
One of the most iconic military photographs of all time was taken on June 18th, 1965 by Pulitzer Prize Winner Horst Faas. The picture War is Hell was taken in Vietnam which was well known to be one of the most gruesome and most unsuccessful wars that the United States has ever taken apart of. With a total of 47,424 United States soldiers dying over an unsuccessful war, the Vietnam War was nothing but destructive and embarrassing for the United States. Many immoral tactics were used by all sides during this war including the killing of innocent civilians, burning down towns, and even using human parts as “bragging rights”. The image Horst Faas captured is of a young man in his twenties looking up at the camera wearing a combat helmet with “War is Hell” written across it. The photograph evokes many emotions such as sadness, regret, and overall sympathy for the young soldier. Horst Faas does this by using the standard composition elements detail, cropping, and gaze. He truly paints the picture that “War is Hell” for viewers.

The detail in Horst Faas photo truly brings out the background and emotion behind this photograph. When first viewing the image you realize that the soldier is a young man hardly in his twenties. If Horst Faas would’ve taken a picture of a thirty to forty-year-old soldier the photograph would not have brought the same emotion as this one did. The reason he chose a young soldier was to bring attention to the draft that the United States had in place at this time. The draft was a very stressful and sad situation for many families. At the young age of 18 you could be picked up and taken to fight in a foreign country without volunteering. Many parents lost their children right out of high school to a war in which we had no reason to be a part of. That by far is one of the most influential detail that Horst Faas intentionally captured in this photograph. Another obvious detail in this photograph are the hand written words “War is Hell” across the soldier’s helmet. That helmet directly reminds us that he didn’t want to be there. He obviously was no volunteer and wished he could’ve been home instead of in Vietnam. The detail “War is Hell” effectively makes viewers sympathetic to the terrible situation he was placed into by force. One last detail that draws attention immediately after viewing the photo is the near smile that the soldier is trying to make for the photo. The half-smile brings personality to the soldier evoking more feeling of sadness for him. Detail brings an immense amount of emotion into the photograph.

Without cropping the image Horst Faas would not have come close to having the same impact with this photograph. Unlike other historic military photos, this photograph has nearly no background. The reason Faas did this is to bring all the attention towards the soldier and not to rocks and trees that mean absolutely nothing. It is a lot harder to convey the message that “War is Hell” with a picture of landscaping and other pointless features without having a soldier that actually lives through it. Cropping the image also allowed him to single out the young man which was used to draw sympathy from the viewers of the photograph. Most likely there were many soldiers around him when this photo was taken, but Horst Faas specifically cropped them out for a very good reason. If he would have had multiple people in the photograph he would not have been able to capture and express the life that the young man has been living. It would have just been a decent photograph of soldiers sitting around. That image would not have held the same importance as this one does. On top of cropping the image so that only this young soldier is in it, he also distorts the background so that you don’t even pay attention to it. Horst Faas wanted all of the focus on the young man for a reason. This is because you can never draw the same amount of sadness or sympathy from someone when there is group of people instead of just one. Think about the war in general. When someone reads to you the history behind it and all the people who died serving our country you generally don’t cry, but when you read a journal of young mans life every day up until his death serving our country all sorts of emotions pour out. Cropping did an amazing job of bringing focus to this young man in order to touch the hearts of the people.

The gaze in this man’s eyes are one of the details of this photograph that you just can’t not notice. The entire photograph is centralized around the young man’s eyes. He does this by making the eyes the clearest part of the entire photo. In the photo the young soldier is clearly staring straight into the camera. The reason Horst Faas caught this exact moment is because if he were just looking down or tinkering with a gun what emotion would that bring to the viewers? It would practically dismiss the entire point of “War is Hell” and even lose the emotions of the viewers due to the lack of connection the viewers would have received. A lot of people say that your eyes tell it all and clearly in this photo the young man looks miserable. His eyes are glazed over and weak. He truly looks as though he has been suffering through hell fighting in the War of Vietnam.

The photograph evokes many emotions such as sadness, regret, and overall sympathy for the young soldier. Horst Faas does this by using the standard composition elements detail, cropping, and gaze. These elements allowed him to remove all the unnecessary parts of the photograph such as the background and focus in 100% on the soldier. If he were to not use these elements he would have had a less meaningful photograph that would not have become close to as famous as this one has. This young man was able to bring out the emotions of sympathy and sadness better than most people could imagine. The strong soldier truly did suffer in hell for as long as he was deployed.
