military

Documentary Photography | Territorial Army

The photography seen here dates back to 1996 and is from a photography project that I regard as one of my best. The Territorial Army (renamed the Army Reserve in 2014) makes up around a third of the total force of the British Army and has seen active service in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Increasingly the British Army will rely on these reservist troops over the coming years.

On Exercise

These pictures were taken on exercise and at a recruiting night in 1996, initially as a project about the role of the TA and how part-time soldiering fitted into the British Army, but the images also helped with promoting for gaining new recruits.

The TA project is one project I would like to return to at some point though probably not to the same squadron.

Future Role

In the years since these images were taken, the Territorial Army, now called the Army Reserve, has seen a resurgence in its roles within a modern British army.

A significant amount of Army strength was made up from reservists during the Iraq conflict with twenty percent of total army strength from reservists.

Thanks must go to everyone at the 125th Field Squadron, 75th Royal Engineers in Stoke on Trent for their assistance.

These images were taken on Kodak TMAX 400 and Ilford FP4 film using Pentax cameras and 28mm, 50mm and 135mm lenses.

Expanded Gallery

A number of years ago the gallery was expanded to include a number of new previously unseen images. The images added expanded out the helicopter landing zone phase of the exercise along. One image that especially stood out was the ‘amongst the trees’ photograph that demonstrated beautifully how camouflage blended a soldier into the background.

Photo Zine: Territorial Army

The Territorial Army project is now available as a premium quality sixty page photo zine page containing fifty images. The photo zine was developed as a celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the photography project.

The photography was never intended to be a book project, though I’m very pleased that it has become one. The photography has been a benchmark on which other work I’ve created is judged. It was, and still remains, one of my strongest photography projects.

The portraits were one of the strongest elements and worked well alongside the more active photographs of the military exercise. A number of images such as the weapons search images also have a very surreal feel to them.

A website page has been added with details about purchasing the photo zine, along with a few exclusive insights into some of the key photographs from the project.

Photography Prints

The Richard Flint Photography Redbubble store has a range of images available including selected images from the Territorial Army book.

Framed prints, canvas prints, artboards, metal prints, acrylic blocks plus lots more can be found on the Redbubble store HERE.