Photography brings comfort on the battlefield

By Charity Parker, April 2010
Feature Editor

Photo by Matt Kimbro Jonathan Lucas used photography to convey his daily life on and off the battlefield as he served in the U.S. Army.

What kind of comfort can you find in the middle of a battlefield? When your home life isn’t that great and you’re hundreds of miles from loved ones? How can you capture your emotion and what you see happening on a daily basis? Perhaps an image can convey that which distresses you?

For 25-year-old Paradise Valley Community College student Jonathan Lucas, photography was that comfort, that means of conveying what he witnessed in his daily life on and off of the battlefield.

“My job was to document what the government spends money on,” said Lucas recalling his time spent in the midst of the war in Iraq.

Lucas joined the army out of necessity not long after graduation from Shadow Mountain High School.

“I didn't have a choice at the time. It was the Army or the streets,” said Lucas reflecting on life after graduation. “Three square meals a day, a hot shower and lifelong experiences sounded good regardless of what the mission was. In my opinion, I believed I could survive anything. Perhaps I was 19 and invincible, maybe I wanted to see (for) myself if I could in fact make it through basic.”

Lucas completed two tours of duty, earned the National Defense Service Metal among other accolades while in the army but came back with a new goal in mind: The pursuit of photography and being acknowledged as a professional photographer now led him in a different direction. The 90,000 photos he took during his experience in the U.S. Army helped him develop his love of the art of photography.

“I am very fortunate to have the opportunities I had spanning about 13 years,” said Lucas thinking over his experience doing commercial and print modeling early on in life. This helped spark his interest in what was going on behind the camera. “I remember the smile on my face when I saw what I looked like, and in turn (I) enjoy the smile on people's faces when I take pictures of them, that's what I work for.”

While Lucas never had an interest in becoming a photographer he does intend to someday make an honest living taking photographs. This led him to creating the first Photography Club at PVCC.

“I wanted it to be an outlet for people, so they could enjoy photography and learn from others,” says Lucas. “It’s fun, free and educational.”

Lucas created the club in hopes of expanding the horizons of photographers including himself.

“I would really like to gain more knowledge for every kind of photography, (it) is ever changing and ever growing,” said Lucas who is typically an architectural photographer with a preference for “cooler tones.”

Lucas says he loves lines and shape as well as desaturated and black and white photos. He prefers Nikon cameras for their ability to convey “realistic” color ranges in contrast to Canon’s “vibrant” color range. It is this preference for realism that leads Lucas to avoid a lot of postproduction to his photographs.

“I am a realist and think that I should be able to control everything in my camera before I send it to be edited,” says Lucas. “I don't believe in cutting and pasting; I believe real photography comes from within and is to be shown as the artist intended, through as few mediums as possible.”

While Lucas had no intention of making a career out of being a soldier, he realizes the effect it has had on his life.

“Thinking about it doesn’t make you weak,” says Lucas with a thoughtful smile.

Lucas said that he gained a sense of “ldrship” (loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage) through his experiences with the army.
           
“It doesn’t make you a man or woman to kill; it makes you a man or woman to serve,” says Lucas. “What I learned is that its not the job you have, the things you have done; it's what you do when you have nothing and you need to make something... it's the drive that makes us who we are... I say persevere!”