Afghanistan lives with resignation a three-decade history of wars.
My experience in Kabul, Afghanistan, has been short, but intense. In spite of the very limited mobility due to the security constraints, I could enjoy a city with an amazing light to photograph due to the high pollution.
Mandawi market, next to Kabul river, is a lively place. Nothing there reminds you about bombs and Taliban’s suicide. “Every day we play with our lives,” people say, smiling with that bitterness of someone who is telling a very sad truth. At any time, an explosion can completely change the course of the apparent peace of the Afghans’ lives.
They rarely mind to be photographed. Actually, most of them like it. And not only that. Once their portrait is taken, they invite you for a tea. A good colleague, who spent long time in Afghanistan, told me once that “in Afghanistan they are so used to seeing thousands of foreign journalists covering their wars for decades, that photographers became another member of their society.”