of humanity laid bare." Unable to enlist due to his paralysis, and before the U.S. entered the war, he volunteered with the YMCA from 1916–19, serving as a liaison with the British Army in Baghdad in the Ottoman Empire, attending to the mental wellbeing of 400,000 troops. In addition to arranging lectures, cinema, concerts, and tournaments, he encouraged soldiers to draw and paint, and organized the Baghdad Art Club to exhibit and promote the soldiers' art. He was appointed Official Painter for the British Army in 1918. Weston's years in the Middle East had a lasting impact on both his art and social activism. The colors and light of the desert, so unlike the rich greens and blues of the Adirondacks, deeply affected his palette. Weston also witnessed the horror of famine and disease while in the Middle East. He saw men, women, and children die of heat exhaustion and starvation. In the summer of 1917, he reported 400 people a day dying from heat that rose to 128 degrees F in the shade. Weston wrote about some of his experiences for the National Geographic Magazine in April 1921, which included his photographs that he color tinted. In late 1919 Weston returned to the United States via a caravan east to India, and then by ship with a layover in Japan. For five months he contributed social work while living in an immigrant settlement house in New York City, took classes at the Art Students League of New York, explored the city's art galleries, and became acquainted with the latest in modern art reaching American shores. Early Adirondack landscapes In May 1920 Weston left the city for the Adirondack Mountains to take nature as his teacher. Weston wrote: "Not yet sure just what paint can and cannot express. Do not want at present more of theory and feel must work it out with this great and ever changing source of inspiration about me." With the help of local carpenters, he built a one-room, uninsulated log cabin studio near St. Huberts, New York. For the next two years he lived largely in isolation, exploring the mountains and lakes, creating plein-air sketches in oil and pencil on small pieces of cardboard. In the studio he painted canvases based on those sketches. When he wasn't painting, he chopped wood, cooked on a small wood stove, wrote letters and journal entries prolifically, and listened