An-My Lee Analysis

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Recommended: The war photographer essay

After viewing An-My Lê’s work 29 Palms and Small Wars, I immediately became intrigued by how she goes about depicting war. She does not discourage it nor does she glorify it, she only seeks to make her audience think about war in a more complicated way. She mainly does this by capturing landscapes, and she typically zooms out as far as she possibly can without disturbing the action in the picture. I find Lê’s ideology behind war fascinating, and her personal connection to war, having to flee from Vietnam into the U.S. in 1975, gives her photography and videos a sense of legitimacy and emotional connectivity. Knowing what I know about her background, when I look at her work I begin to appreciate it more as if I was looking at it from her point

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