It's Not Rude: These Portraits Of Wounded Vets Are Meant To Be Stared At

May 25, 2015 3:43 AM ET

It's impolite to stare. But when it comes to severely injured soldiers, maybe we don't look enough; or maybe we'd rather not see wounded veterans at all.

That's the message you get from photographer David Jay's Unknown Soldier series. Jay spent three years taking portraits of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but before that — for nearly 20 years — he was a fashion photographer. His stylish, artful images appeared in magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

"The fashion stuff is beautiful and sexy — and completely untrue," he says.

Truth became the focus of Jay's work for the first time about 10 years ago, when he started The SCAR Project, a series of portraits of women, naked from the waist up, with mastectomy scars. Around the time he was taking those photos, he was also trying to comprehend the news coming from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We hear about 'this number of men were killed' and 'this many were injured,'" Jay says, "and we think of them — maybe they got shot — or we don't really picture what these injured men look like."

"I wanted to make sure there was action, it was movement. Because I didn't want to portray myself as someone that's just waiting for medical retirement and going to be stationary for the rest of my life."

So Jay visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, D.C., and one of the first injured soldiers he met there was Capt. Nicholas Vogt. In 2011, an explosive device detonated under Vogt's feet in Afghanistan, nearly killing him. His legs had to be amputated.

"I had never seen anything like it," Jay says. "It appeared that he ended at his waist."

He asked Vogt if he would be willing to be photographed.

"And Nicholas was very kind and said, 'Listen, I understand what you're doing but I don't think I can take part in that, certainly [not] right now,'" Jay recalls.

About a year later, Jay was back at Walter Reed and from across the room he heard someone yell, "Hey, photographer!" This time, Vogt wanted to participate. He'd been working hard at his recovery and seeing results. He was swimming a lot and he had a girlfriend (a nurse at Walter Reed who is now his fiancé). Vogt gave Jay permission to take his picture, but he had some parameters.

"I wanted to make sure there was action, it was movement," Vogt says. "Because I didn't want to portray myself as someone that's just waiting for medical retirement and going to be stationary for the rest of my life."

David Jay delivered. In his portrait of Vogt, he captures that sensation of jumping into a swimming pool and feeling your body descend to the bottom. Vogt's arms are stretched out and his eyes are tightly shut. Beneath his black swim trunks, there is nothing.

It's impolite to stare. But when it comes to severely injured soldiers, maybe we don't look enough; or maybe we'd rather not see wounded veterans at all.

That's the message you get from photographer David Jay's Unknown Soldier series. Jay spent three years taking portraits of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but before that — for nearly 20 years — he was a fashion photographer. His stylish, artful images appeared in magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

"The fashion stuff is beautiful and sexy — and completely untrue," he says.

Truth became the focus of Jay's work for the first time about 10 years ago, when he started The SCAR Project, a series of portraits of women, naked from the waist up, with mastectomy scars. Around the time he was taking those photos, he was also trying to comprehend the news coming from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We hear about 'this number of men were killed' and 'this many were injured,'" Jay says, "and we think of them — maybe they got shot — or we don't really picture what these injured men look like."