Vincent Cianni photographs gays in the military:
In 2009, while listening to a radio interview, photographer Vincent Cianni was moved by the story of a mother whose son was in the Army and had been discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Although he wasn’t certain how he would create a series around the story, Cianni said the mother’s sense of love and pride prompted him to call her about contacting her son.
That initial call sparked a four-year project that took Cianni around the country interviewing and taking portraits of gay service members. His initial uncertainty about how he would develop the project eventually became a book, Gays in the Military, published by Daylight. Cianni began working on it while DADT was still policy, but the movement to repeal it was at its height, and he continued the project after the policy was lifted in 2011.
See more of Cianni’s work, and information about a book signing, here. Buy the book here.
The Dish 