Kickstarter

The purpose and use for the funding that we are raising is to publish "The Severest School - Navy SEAL Hell Week". By far the toughest week that prospective SEAL candidates endure during the nearly two years it takes to wear a SEAL Trident.  More than ever, modern warfare relies on special forces-nimble, highly trained semi-autonomous units. Yet the men who make up America's special forces are largely hidden from the public eye. This is by design: Their effectiveness depends on their ability to remain undetected and unnoticed. This project grew out of my desire to get to know these elite, clandestine warriors and to understand why they would choose this profession in a time of great danger.

After many months of discussion permission was given for me to shadow the men of the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALs (BUD/S) Class 246 at the U.S. Navy amphibious base in Coronado, California. I shot 15,898 photographs over seven months, in the pre-dawn hours, late into the night, and in the desert, mountains, sand and surf.

From this exhaustive database of nearly 16,000 documentary photographs we selected 100 that best illustrate the physical and mental hardship that make up Hell Week, arguably the toughest military proving ground in the world.

I have been a photographer for nearly 25 years and have shot all types of people, events, and situations. But nothing I've done to date prepared me for the intensity of this project.      http:www.rdsphotos.com