Museum Opens Military Photography Exhibit

The Soldier's Lens, curated from more than 500 submissions, opens at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Ybor City.

Updated on Nov. 6, 2026 in Military

Museum Opens Military Photography Exhibit

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts has opened The Soldier's Lens, an exhibit of military photographs curated from more than 500 submissions from around the world. The collection includes images dating from 1898 to the present.

Why it matters

The exhibit gives Tampa-area residents a direct look at military life across more than a century through the eyes of service members and their families. It also brings a personal dimension to military history through a father-and-daughter contribution.

The exhibit draws on more than 500 submissions to present photographs spanning from the Spanish American War in 1898 to the present. The curation process narrowed the pool to a selection shown at the Ybor City museum.

The players

Florida Museum of Photographic Arts

A museum in Ybor City, Florida, dedicated to photography and hosting rotating exhibitions of photographic work.

Adrian Smith

A daughter who asked her father to submit his photographs and who selected three of his images for the exhibit alongside him.

The details

Adrian Smith asked her father, retired Lt. Col. Jacob Bruce Waltermire Jr., to submit his photographs, and the two chose three of his images from hundreds he had taken during more than two decades in the Air Force. The father never spoke about his service in Vietnam, and he died two weeks before the exhibit opened.

1898: Earliest photographs in the exhibit date from the Spanish American War.
Two weeks before the exhibit opened: Retired Lt. Col. Jacob Bruce Waltermire Jr. died.
November 6, 2026: Coverage of the exhibit opening was published.

Historical Record

The Soldier's Lens assembles photographs from the Spanish American War onward, placing private service-member images alongside one another. Its inclusion of a Vietnam veteran's personal photographs adds to the broader body of military imagery that families have preserved outside official archives.

Tampa-area residents can visit the exhibit to view military photographs spanning more than a century. The show offers a chance to see service-member images that rarely reach public display.

The takeaway

Private family photographs can carry military history that official records leave out. Preserving and sharing personal images helps keep those stories accessible to the public.