Wounded: The Legacy of War, UK Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

Bryan Adams' heart-stopping images of wounded British soldiers to go on show at Somerset House
Taken over the course of four years, Adams' portraits are an astonishing document of the aftermath of war
The Independent
OSCAR QUINE
Friday 31 October 2014

Wounded: The Legacy of War

Marine Mark Ormrod, injured in Afghanistan, aged 24

Bryan Adams

'Silence, a sense of reflection," is the response that Bryan Adams hopes his portraits of wounded British Armed Forces personnel will inspire in those visiting his exhibition at Somerset House over the coming months. But, as tends to be the case with simple ideas expertly executed, one is equally left thinking 'Why has this not been done before?'

In Wounded: The Legacy of War, he presents servicemen and women from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the injuries they have sustained, matter-of-factly. Their missing limbs, prosthetics and scar tissue are seen by the viewer as part of the subjects as they are now.

It may come as a surprise for some that, as well as building a career as one of the biggest-selling musicians of all time, Adams is also a respected portrait photographer. His first commission in the UK came from Marie Claire magazine in the early 2000s. Wounded came about when he was approached by Caroline Froggatt, an ITN journalist, in 2008. After four years of shooting, the portraits came together as a book.
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