I feel that the early part of my life was dictated by American foreign policy. This idea of human lives being caught in a much larger web of uncontro… - An-My Lê

The topic of the military raises questions in ways that other topics would not. There are photographers who have dealt with extreme poverty, or who have photographed horrific labor conditions, and they are not held accountable in the same way. They aren’t asked: what do you think of poverty? But the question of the military is so complicated that it riles up people’s opinions.

Rather than whether or not there is a future for combat photography, I think one of the big differences now is the role of the civilian—the amateur photographer. Conflicts will always be newsworthy, someone will always need to be there to document. Now the technology is such that anyone can be there and take a quick picture, post it, and send it out to the world. In these pictures you don’t look at the artistry anymore—if there is such a thing—it is just information.

I do use the phrase “to take a picture,” but I think my work involves labor. It is a certain reworking of what you see and of the facts, in order to create this new fiction. It is certainly a making, a transformation.