JPG Magazine: Stories: Feature Story: Just

Feature Story

Just

By Herkus Milasevicius

28 April 2008

Young men playing war...Playing? Or getting ready? For war, or against war?

Lithanian rangers are trained for Peace missions in the hotest world spots: Caucasus, Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan, Kosovo... As ancient Romans said: "Want peace- get ready for a war" And lithuanian solders honorably do their dutes keeping peace. I spend only half a day in their training camp taking photos and trying to be "invisible" for rangers. Young men had spent under open skies already two weeks and i watched them prepairing for the last exam- night shift....Mostly I was working with 70-200 is usm lens, only some shots did with wide angle. In the afternoon the wind rised and it was impossible to switch the lenses. The sand dust covered everything: camera, my hair and clothes, but in interaction with low evening sun it made nice mist and a little bit unreal lightning ( as you see in last photo) . The hardest thing was to get in the "right" place for the "right" shot and not to interfere the "mission".

I was shooting raw, and white balance was daylight preset. In potsproduction I adjusted white balance a little bit because rangers were sometimes runing under the shadows of the trees where I got too much blue and sometimes under the bright sun , where I got too much yellow. But Lightroom helped me to do with it. Only in the first picture ( the headquarters) I left "incorrect" white balance. Too much green perfectly siuited for atmosphere of the situation. The main photo I did sepia , because I wanted to show not these Lithuanian rangers, but soldiers in general- no faces, no time, no place, just soldiers going away...

During that day I did a lot of shots: rangers runing, eating, making plan of "operation", and sleeping... maybe I picked not the best shots, but I wanted to creat a timeline story, with the begining ( Headquarters), action, relax, and final.

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