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No offense, but a few sentences would have sufficed ...
Here ... I'll do it:
Photographer of Soldiers Denied Billboard Space in St. Paul
11:39a ET August 28, 2008 (PR NewsWire)
Powerful portraits of American soldiers between tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan were scheduled to be displayed on billboards in downtown St. Paul next week, but the billboard company has abruptly canceled the contract on the eve of the Republican National Convention.
The intimate images of soldiers' faces by New York-based photographer Suzanne Opton are part of a series called "Soldier Billboard Project." The photos were taken in 2004 and 2005 at Fort Drum in upstate New York, with the permission of the soldiers and their commanders. The images are included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, The Cleveland Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and have been widely exhibited in the U.S. and Europe. In addition, Opton's work has appeared in Fortune and Newsweek. The Billboard Project is sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).
The billboard company, CBS Outdoor, said its decision was based on "how the image would be perceived by a motorist passing it in transit." In an email to Opton this week, CBS Outdoor Executive Vice President of Marketing Jodi Senese wrote, "The reason we have advised you that we cannot post these as billboards is that out-of-context (neither in a museum setting or website) the images, as stand-alone highway or city billboards, appear to be deceased soldiers. The presentation in this manner could be perceived as being disrespectful to the men and women in our armed forces."
All of the soldiers are very much alive. Far from being disrespectful, the images are vivid reminders of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers serving the country. The series simply shows them in a more vulnerable pose than the public is accustomed.
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