec]

Originally Posted by L'Etranger

In less than 4 years and nine months we will see the centenary of World War 1
It was the war that ruined old Europe, and in fact turned the world upside down and inside out. It was the one conflict in my view that fathered most of the following gruesome wars and is at the root of much of the trouble that up to today, again and again, keep people in awe and cause so much suffering. It was the origin of so much hate.

My two grandfathers were part of it. Luckily they survived.
Researching their lives and trying to find out what engagements (and horrors) they took part in I came across many images in books, films and other media.
In particular it always were the faces of the soldiers that fascinated me most.
I have begun a project. It will be about the concept of "who the enemy" is... or how he was perceived.
This is still all at an early stage, and maybe some of you might like to help me or contribute.


I am currently collecting photographs of soldiers of WW1 and will try to reedit the pictures in an artistic way to show the faces of these young men without the possibility of recognizing their uniforms. Once the uniforms are taken away all you get are faces of young men, some more pleasant, others less, some fearful, some full of expectations etc. And all of a sudden you can no longer say who is a "Hun", a "Russkie", a "Tommy" or a "Yank" ... all these hundreds of thousands of young men were robbed of their future they all were looking forward to ... until cynical old men and politics ordered them to the front.
In a later stage I will compare the postures of these men, of defiance, of confidence, such expressing exhaustion and emptiness etc. such as you find again with soldiers of all the enemy nations.

I am yet unsure of the means or techniques (super-imposing and all the that), I am still collecting ideas and experimenting, but there's still time to work that out to be ready for the 100th anniversary of that terrible, terrible war.


I am in need of many more portrait fotos of the period. So far I've bought about two dozens on Ebay, but I can't go on like this. And a few I happened to have.

Let's try this, any idea which countries these chappies below fought for?

From left to right ...

Italian? Scotsman? Belgian? German? Russian? American? Englishman? Frenchman? What do you think?
One of them is my paternal Grandfather by the way

Thanks for your attention!
L'E

Very well, I'll see how close I am on the photographs, numbered clockwise.

1) Englishman
2) Frenchman
3) German and L'Etranger's Grandfather
4) American
5) Pole

A note: My uncle used to tell me of a story, when soldiers from both sides laid down their rifles on Christmas Day and went to a house or shelter together as friends.