This image is one of many from my book, coming out in 2015, called “18 Inches: Distance from Head to Heart”, about conflict between logic and emotion. This image is also being featured in the Freeman Gallery Space in Brooklyn from July 10-24 for charity to raise money for displaced families of the humanitarian crisis in Syria as well as displaced families in Detroit, MI.
In this story, a Syrian soldier is about to execute a mother and her child, but finally decides he cannot do it anymore. In this moment he decides to defect. He is immediately conflicted between what he has been ordered to do and what he no longer feels he can do.
Retouching by the incredibly talented BRIAN YORK
LOCATION SCOUT: LORENA PETANI
MAKEUP + SPECIAL FX: ASHLEY VEST
WARDROBE + PROPS: MELANIE FRANCIS
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANTS: BEN TULLY & ADAM BIBA
SOLDIER: ZACH ZAKAR (PHOTOGRAPHED IN DETROIT, MI ON LOCATION)
CASUALTIES: BASHAR ALMADANI, KAREEM ALMADANI, SHARUP KARIM, HEBA KAZOUN & ARIJ MIKATI
