A Photograph from an Afghan Refugee Camp in Pakistan
As I mentioned in my last post, I spent some time photographing in the Afghan refugee camps in the northwester territories of Pakistan in the 1990's. At that time, I believe there were nearly seven million displaced Afghans living in Pakistan, many were in refugee camps. Conditions varied from location to location. There were a lot of children running around in the camps who had been fathered by Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, and then, of course, after the Soviets left, they were abandoned and ostracized along with their mothers.
The image below has always stuck in my mind. The boy's attitude and cockiness is so compelling, especially juxtaposed with the boy next to him: clearly his father wasn't Russian. I've often wondered what became of him. While reading The Kite Runner and The Bookseller of Kabul, this kid constantly popped into my head.
Stadium Spectators in Lahore
Certainly, the current American perception of Pakistan is not a particularly positive one. My experience in Pakistan was largely focused on documenting the making of high quality, hand made oriental rugs. I traveled in the Punjab, in the north, and the northwestern tribal territories. I stayed in Peshawar, I photographed in Afghan refugee camps, I went up the Khyber Pass to the Afghan border.
I was always treated with respect, and in some cases with warm, gracious hospitality. Having said that, there were some places you just didn't want to go as an American in particular and a western in general. I always wanted to travel to the extreme north in Pakistan, up past the Swat Valley, into the Karakorum (think K2 and the Hindu Kush). As it becomes more and more dangerous for Americans to be wandering around in Pakistan, it seems that ambition is on the back burner.
I made the image below one afternoon walking past a stadium in Lahore. As I've mentioned in past posts, I collect images in bodies of work: one of which is images of bicycles. What initially caught my eye were the bicycles with little pennants on the front fenders. Then I saw the white wall and the spectators. I still can't take my eye off the gentleman with the cigarette. I like the way he and the other man look right into my camera, right into my eyes.
