2:09 AM
"Let all the infidels become Muslims"Here's a wonderful short (too short!) video made by Elissa Bogos in a tea house in Afghanistan on 11.11.11 for One Day on Earth.I describe it as wonderful, not because of the unfortunate intolerance expressed by the old man towards the end of the clip, but because it's beautifully filmed, because of its ambience and because of the music. I wished the clip had been much longer, and that it tarried longer with the "poets" who recited traditional verses (and expressed their gripes), and that it lingered around the corners of the tea house.Elissa Bogos is a freelance photojournalist and videojournalist based in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was the editor-in-chief of The Sakhalin Times, an English language weekly in the Russian Far East.Her photographs and...
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Monday, August 29, 2011
Darkness Visible Afghanistan
I occasionally post on projects that I believe ought to be supported by the public at large, and one such project is Darkness Visible Afghanistan by photojournalist Seamus Murphy, whose aim is to raise $10,000 to create a documentary movie based on his many years traveling and photographing in Afghanistan."My mission is to promote an understanding of this mysterious, complex and fascinating culture."Seamus Murphy has been photographing Afghanistan since 1994. He published a book, also titled A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan, as a chronicle of the country and its people over those tumultuous years. For two decades, Seamus has also worked extensively in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America and most recently, America. He has won 7 World Press Photo Awards and a World Understanding...
Monday, May 9, 2011
Simon Norfolk: Afghanistan
"This current war is tragedy, is an imperial game, is a folly...
Following the welcome demise of Bin Laden, I thought it timely to feature photographs or a multimedia essay on Afghanistan. I didn't want it to be of the conflict, or some other cliches, so this short movie on Simon Norfolk's Afghanistan project seemed much more appropriate.
In October 2010, Simon Norfolk began a photo series of Afghanistan, influenced by the work of 19th-century British photographer John Burke. Norfolks photographs of "modern" Kabul is presented along with Burkes original portfolios.
Norfolk is critical of the Afghanistan war and of journalists who report from the safety of armored compounds, and especially of photographers who travel around Kabul with a security details. He was told on his arrival...
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Matthieu Paley: Prisoners of the Himalaya
I've featured the extraordinary work of Matthieu Paley a number of times on The Travel Photographer blog already, and while my favorite is still his work on a Sufi festival honoring Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Pakistan, it's also this recent ongoing film project "Prisoners of the Himalaya" that is equally remarkable. It's a documentary film aimed at capturing the life of the last Kyrgyz nomads of Afghanistan.
Matthieu returned to the Afghanistan's Pamir mountains to cooperate in the production of his first movie, along with Louis Meunier (as Director of the project) and others.
When you finish viewing the above trailer, drop by the movie's main website The Roof of the World which gives you more background to the project, and lists the team members that were involved in its making. Also...
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
POV: Omid And Why We Will Never Win
Photo Michael Kamber- Courtesy The New York Times
Michael Kamber is a well known New York City-based freelance writer and photographer for The New York Times. He worked in West Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, covering conflicts in the Ivory Coast, Congo, Liberia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq. Apart from frequently-published photo essays in The New York Times, he also authors a journal of his Afghanistan experiences. Its entries began in December 2010 and appear on the newspaper's LENS blog.
His latest entry -along with over a dozen of his excellent photographs- is on yesterday's LENS blog under the title of Deeper Into Fathomless...
Monday, November 29, 2010
VII: Franco Pagetti: Afghanistan's Agony
The exciting VII The Magazine features Afghanistan' Agony, the multimedia work of Franco Pagetti which combines movies, stills in both color and black & white.
Although I'm getting tired of war stories and its imagery, Pagetti manages to infuse this work with his own personality as when he says (I paraphrase) in his Italian accent"...the only thing a photographer really wants...more than life, more than sex...more than anything...is to be invisible." Brilliant!
This multimedia piece provides a very realistic of what Afghanistan must be...it merges color stills with black & white images (which, in my view, are the best of the lot),...
Sunday, October 31, 2010
POV: FP Magazine: Talibanistan
Foreign Policy Magazine has featured an interesting photo/graphical essay on the war in Afghanistan. It's titled Inside Talibanistan, and effectively makes the point that our "enemies" are not a monolithic entity, but a combination of disjointed groups with different agendas and ideologies.According to our media and politicians, who have the talent of diminishing everything down to simplistic terms in the hope of further dumbing down its viewers, listeners, constituents and readers, we are fighting against the "Taliban"...the problem is that the Taliban (as defined by our talking heads, politicians and their cronies) doesn't exist as such. ...
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
VII's Seamus Murphy: Phoenix Afghanistan
Photography is part history, part magic. -Seamus Murphy
Here's a multimedia piece published by VII The Magazine with stills and audio by Seamus Murphy titled Phoenix Afghanistan.
Seamus began photographing in Afghanistan in 1994, and for two decades, he has worked extensively in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America and most recently America on an ongoing project during what he calls a nervous and auspicious time. His accolades include six World Press Photo Awards.
Phoenix Afghanistan compares photographs of life in Kabul from 1994 to photographs in 2010. You'll notice that the 1994 photographs...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
TIME: Soldiers' Tattoos In Afghanistan
Photo Mauricio Lima /AFP/Getty Images-All Rights Reserved
It's really time to leave Afghanistan when magazines start publishing inconsequential and silly photo essays as the one just featured by TIME's website. It's titled Soldiers' Tattoos in Marjah, and is by Mauricio Lima.
The photo essay shows about 10 images of US soldiers showing off tattoos of various illustrations, religious messages and excerpts from the Bible amongst others. The one above is of Lance Corporal Daniel Weber, and the caption reads as follows: "The Arabic inscription on Weber's bicep translates to "unfortunate soldier."
No, it doesn't. It reads "Al Nafs Al...
Friday, June 18, 2010
Matthieu Paley: The Pamir Mountains
Here's a 6 minutes trailer from a multimedia documentary "Forgotten on the Roof of the World" by photographer Matthieu Paley and anthropologist Ted Callahan that tells the story of a little-known tribe of Kirghiz nomads in one of earths most remote regions - Afghanistans High Pamirs mountains.
The full documentary will be screened by Matthieu at the Royal Geographical Society (Hong Kong) on Tuesday 22nd of June.
Matthieu Paley is an Asia-based (currently based in Hong Kong) photographer specializing in editorial and documentary photography. His work appeared in Geo, National Geographic, Newsweek, Time, Outside, Discovery and various other...
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
NYT's LENS: A.K. Kimoto
Photo A.K. Kimoto-All Rights Reserved
The New York Times' LENS blog features a poignant photo essay on opium addiction in Afghanistan by the late A.K. Kimoto. The photo essay is in black & white; dark and brooding as befits such a subject matter. See it...I highly recommend it, along with its accompanying article.
Kimoto was a 32-year-old Japanese photographer based in Bangkok, who died in March while traveling to Australia.
He spent years photographing families in the remote northeastern mountains of Afghanistan, controlled by the Taliban. He roamed remote settlements in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, to find out why so many of the...
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Frontline: Dancing Boys of Afghanistan
On Tuesday night, I watched the harrowing Frontline: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan which exposed an ancient practice know as as "bacha bazi" which, literally translated, means 'boys' play'. This illegal practice exploits orphans and street boys, and has been revived by powerful warlords, businessmen and military commanders in Afghanistan. These men dress the boys in women's clothes, who are trained to sing and dance for their enjoyment. The dancing boys are also used sexually by these men.This is outstanding journalism by Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi, and my hat's off to PBS and to the Frontline producers for doing such an admirable...
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Julie Jacobson: Afghans' Opium Addiction
Photo Julie Jacobson/AP-All Rights Reserved
It is estimated that Afghanistan supplies nearly all the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and while most of the deadly crop is exported, enough remains in it to feed a cycle of addiction among its population. It's also estimated there are at least 200,000 opium and heroin addicts in Afghanistan.
It's a fact of life that many rural areas in Afghanistan have no access to basic medicine such as aspirin, so whenever a villager needs a painkiller for a minor ailment, they are given opium instead.
Julie Jacobson is an Associated Press Writer and Photojournalist, who produced...
Julie Jacobson: Afghans' Opium Addiction
Photo Julie Jacobson/AP-All Rights Reserved
It is estimated that Afghanistan supplies nearly all the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and while most of the deadly crop is exported, enough remains in it to feed a cycle of addiction among its population. It's also estimated there are at least 200,000 opium and heroin addicts in Afghanistan.
It's a fact of life that many rural areas in Afghanistan have no access to basic medicine such as aspirin, so whenever a villager needs a painkiller for a minor ailment, they are given opium instead.
Julie Jacobson is an Associated Press Writer and Photojournalist, who produced...
Monday, March 22, 2010
Ashley Gilbertson: Bedrooms of the Fallen
The New York Times Sunday Magazine has featured The Shrine Down The Hall: Bedrooms of America's Young War Dead, a powerful photo essay in slideshow format by photographer Ashey Gilbertson (VII Network), which looks at some of the empty bedrooms of the over 5000 U.S. military personnel killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. Dexter Filkins starts his accompanying article with the words "Just kids". The ages of these military fallen range from 19 to 25...indeed, just kids.George McGovern in 1969 speaking about Vietnam said:"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in".Now of course, it's also women who die in...
Ashley Gilbertson: Bedrooms of the Fallen
The New York Times Sunday Magazine has featured The Shrine Down The Hall: Bedrooms of America's Young War Dead, a powerful photo essay in slideshow format by photographer Ashey Gilbertson (VII Network), which looks at some of the empty bedrooms of the over 5000 U.S. military personnel killed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. Dexter Filkins starts his accompanying article with the words "Just kids". The ages of these military fallen range from 19 to 25...indeed, just kids.George McGovern in 1969 speaking about Vietnam said:"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in".Now of course, it's also women who die in...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Massimo Berutti: Afghan Vaccination
Photo Massimo Berutti-All Rights Reserved
The Wall Street Photo Journal has featured a photojournalistic gem on its Photo Journal titled Vaccination Diplomacy of black & white photographs by Massimo Berutti.
In my view, it's a singular gem because it's not an Afghanistan reportage of foaming-at-the-mouth wild-eyed hirsute mujahideen aka jihadists aka Taliban (or whatever the mainstream media's stereotype flavor of the day is), isn't about a bloody military offensive or counter-offensive, and isn't about showing dead and maimed people we don't identify with and frequently demonize. No, it's about how the Taliban, Karzai's central...
Monday, January 4, 2010
NYT/Adam Ferguson: The Hazaras
Photo Adam Ferguson /NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
Today's The New York Times features a photo essay of Adam Ferguson's photographs titled The Resurgence of the Hazaras. Those who have seen the movie The Kite Runner (and/or read the book) will remember that the Hazara (Shi'a) minority of Afghanistan were historically dominated and discriminated against by the Pashtun (Sunni) majority. It's the same old and sad story of religious discrimination and divisiveness that has (and continues to) plague our world.
However, it appears that after the US invasion in 2001, the Hazaras have swiftly remade their circumstances, and in some provinces...
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Globe & Mail: Behind The Veil
Canada's The Globe and Mail provides a rare insight into the lives of Afghan women through a week-long multi-media series, Behind the Veil. In these series, 10 representative Afghan women in the Kandahar area speak about key issues in their lives. Aided by an interpreter, specific questions were asked from each of the women. The Globe & Mail is well-known for its edgy multimedia, having featured equally interesting and extremely well produced multimedia pieces before.I haven't got the time to view this except for a few minutes, but I intend to return to it once I'm back from Bhut...
Monday, September 7, 2009
WIRED: Kanepari & Ferguson
Photos Adam Ferguson (L)/Zackary Canepari (R)-Courtesy WIRED
"The photojournalist has long been known as the lone wolf, traveling solo to the far-flung corners of the world to document experiences few are capable of seeing. By function, its often a solitary quest, lonely and alienating; rarely as romantic as the photographs make it appear."
What a great start for the Raw File article written for WIRED by Bryan Derballa!
The article deals with the friendship and healthy competition between Adam Ferguson and Zackary Canepari, two immensely gifted photojournalists working in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. It appears that they helped...
