The purpose of this photo book remains unclear to me.
It juxtaposes photographs and historical information regarding the Marine Corps and Korean history, as well as text taken from an interview I conducted with my 92 year-old Grandpa.
When my Dad first told me he found an SD card full of photographs taken by my Grandpa, I didn't show much interest. Soon after, I completely forgot about it. It wasn’t until I was sitting in a photography lecture on archival photographic collections that a small project idea popped into my head. Once I realized how important this project could be not just for my family but for other photographers, I left in the middle of the lecture to call my Dad and beg him to mail me the SD card. I had a hunch there would be some images of his time in the Korean War, but I was wrong. It was so much more.
When I went through the photographs for the first time, I cried. My Grandpa, to my surprise, was a natural photographer. In his photographs he demonstrates how he had a keen eye for formal elements such as space, lines and framing. I soon despised myself for not showing interest in his photographs; his life.
The Forgotten War, Remembered: Photographs by Edwin Dotten was to be a small compilation of photos to preserve family history, but as I dove deeper, I realized that it could be so much more. It soon progressed into a critique of an American's perspective of the “Forgotten War”, then evolved into a journey of discovering the man I have only ever known as "Grandpa".
