Violent, bloody and chaotic; these are the images that come to us from Iraq on a daily basis. But in My Baghdad, now at Irvine Contemporary, local photographer Phil Nesmith presents another view of Iraq, one that captures the quiet moments of the every day.

His photographs are small vignettes, short snippets of life, printed onto glass. They are pieces of time, capturing a small moment in the motion of a waving flag or birds taking off from a wire. The edges of his prints are cloudy and dramatic and his compositions are poignant as well as haunting. In Baghdad Ghost (Wedding Dress), a wedding dress is hung on the side of a street in front of an iron gate by a stack of televisions. The scene is compelling and achingly moving. Nesmith was able to capture this perfect moment during a lull in traffic on the unseen busy street.

Nesmith’s images were taken when he was embedded with soldiers in late April of 2003 for 11 months. Nesmith explained that in 2003, “it was a very different time then.” He was living with the same soldiers that became family and referred to a more hopeful time during the war. He returned to Iraq in 2006 for a shorter stint and talked of his different experience. "It was just harder," he said.

His process for creating his glass prints stems from his view of memory. He prints on black glass to represent his memories of his time in Iraq. "Glass is fragile, memories are fragile," Nesmith explained. His technique is a hybrid of processes that were pioneered in the 1800’s. The work on display in My Baghdad contains over 150 years of memory, including the techniques developed in the 1800's as well as the history of war itself, hearkening back to photographs of the U.S. civil war.

Some of his critics have complained that his imagery is not bloody enough, that it is not anti-war enough. To Nesmith, all his images are very personal. It is "what people would see if they lived there for a year," he explained. “It is a different side to the conflict and it is not sensational.”

Nesmith’s choice of subject matter covers both landscape and figures. In his compositions with military figures, you are forced to look beyond the uniform and wonder about the person wearing it. Only one image in My Baghdad is from his 2006 trip. In Thoughts of Home, a lone soldier stares out across a barren desert landscape. Nesmith connected to that image, recognizing it as something that he himself had done many times, blocking out everything and thinking of another life far away.

All of his prints are very crisp though some take on subtle painterly qualities. In Palace Guard (pictured) a soldier stands on a balcony and surveys an area with binoculars. The lamps and columns create visual tension and a dynamic composition. Up close the outlines of the building and lamps are fuzzy and take on the painterly qualities of pen and ink and wash; the lines bleed, but everything is in sharp focus.

Palace Guard, copyright Phil Nesmith and courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.

My Baghdad at Irvine Contemporary is on display until February 16, 2008. The gallery is located at 1412 14th St NW and is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.