Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson is an Iraq war veteran who specialises in photographing toys. He has stated that he does not like photographing people, and was inspired by the work of Lori Nix. Johnoson originally began by photographing his son's toy dinosaurs, and from there moved on to creating war photographs using toy soldiers. Like Zahir Batin, Johnson uses practical effects such as smoke to add to the ambience of his images. Johnson states that he developed his interest in photography while overseas in Iraq. Johnson says his work is satirical of how soldiers are viewed as toys by their commanding officers and governments.
In the above image, careful use of smoke and water gives the impression of the soldiers being in a pacific swamp, as does the addition of plastic palm trees. Johnson has carefully chosen which soldiers to use, as their poses are not adjustable.
In this image, Johnson seems to have used a small firework to simulate an explosion similarly to Zahir Batin in 'Cody' and 'Battlefront.'
This image is incredibly clever; it is a recreation of the world-famous real war photograph by Joe Rosenthal from late World-War 2, of American soldiers raising a flag on top of a recently captured Mount Suribachi. Johnson has not manipulated the soldiers to make them fit the actions occuring in the image; instead, he has carefully chosen which pre-made soldier poses to use, and played with perspective to make them seem as though they are raising a flag; the soldier on the far left, for example, looks to be pushing the flag up; in fact, he is aiming a rifle. The soldier in the middle is throwing a grenade, but he appears to be gripping the flagpole. The man on the right seems to be helping raise the flag; he is actually using a mine detector. Johnson has created a small mound of earth and used appropriately-sized pieces of plant matter to appear as large pieces of debris when compared to the soldiers, and has used smoke in the background of his image to make the battle seem more authentic. The message of Johnson's work, as stated by Johnson himself, is to present a view of how commanding officers see soldiers; as toys, expendable playthings used to wage war. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Johnson's recreation of such an iconic photograph, as the contrast between the toys and real soldiers is more readily apparent. Johnson has made his photographs emulative of real war photos by increasing the contrast of the images, making them greyscale and adding some grain. In terms of mood, the pieces have a distinctly dark feel to them, aided by the high contrast (and therefore lots of dark areas) and the use of an eerie fog. Johnson has ignored the rule of thirds in this image, but this is because he was trying to emulate a real photograph that does not abide by the rule (found below).
I feel that if I took inspiration from Johnson's work, I could create a powerful anti-war photo shoot using models or toys similarly to how Johnson does; albeit posed in much darker scenes.