Photographer David Jay spent three years photographing severely injured US army veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. His mission is to turn our averted eyes onto the realities of their lives.
Children are forever told it is rude to stare, but David Jay wanted people to do just that. His portraits of injured veterans are confronting. Men and women with missing limbs, wounds, and burnt skin, yet carrying on with their lives.
He took the images so that people could look at the real impact of war upon humans.
David Jay was a successful New York fashion photographer, his pictures appeared in magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan, but he always felt there was something important missing in his imagesm, truth.
When a young friend was diagnosed with breast cancer about 10 years ago, he decided to begin a series of photos of women who'd had mastectomies.
The Scar Project, as he called it, was an attempt to show the realities of breast cancer, rather than hiding it behind a pink bow.
He spoke with Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon about his work.
