By 2008, he’d shot Vladimir Putin, all of America’s living presidents and just about every other global leader — and frankly, Platon tells The Post, he was sick of politics.
So when the New Yorker asked the photographer to focus on the men and women in our armed services, he was happy to do it.
For the next few months, he met and photographed newly minted West Point cadets and covered training sessions in the Mojave Desert and deployments to Iraq. And then he shot those who returned — the lucky ones, to giddy reunions; the rest, to rehabilitation or their final resting place, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Thirty of those life-size images are now on display at Chelsea’s Milk Gallery (450 W. 15th St.) through July 24. Simply titled “Service,” these 2008 photos are black-and-white, but the emotions in them have infinite shadings of gray.
“I would have thought it was all about war, and it turns out to be about love and respect,” says the 48-year-old Greek-British photographer, born Platon Antoniou, who lives in Manhattan. “I never found so much affection and mutual support as I did when I was doing this project.” He says he regrets not following up on their lives since, but swears he’ll never forget the people who went before his lens. Here are the stories behind six of those photos.
Sgt. Tim Johannsen & his wife, Jacquelyne Kay, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md.
“This picture’s divided into two halves: love and trust on the top, and pain, loss and devastation on the bottom. I wanted to show both because that’s what I saw at Walter Reed . . . What I witnessed was this incredible transference of power: This tough guy now has this woman who puts her arm around him, confronting us. [I felt her saying,] ‘No one is hurting my man ever again.’ ”
Airman Christopher Wilson & fiancée Beth Pisarsky, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey
“I waited with her family for about eight hours for him to return, and she was pacing back and forth like a wild animal … The Humvee pulled up, he jumped out, and she charged at him with such force, it almost knocked him over! That’s why the whole picture’s tilted — because I wasn’t expecting that angle to happen, him being knocked over.”
Elsheba Khan at the grave of her son, Spc. Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, Arlington National Cemetery
“He was a kid during 9/11 and was devastated when he saw the towers come down, and enlisted as soon as he could. At 20, he was killed in Iraq. Every day, his mother brought a foldout picnic chair to his grave, and read to him. When I asked if I could take her photo, she placed the book down, cuddled the headstone and I got the shot. I was so moved by her that I didn’t even notice the book was the Koran, and the name on the stone, Muslim.”
Jessica Gray, widow of Staff Sgt. Yance Gray, North Carolina
“They’d sent home her husband’s belongings in a metal box; months later, she had not found the courage to open it. She’s holding the flag they draped over his coffin and has his wedding ring on a chain around her neck. I suggested she wear an item of his clothing. She said, ‘I would, but they’re all in the box. Perhaps it would be a good time to open it.’ As we unlatched it, she burst into tears. I felt ashamed, and apologized for causing her more pain. She wiped her eyes and said, ‘You don’t understand. I’m crying because I realize they washed his clothes, and I wanted to smell him again.’”
Petty Officer 2nd Class Alex Smith, Seaman Jeremiah Lineberry and Seaman Hoyt, Norfolk, Va.
“For me, this was like that scene from ‘Anchors Aweigh,’ with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. Their baby faces — you just see youth and optimism. There’s a camaraderie [here]. Many people have said that the love you feel for each other when you serve is so powerful and fundamental, because you’ll literally take a bullet for your buddy.”
The arm of Adam Kokesh, an outspoken member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Philadelphia
“Tattoos play a huge part in the way servicepeople express themselves. Perhaps because they wear uniforms, this says, ‘I’m still an individual.’ Roll up the sleeve of the tough guy with a fist and you’ll find this message about love … [Kokesh] actually held his arm sideways, but I decided to put the fist down. You focus on the clenched fist as a sign of strength, and read the tattoo above it, which shows what’s going on inside [his] heart: ‘When the power of love/Overcomes the love of power,/The world will know peace.’ ”