Guantanamo photos freed after 20 years
Military journalist documented terrorist prison in Cuba, but he had doubts the public would ever see the work, misery at the camp
Dallas photojournalist Jeremy Lock has two decades of experience in the military. He’s taken photos on six continents, documented the hunt for Osama bin Laden and won Military Photographer of the Year seven times.
But until recently, the military had kept some of his most powerful photos private. Now, for the first time in 20 years, those pictures have been released to the public.
Lock photographed the opening day of Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp on Jan. 11, 2002, capturing the first prisoners being transported to the facility.
Last month, the New York Times published photos taken that day. The newspaper gained access to the images using the Freedom of Information Act. Lock’s photos were among those released.
“You hope that a photograph you take will change the world or have such a big impact,” Lock said. “But no, I never thought that these photos would see the light of day.”
Following history
Going into the Guantanamo, Lock carried with him the same intention he did for every mission: documenting history. His photos were intended only for the eyes of Pentagon professionals so they could be informed about what happened that day.
But Lock didn’t take his mission lightly. It was his duty to capture what the military does, he said, and share it with the American public.
“I just thought of it as another job,” he said. “But, again, as a job that I take a lot of responsibility for because I get to show what our brave men and women do in combat and in war.”
For the assignment, Lock flew out to Turkey to capture the plane ride into the prison facility. He was a trained aerial and ground photojournalist, prepared for conflict. Once the prisoners were off the plane and onto buses, his job was over.
Lock described the atmosphere on the plane as intense, with the devastation of the Sept. 11 attacks looming over their mission. On the plane, detainees wore orange jumpsuits — a detail he remembers vividly — goggles with the lenses taped over, noise canceling earmuffs and beanies. Lock said it was all part of a safety precaution to prevent them from using their sight or hearing to escape.
“I did feel a little empathy for the prisoners because of how scary it must be,” Lock said. “But at the end of the day, we were told they were the baddest of the baddest, so everyone on that plane was very vigilant.”
Lock said one of the photos released shows a man on the plane who was moving around too much and was duct-taped. There are photos he took that day that still have not been released, like images he took of detainees getting air sick.
All of the conduct he witnessed while photographing was standard and professional, Lock said. The one outlier was when a soldier stuck an American flag in the hands of a detainee, he said, which Lock captured on camera.
“My job is to document the good, bad, ugly, whatever it is, and that’s what I did,” he said.
For years there have been calls to shut down Guantanamo Bay because of human rights violations. Nearly 800 men have been detained over 20 years.
When asked how someone wins Military Photographer of the Year seven times, Linda Epstein, a former Military Visual Awards judge, said it comes down to consistency. Current and former military photographers run the awards, but they are not affiliated with the Department of Defense.
Epstein judged Lock’s photos in 2012 when he won the award, and she said his work was allencompassing, showing his ability to photograph anything like a fly on the wall. “He’s not afraid to get closer,” she said. “He’s not afraid to get in the faces of people to show their work. He’s not afraid to do anything.”
He has the eye
Epstein said she still recalls photos Lock took in Japan after a major tsunami hit in 2011. She said his photos showed “peace and tranquility” in the face of disruption by capturing snow lightly falling to the ground.
“It’s not just snapping a photo,” Epstein said. “Good photographers have the eye to evoke emotion out of the viewer, and Jeremy’s photos did that.”
Lock never planned on being a photographer growing up, but he credits his mentors for showing him the power of photography. He went to school at Wright State University, but dropped out.
His father was in the Air Force, and his grandfather was a World War II veteran. So, Lock joined the military to be an Xray technician in the Air Force. Instead, he was assigned to a dark room developing photos as an imagery processor.
“Why am I sitting in a darkroom smelling chemicals? I mean, I could be out traveling the world,” he recalled. So, Lock picked up a camera and started taking photos as an Air Force and combat photographer. He stayed in the military from 1992 to 2013 and earned a Bronze Star for distinguished service.
“When I truly found out the power of an image, not 10 seconds of video, but one-eight-thousandths of a second can change the world, I was hooked,” he said.
Lock said even though he’s seen death and destruction throughout his career, he likes to think his time in the military hasn’t severely impacted his mental health — his camera has acted as a buffer, he said. “My purpose is to show what’s going on.”