Ghosts in the Landscape: Vietnam Revisited photographs by Craig J. Barber

Organized and toured by George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY. Even amid the chaos of war Craig Barber, then an 18-year old combat Marine, appreciated the beauty of Vietnam. 1n 1995, some thirty years later and now a professional fine art photographer, Barber decided to return to Vietnam partly as a cathartic exercise for himself and partly to see whether time had healed a country and psyche once ravaged by war. Over a four-year period Barber traversed many of his former military routes making images with an 8” x 10” pinhole camera. A superb platinum/palladium printer, Barber has created a series of diptych and triptych panorama images that capture the serene beauty of the country (and at times for him, its all-too memorable landscapes). Still and slow as they are, Barber’s images suggest an imminent scream of fear or anger beneath their apparent tranquility. There is calm and resolution in these pictures, to be sure, but there is also both the residual horror and the acceptance of it that sometimes becomes wisdom.