Oaks Park Pentimento records the blurring of past and present, a moment when two generations of paintings collided to create remarkable new images. Over two days in 1982, Jim Lommasson photographed the strange and beautiful paintings that decorated the center column of the historic carousel at Oaks Amusement Park in Portland, Oregon. The original carousel images were an exotic assortment of Edwardian pastoral scenes?western explorers, Native Americans, Arabs, idealized womenpainted by anonymous German and Italian immigrants in the 1920s. In 1944, two itinerant painters, brothers from Vashon...

This compelling and timely collaboration between photographer/writer Jim Lommasson and American veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars presents Lommasson's portraits and interviews as well as soldiers' own photographs from the war zones. The stories expressed in words and in images are intimate, profound, and timeless. In their own words, 50 men and women speak their truth about these wars--what they saw and what they did. They talk about the wars' impact on themselves and on their loved ones at home as well as on the Iraqis and Afghanis caught in the crossfire. They talk about why they...