Afghanistan In A New Light: Photographer Captures Life Under The Taliban 2.0
Two years after U.S. troops left, Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd returned to Afghanistan with an idea: to use an old-style Afghan "box camera" to document how life has changed under Taliban rule.
The Moradi family sits on a small boat in the Bamiyan Valley on June 17. The family traveled from Helmand for their summer vacation.
Photo: Rodrigo Abd (AP)
Afghanistan In A New Light: Photographer Captures Life Under The Taliban 2.0
Two years after U.S. troops left, Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd returned to Afghanistan with an idea: to use an old-style Afghan "box camera" to document how life has changed under Taliban rule.
A Taliban flag waves from a U.S. military vehicle that was used during the years of U.S. military intervention, on the outskirts of Kabul on June 21.
Peace has come to Afghanistan, but at a steep price: poverty, global isolation, and the virtual erasure of Afghan women from daily life are now the norm.
Sitting for a portrait in a war-scarred Afghan village, a Taliban fighter remarks, "Life is much more joyful now." For a young woman in the Afghan capital, forced out of education because of her gender, the opposite is true: "My life is like a prisoner, like a bird in a cage."
A bird is kept in a cage waiting to be used in a fight, next to a grave at the Kart-e Sakhy cemetery in Kabul on June 8.
As a small crowd gathers around Abd's box camera, images of beauty and hardship ripple to life from its dark interior: a family enjoying an outing in a swan boat on a lake; child laborers toiling in brick factories; women erased by all-covering veils; armed young men with fire in their eyes.
The instrument used to record these moments is a "kamra-e faoree," or instant camera. They were a common sight on Afghan city streets in the last century -- a fast and easy way to make portraits, especially for identity documents. Simple, cheap, and portable, they endured a half-century of dramatic changes in this country -- from a monarchy to a communist takeover, from foreign invasions to insurgencies -- until 21st-century digital technology rendered them obsolete.
During their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban banned photography of humans and animals as contrary to the teachings of Islam. Many box cameras were smashed, though some were quietly tolerated, Afghan photographers say.
Street photographer Lutfullah Habibzadeh, 72, poses for a portrait at his house on the outskirts of Kabul on May 29.
Using this nearly disappearing homegrown art form to document life in postwar Afghanistan, Abd produced hundreds of black-and-white prints that reveal a complex, sometimes contradictory narrative.
Captured over the course of a month, the images underscore how in the two years since U.S. troops pulled out and the Taliban returned to power, life has changed dramatically for many Afghans. For others, little has changed over the decades, regardless of who was in power.
A tool of a bygone era, the box camera imparts a vintage, timeless quality to the images, as if the country's past is superimposed over its present, which, in some respects, it is.
At first glance, the faded black-and-white, sometimes slightly out-of-focus images convey an Afghanistan frozen in time. But that aesthetic is deceiving. These are reflections of the country as it is now.
Hakimeh, 55, and her daughter, Freshta, 16, pose for a portrait on May 29 in the Kabul carpet factory where they have been working for a year. Hakimeh once worked in the homes of the wealthy. Freshta was once a student until her dreams were dashed by the Taliban. They both work to support their family.
Kabir Jan, 27, prays next to Qargha Lake on the outskirts of Kabul on June 9. He rents out his horse, Tajdar. He earns the equivalent of $140 a month.
Villagers ride a motorcycle near the remnants of the giant Buddha statue destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, in Bamiyan on June 18.
Marwan, 7, scoops out a chunk of mud with his hands, kneading it until it's pliable enough to put into a mold, in a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul on May 30.
Zermine, 32, has three children. Her husband was killed in a suicide attack by the Taliban five years ago. She now toils in a carpet factory in Kabul.
Nabi Attai, 74, has appeared in more than 76 films and 12 series, including the Golden Globe-winning 2003 film Osama. When the Taliban banned movies, Attai had nothing to fall back on. Now he is destitute.
Addicts do heroin under a bridge in Kabul on June 20.
Mirwais, 11, earns $1.14 per day collecting plastic and bottles. As his family relies on him to earn this money, he is unable to go to school and get an education.
Traffic officer Mohammad Yaseen Niazi's monthly salary is around $142. He says it is not enough to feed him and his young family.
In Kandahar City, destroyed U.S. Army Humvees used in their fight against the Taliban are stacked for sale as scrap metal.
Pigeons fly over the Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque in Kabul on June 8.
Mujeeburahman Faqer, 26, a Taliban fighter, is struggling to adapt to a peacetime mentality. "I had prepared my head for sacrifice," he says, "and I am still ready."
Marghuba Timuri is a 22-year-old single woman who works as a web designer at the Rayan Saffron Company, where 25 women work exporting saffron to different countries.
An Afghan nomad, known as a Kuchi, leads his donkeys in Bamiyan Province on June 17.
A woman in a burqa walks home carrying bread for her family and neighbors in Bamiyan on June 18.
Kabul's Imperial Continental wedding venue was once a venue where live musicians and even DJs once performed -- now banned due to the Taliban's prohibition of live music and dancing that they deem as un-Islamic.
