Elliott Erwitt | Fort Dix, New Jersey | 1951

This image was taken by American photographer Elliott Erwitt at Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1951. Erwitt was born on July 26th, 1928 to a Jewish-Russian family who immigrated to the United States in 1939, where he would eventually study photography and filmmaking. Most of his work consists of silly yet common situations found in everyday life. This photograph of a laughing African-American male soldier serves as just one example.

The studium of this image is an African-American soldier laughing in front of his fellow soldiers stationed at the fort marching in the background. The soldiers, clad in military gear, march forward to their destination. I noticed the soldiers in the background were all white males, with the soldier in the foreground being the only African-American one present. The white soldiers display a serious, focused demeanor, unlike the soldier’s silly demeanor facing the camera. The punctum of this image appears to be the African-American soldier’s facial expression. Mouth wide open and tongue sticking out, the soldier is quite overwhelmed with joy. I interpreted this to be reflective of certain artwork of the time period that stereotyped African-Americans as silly and incompetent. It is important to note the year of this photograph (1951). Racial division in the United States was still prominent at the time. His joyful demeanor contrasts with the white soldiers marching in the background, who are highly focused on their assigned duties.

The soldier’s smile caught my attention the most because of the total randomness of it. It raises some questions regarding the situation itself. Why is he laughing? Why he is the only one happy? Does this have anything to do with him being distant from the group of soldiers behind him? Whatever the reason is, he doesn’t seem to consider what he’s doing to be all that serious and is comfortable enough to allow himself be distracted. Another thing noticeable about this image is that the soldiers in the background are utterly oblivious to his laughing. They don’t really seem to notice or even care how he sticks out from the rest of the group. Perhaps this is to further emphasize the lax character of the soldier in comparison to the rest of the group. The overall silliness of his expression is what pulled me into the image. If the soldier was wearing a basic mundane look on his face, I most likely would have skipped right past through it. This is because his expression is unexpected. In all things, it is what is unexpected that drives interest, and photography is no exception.