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Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
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The Arts

Alumni share ‘Battlefield’

Sgt. 1st Class Randy photographed Caswell by John Carrington.

John Carrington photographed Sgt. 1st Class Randy Caswell of the 3rd Forward Support Battalion looking out over the desert in western Iraq at sunset, April 3.

By Hannah Pittard
Published: Friday, October 3, 2003

Alumni Russ Bryant (B.F.A. photography, 1995) and John Carrington (B.F.A. photography, 1998) share firsthand experience of the war in Iraq with their joint exhibition, “Bryant and Carrington: Battlefield.”

Both Carrington and Bryant are established photographers in the Savannah area. Carrington, a staff photographer for the Savannah Morning News, has won numerous Associated Press and Georgia Press Association awards and has traveled to Panama, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kuwait and, most recently, Iraq on assignment for the Savannah Morning News. In Iraq, Carrington was stationed in Baghdad where he awaited the arrival of the U.S. Marine Corps. He has no affiliation to the military.

Bryant, on the other hand, is a freelance photographer who served as a U.S. Army Ranger until an injury ended his six-year military career. Bryant was in Iraq shooting pictures for Motorbooks International of St. Paul, a military book publisher with whom he said he has a great working relationship. His first book, “To Be a U.S. Army Ranger,” was published by MBI in March 2003. His second book, featuring photography from Iraq, is scheduled for a 2004 release date also from MBI.

Although the photographs of Bryant and Carrington are unique in style, their focus is the same. “We are both photojournalists working to tell stories, thus giving a commonality to our work,” said Bryant, who was in Iraq for almost two months. “A number of events forced me to reevaluate my position as a photographer,” he said. “I was in a vehicle that was ambushed by Iraqis on Highway Eight … All of a sudden I heard what sounded like two RPG rounds whizzing over the top of my vehicle. Diving on the floor and hearing small arms fire directed at my vehicle was a close call that I will not soon forget.”

From a solitary soldier against a dust-filled sunset to a group of soldiers knelt in prayer, the images of Carrington and Bryant are nothing if not powerful, sincere and heartbreakingly matter-of-fact.

“I hope viewers come away from the show with a new appreciation of the personal sacrifices that young people in uniform make everyday for us,” said Bryant. “I hope the viewers come away with a different perspective on the war in Iraq — different however that is, but definitely a change in perspective from whatever they gained from the television news media over the past seven months.”

“Bryant and Carrington: Battlefield” is on display at Third Floor Gallery, Ex Libris, 228 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, through Nov. 12.