United States
During the ten and a half years that Americans have been fighting in Afghanistan, as tens of thousands of troops have rotated in and out of the combat zone, only one soldier has ever been captured by the Taliban. His name is Bowe Bergdahl, and since June 30, 2009, he has been America’s last living Prisoner of War.
Bowe Bergdahl grew up on a dirt road that winds through a narrow river valley a few miles outside of town of Hailey, Idaho. The town of about 8,000 guards the highway to the ski resorts of Sun Valley where billionaires and movie stars spend their ski vacations. Bowe’s mother, Jani, home schooled him and his older sister, and Bowe spent years studying martial arts and fencing, becoming particularly accomplished at the epée. After a period of wandering, Bowe joined the Army at age 22, and soon after completing his training shipped out for Afghanistan. “He saw Afghanistan as a humanitarian mission,” Bowe’s father Bob says. “It was the highest ground for an American soldier.”
Source: TIME
Pakistan
Pakistani Hindus pose for a photograph during the celebration of the Holi festival in Karachi.
Asif Hassan-AFP/Getty Images
Source: TIME
Vietnam
A client whose face is covered with gold leaves is seen at the Viet My beauty salon in Hanoi.
Kham/Reuters
Source: TIME
Macedonia
Revelers participate at a Trimery celebration in the city of Strumica.
Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters
Source: TIME
Brazil
A sequin-clad dancer from the Mocidade samba school smiles on a float during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro.
Felipe Dana/AP
Source: TIME
Afghanistan
“Patrols are a dangerous part of the war in Afghanistan, and in the Arghandab Valley during the summer of 2010 they were particularly punishing. It was during the surge of U.S. troops and the violence was edging higher. I had arranged to photograph a series of portraits of Afghan National Army soldiers at the end of a joint patrol with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne. The platoon was tired and many of them wore expressions that showed the strain of the days.Yet the face of this one soldier, Ghulam Hidar, stood out: the distant stare of a young man who has seen nothing in his life but conflict.
To me, the intensity of his face captures the nervousness and fear of a war that has gone on much longer than the past decade. I am moved by his stare and often even disturbed by it. In his eyes I see something that anyone exposed to this war has felt so many times before.” - Kevin Frayer
July 2010, From Afghanistan: The Photographs That Moved Them Most
Source: TIME
Afghanistan
“A young girl soon after dawn in the village of Ghulam Ali on the Shamali Plain. Fighting between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, along with massive US air strikes, made the plain a critically dangerous place to live.
This image—or maybe this girl—always makes me ask: Who are you? Are you still alive? What are you doing now, 10 years later? Do you still live in Afghanistan? Do you still live in your village on the Shamali Plain, north of Kabul? Are you married? Have you ever seen this photograph? Would you let me photograph you now?” - Seamus Murphy
November 2001, From Afghanistan: The Photographs That Moved Them Most
Source: TIME
United States
Friends Jasmine, 6, and Amy, 8, outside a migrant worker motel in downtown Fresno, California. Amy’s mother makes about $8 an hour on a nearby farm.
Joakim Eskildsen/Time
Source: TIME
Burma
Aung San Suu Kyi, the General Secretary of Burma’s National League for Democracy. From “The First Lady of Freedom,” Jan. 10, 2011, issue (cover story).
Platon, for Time
Source: TIME
India
Indian dancers from Uttar Pradesh wearing traditional clothing wait before performing at the opening of the Surajkund Fair in Faridabad, Haryana, just outside New Delhi.
Kevin Frayer/AP
Source: TIME
Mumbai
A participant wears a feathered mask during the Queer Azadi (azadi means freedom) parade, an event promoting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights in Mumbai.
Rajanish Kakade/AP
Source: TIME
California, United States
“I appreciate a lot of things now in my life and I think that’s what I didn’t do before. I took things for granted and now it’s like I have to literally sit down and appreciate because now it’s like I honestly feel like, man, I just wasted 39 years of my life and the cold part is I knew it. But I still chose to do what I did.” - Raymond Slayton
Leaving the Life: Portraits of Former Gang Members, Adam Amengual
Source: TIME
England
In 2008, accountant and amateur photographer Lee Jeffries was in London to run a marathon. On the day before the race, Jeffries thought he would wander the city to take pictures. Near Leicester Square, he trained his 5D camera with a long, 70-200 lens on a young, homeless woman who was huddled in a sleeping bag among Chinese food containers. “She spotted me and started shouting, drawing the attention of passersby,” Jeffries says. “I could have just walked away in an embarrassed state, or I could have gone over and apologized to her.” He chose the latter, crossed the street and sat with the woman. The eighteen-year-old, whose complexion indicated she was addicted to drugs, told Jeffries her story: her parents had died, leaving her without a home, and she now lived on the streets of London.
This experience had a profound effect on Jeffries, sharpening the focus on the subject matter of his street photography—the homeless—and defining his approach to taking pictures. He didn’t want to exploit these people or steal photographs of them like so many other photographers who had seen the homeless as an easy target. In an effort to make intimate portraits, Jeffries would try to connect with each person on an individual basis first. “I need to see some kind of emotion in my subjects,” Jeffries says. “I specifically look at people’s eyes—when I see it, I recognize it and feel it—and I repeat the process over and over again.” Jeffries tries to keep the contact as informal as possible. He rarely takes notes, feeling it immediately raises suspicion, and prefers to take pictures while he is talking with his subjects to capture the “real emotion” in them. “I’m stepping into their world,” he says. “Everyone else walks by like the homeless are invisible. I’m stepping through the fear, in the hope that people will realize these people are just like me and you.”
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Source: TIME
India
A woman sits at the site of a fire in Kolkata, India, where over a thousand people were rendered homeless after at least 100 shanties were destroyed by the blaze.
Bikas Das/AP
Source: TIME
Pakistan
School boys stand near fuel trucks which were set ablaze in the Bolan district of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire to nine fuel trucks in the Bolan area of southwestern Baluchistan province, setting them on fire and killing one of the drivers.
Amir Hussain—Reuters
Source: TIME
