Veteran Vision Project Photo Collection is a Revelation

Sharing vets' unabashed joy, and unrelenting pain
CBS News
February 23, 2015

Minutes before Mitchell took the image of McLaren, he asked him how he was feeling and what he wanted to say in the image. Soon, McLaren unleashed pure anguish at how hard it is to not be that number.

"I just want to kill myself every day, and the only reason I don't do it is because of my kids," McLaren said.

For anyone curious about the lives of veterans once they return home, the Veteran Vision Project photo collection is a revelation.

Behind the uniform
No one is speaking in a still photo, but they're still sending signals, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews. In this collection, one photographer has asked dozens of veterans to send messages or tell stories about themselves while posing in front of a mirror.

There are more than 130 photos so far of veterans and active duty service members, and they are projecting who they are. or what's hiding behind the uniform, with all of it revealed through the looking glass.

What viewers get to see is unabashed joy and unrelenting pain. There is pride, diversity, and there are Americans free to be whatever. And while the photos are very different, the format is the same. On one side of the mirror the veteran is in uniform, on the other is an image the veterans choose themselves.

The photographer is Devin Mitchell, an amateur photographer and a sociology student at Arizona State University. He started the project to bolster his application to go to grad school.
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