In 2007: The work in the CONFINEMENT portfolio is my impression on moving to Whidbey Island in 2007 and exploring Ft. Ebey and Ft. Casey. I saw these concrete bunkers as reminders of the poor wretches held in indefinite detention in places like Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Base in Cuba. They were being held without due process and tortured for the idle pleasure of their guards and the vicarious thrill of politicians who have perpetrated this war hoax. Being designated as an “enemy combatant” is all it takes, whether you’re carrying a weapon, just standing at the wrong street corner, or turned in by a spiteful neighbor. And frankly, who wouldn’t be resistant to a foreign invader who comes for blatant imperial gain and who destroys what tenuous safety your family had previously known?

Within this whole criminal war structure, detention and torture in contravention of the Geneva Convention is bad policy because it does not advance stated goals and because it requires our armed forces to perform actions that they know are immoral. It’s both wrong and futile. It is an insult to our men and women in uniform to misuse their patriotism in this way.

I shot the CONFINEMENT series at night with long exposure, ultra-high-speed film in 35mm format. Given that the sites are closed at night and without electricity, I lit the rooms with dozens of small tea candles. I chose printing with a condenser-enlarger and selenium toning of the final prints to achieve stark and merciless images.

In 2019: Twelve years later we're still killing civilians and betraying allies in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. It seemed appropriate to shoot some more at Ft. Casey. This time I used small flashes and could use some daylight entering the gun battery.