If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it’s already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.”
So said American photojour-nalist Eve Arnold. The quote held a place of prominence on the gallery section of the personal website of Stephen J. Thorne, Legion Magazine’s late senior staff writer.
As regular readers of the magazine well know, Thorne was as gifted a photographer as he was a writer. Photo essays of his own work regularly graced these pages, including a series of portraits of Afghanistan veterans from his earliest days with the publication. Those images evolved into an exhibit, The Wounded, that premiered at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa in 2019 and continues to tour to this day. And he also wrote the words, and often selected the images, that accompanied numerous other Legion Magazine pictorials.
His passion for the subject was deep. He was a student of the craft, intimately familiar with the history of war photography and photographers, his personal library sagging under the weight of tomes on the topic, his office decorated with iconic wartime images.
In celebration and tribute of his photographic work, here is a collection of images Thorne had curated, and which hold a place of prominence at Legion Magazine’s office in Kanata, Ont. It’s no coincidence they’re the faces of the people he covered.
—Aaron Kylie
Thorne was intimately familiar with the history of war photography and photographers, his personal library sagging under the weight of tomes on the topic.
Corporal Gorden Boivin of Royal 22e Régiment nearly lost his left arm in a rocket-propelled grenade explosion during a Taliban attack on a forward operating base in Afghanistan in 2008. [Stephen J. Thorne]
Alma Mann Scott of Sagkeeng First Nation (left) salutes after performing a blessing during a ceremony at the National Military Cemetery in June 2022. [Stephen J. Thorne]
Royal Canadian Legion member Jack Anawak of Naujaat, Nunavut, during Remembrance Day 2022. [Stephen J. Thorne]
Mark Ormond, a Royal Marines veteran, at the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto. [Stephen J. Thorne]
Lieutenant Tim Partello of The Royal Canadian Regiment in the mountains southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2003. [Stephen J. Thorne]
Corporal Ricardo Taylor, a Canadian paratrooper, stands guard by the caskets of comrades killed in action in Afghanistan in 2003. [Stephen J. Thorne]
Betty Metcalfe, 98 at the time this picture was taken in 2019, was a member of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps during WW II. [Stephen J. Thorne]
Retired lieutenant-commander (N) Bill Black, founder of the Korean War Veterans Association of Canada, poses for a photo at his home in February 2023. [Stephen J. Thorne]
A portrait of D-Day veteran James Strachan taken in 2019 at age 93.[Stephen J. Thorne]
Earl Francis, 84 when this photo was captured in 2022, a Saint Lucian volunteer of the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League. [Stephen J. Thorne]
A series of portraits of Afghanistan veterans from his earliest days with the publication evolved into an exhibit, The Wounded, that premiered at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa in 2019.
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