Veteran and Photographer

Hi guys, Andy here, talking with Rob Law, fellow photographer who is also a veteran and service leaver about how and if service has influenced our photographic work. Rob you can start by giving us a short synopsis of your service history, so we know where you are coming from.

Rob Law
It is quite a while ago; I joined as a young man straight from school in 1984. I joined the Royal Air Force and I was an engineer working on Tornado aircraft. This involved three years of training followed by four years of productive service in an operational squadron. I left when I was in my mid twenties; I decided not to further my career within the Armed Forces and to leave at a point where I still felt flexible and able to both retrain and relearn.

AB
Compared to you I joined in my mid twenties; I joined the British Army and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 2002. Like you I served seven years during which time I deployed on four operational tours and learned Farsi. I left my early thirties; my regiment said thanks for coming but here is the door. There was no point in staying and getting upset at a system I was unable to influence and after years of mismanagement I was keen to leave. In that respect the military is like any other institution; there is favouritism, there are cracks people disappear into and despite claims to invest in people, it is impossible to accommodate everyone into a one size fits all policy.

So my first point is; as a photographer, what does being a veteran mean to you in terms of your photography, if it means anything at all?

RL
For me personally, it is a dichotomy of creative versus technical that has carried on throughout my life. Most of my productive employment since leaving has been in engineering and lately in live television broadcasting. I found that my creative side has been suppressed for a long time and it is an important thing for me to exercise. So photography, while it has been with me since a teenager, has become become a serious pursuit for the last eight years. Under the mentorship of a friend my photography took off. However I think that rather than it being a product of my service, it is a branch away from it which is exercising a completely different part of my skill set. The creative side of me is something I needed to invest in.

AB
As service personnel, we are used to working in small teams towards a shared goal; whereas what you have said is akin to a personal achievement. It is more lone wolf which is a different path from what we were trained to do.

RL
It is, but on the other side, the social side of photography and the connections I have made through the photographic world and through social media have been important. I just love the social side of it and the support offered and given. I am very lucky that everybody I have met has been fantastic. I have been lucky to enough to have been mentored and I have friends I can call up on just about any subject; if I need somebody to advise me on printing, on what exhibitions to attend, a book to read, and a photographer to study etc… I am fortunate to have that comprehensive background of friends.

AB
My personal experience is few people expect a veteran to be creative, to be an artist or a photographer. I have had multiple occasions during my career where people have given me a double take and said, ‘Oh, you are Andy Barnham, you are the photographer.’ They do not equate me with my work; perhaps due to my appearance or maybe something else. Has this ever happened to you?

RL
No, it has not. I can not be as good as you.

AB
I am not sure I deserve it, but I will take the compliment. How does being a veteran influence your work in terms of choice of projects, attention to detail, planning ability , or maybe even how you present or show your work?

RL
There are some things that have stayed with me and some new skills I have learned. There is also the question of age. And, I do not mind admitting; I have a certain amount of anxiety which I did not realise until last year.

AB
Anxiety from your service history or caused by something else?

RL
Issues from personal life through to trauma and PTSD I have been told.

AB
So at the risk of sort of going down a rabbit hole you mention PTSD; I believe that is part and parcel of being a veteran, especially my era of Iraq and Afghanistan and I myself have self-diagnosed survivor guilt. I also believe PTSD only becomes apparent once you leave the service and once you are alone outside of the structures which might otherwise support, or potentially mask, issues you have experienced.

RL
I had a personal ejection seat; I was exiting situations I was not comfortable with. I wondered, paradoxically, is my military training giving me the strength to make these tough decisions and actually see them through? I consider myself really resilient and quite tough. My anxiety was my behaviour sometimes.

AB
Well, I hope you are okay now or feeling better.

RL
I am, thank you. It is not going to go away however I now know what it is. Previously I thought it might be depression or was I being unreasonable, was there something wrong with me. And knowing, and having that knowledge is half the battle.

AB
From my own experience, understanding what is happening to you is being open about it and communicating is important. I think the more you bottle it up, the worse it becomes. I think COVID has not helped in terms of lockdown and isolation and a lot of people will have struggled.

RL
Never underestimate the effect that COVID had on a lot of people. I try to bring out some positives, of which the younger generation are bloody fantastic. I have kids in their mid twenties and they were so impressed when I opened up and told them about the process I have been through. They were so supportive, they understood it completely without question; we feel much closer now. It was really, really lovely. So I think even though they are branded the snowflake generation I think we have got the best generation going now. I love young people.

AB
Mental health is important; I had an unhappy service and it is interesting talking to others about it who are equally negative because the military is seen in such high regard in this country. Being critical of it is isolating as few are open about their criticism or negative experiences because the public praise the Armed Forces and as an institution it is poor at accepting outside criticism.

RL
As part of my broadcasting career I have interviewed people at the very highest levels of government and equally worked with very humble people; you completely depend on others to make a project successful. Part of being able to communicate with all sorts of people is confidence which was instilled through a military career.

AB
Do you tell people you are a veteran?

RL
I do not. However if asked there is a certain, maybe two minutes, interest. Where were you? What did you do? And then it quickly fizzles out. I do not have anything glamorous to feed them, I just fixed aircraft.

AB
As you said, there is certain amount of interest however I do not go into detail as if I do, I see the blinds come down behind peoples’ eyes. There is simply no reference for most people. In regards to being a photographer it has no impact; people look at the work and look at you as the person you are now. After ability has been established the next biggest issue is budget and right now, unfortunately budgets are low, people do not want to pay and they will accept mediocre results. Service is an interesting aside but I think it has only rarely, if ever, helped me gain work.

RL
I would agree with that entirely. Absolutely it does not fit into people’s pigeonholes. It is the military/ creative paradox. They are two different worlds.

This took me quite a bit of time to realise from leaving the forces and as being a very young man, being immortal as you are in your twenties and so utterly confident in your abilities. And being superior to any civilian because that is how you were trained to think. It took me a while to realise that the creatives, the actors, the writers; these are the people who live within the realm that you are defending and you are upholding. And that is a really, really important thing, because if you take that away, if you take away the arts, what are you left with? You think of all your colleagues hanging up pictures in tents in a desert listening to music on a Walkman. It is that functioning society that you are protecting and holding up at the end of the day.

AB
Do you get any support from the military or from any military services, such as associations or charities as a veteran in regards to being an artist or a photographer? Or did everything stop when you walked out of the door?

RL
No support at all when or since leaving. There were plenty of service personnel in my discipline of broadcasting and particular outside broadcasts. But in terms of photography, absolutely not.

AB
Unfortunately ditto; I got zero support when leaving the Army. Today, from my viewpoint of portraits and now post COVID and Brexit, I look at the photography landscape and wonder where do I fit in? Given my service I have the right to approach and benefit from military associations but as a creative I feel disenfranchised; all the support I see offered is geared towards full time and often corporate employment. I have reached out to various service bodies and organisations asking if they would consider supporting freelance creatives, as I do not believe I am the only one, but I keep getting ignored. For all the good will at military networking events; none of the ideas I have received stand up to the scrutiny of the commercial world. The commercial world will not help because I am a veteran, there has to be something they benefit from and that something is usually their financial gain. Coming back to the idea of a lone wolf creative and tying it to the idea of dichotomy; I have to be selfish and put myself first which runs contrary to a military greater good.

So I am in the position where I was sidelined when I served and I continue to be sidelined afterwards; it would appear veteran associations are as traditional and inwards looking as the structure upon which they are based. I was and continue to remain an outlier.

RL
Yes, the business model for being a professional photographer is weak at the moment, is it not? Equally how many photography graduates end up doing something completely different? I know hundreds of them, hundreds of people with good degrees in photography who are doing something completely different. My mentor works in television graphics. Another photographer friend of mine works in installing doors and windows and he is one of the best photographers I know.

AB
That just shows how difficult the industry is and how important support is which makes the lack of any support from military and veteran associations all the more disappointing. I have come to the conclusion that I will keep my door open to veterans but I am going to stop actively reaching out in the hope of receiving support as a veteran. All my attempts have led to nought and it is exhausting and emotionally draining to constantly be misunderstood or turned away.

RL
I have a vexatious relationship with my service; some things I am happy about and some I am not, it is very mixed. It is very hard to differentiate my service with the state of the UK today. I think about the way this country has gone and all the things that should be important which are not anymore. So there we go.

AB
Agreed; traditional British values of decency and fair play have been diminished by this government; I look at the chaotic treatment and subsequent cover up of how Afghan interpreters have been resettled in the UK and all I see are headlines, lies and vested interests. There is little to no actual care and it makes me ashamed of my service. How we treat others in need of help is a reflection of ourselves and we are failing.