An-My Le - Image Analysis

An-My Le, Offload, LCAC's and Tank, California, California, 2006

This is a photograph of a military beach landing site on the coast of California. A tank has been unloaded from one of the two beach vessels, presumably having departed from the aircraft carrier in the distance. In the bottom corner soldiers are approaching the tank, which almost blends in with the sand.

Formally, this is a fairly documentarian photograph. It seems to reveal each step in an orderly routine, starting with the ship, to the vessel landing, the vessel unloading, the tank, and the soldiers surrounding the tank. With the shape of the frame, and detailed sharpness, I believe it is safe to assume Le used a large format camera for this image. This would bring into question whether this image has possibly been staged or not. Her approach also differs from most photographs concentrating on images of war. Her high position reveals a large portion of the area which in turn leaves the photograph feeling less glorious and more mortal. Her positioning also causes the machines in the photograph to completely overpower the actual soldiers in image, who are usually the subject of most war photographers.

Her use of spatial relation in this particular image almost allow the soldiers, the human aspect, to completely disappear. But her high positioning also makes these large vessels seemingly minuscule in comparison to the seascape. The subject of beach landing instantly forces me to recall images of the landing in Normandy in WWII. Those images, which most Americans are very familiar with, be it from movies or history books, are very dramatic and rather glorious. This beach landing, even though it is in California, is the complete opposite of that, it's rather ambiguous and almost eerie.