Back in 2010, Simon Menner contacted the German army to ask if they could help him to create images in which members of the army are hidden in natural settings.
As it happens, they were very interested and the incredible results of the project, entitled ‘Camouflage’ have now gone viral.
According to Business Insider, Menner arranged two separate shoots, one in a ‘boring’ forest in northern Germany with soldiers who were young and inexperienced, while the second shoot – in the German Alps – was done with a group of elite soldiers.
Menner says he thinks of his work as ‘a conceptual take on conflict and war’ but the fun part was trying to find the undercover snipers.
While he does use real people and creates images in which a camouflaged German sniper really is hidden, many of the comments he has received questioned the authenticity of the images.
This is something he finds pretty funny:
First of all, it is real. Whoever has doubts about that should contact the German Army.
There were snipers present in every single shot and they were ordered to aim at the camera. They could see me, even though I was almost never able to see them.
The training they have received means that in some of the images, no trace of them can be seen – even if you look at the image pixel by pixel.
This is exactly how a sniper in a forest is supposed to appear.
The sniper is under a moss cover behind a small tree with a bent trunk on the left side of the image.
You know when you get that feeling that someone is watching you…
