Eagle-Eye Photo Contest

While photographing and shooting a video of NSA infrastructures in Germany for Laura Poitras’ film Citizenfour, I was stopped and interrogated by police and military on a nearly daily basis. Although what I was doing was perfectly legal, the military still insisted on harassing me while I was doing my job. My response was to dream up the Eagle-Eye Photo Contest, an amateur photography contest to take place in Germany to see who could take the most interesting pictures of NSA bases in continental Europe.

Trevor Paglen production image.

I partnered with Franziska Nori at the Frankfurter Kunstverein and we launched the contest. Over a hundred photographers participated.

Call for submissions for Eagle-Eye Photo Contest at Frankfurter Kunstverein.
Image: NSA/GCHQ Surveillance Base, Bude, Cornwall, UK, 2014
Award ceremony at Frankfurter Kunstverein for winners of Eagle-Eye Photo Contest.
Photo: Uwe Dettmer