From a little girl peering shyly at the camera in brightly colored traditional dress, to lush green fields with valleys in the background, to a black and white picture of a man on a bike with balloons riding down one of the few asphalted roads. These are just a sample of the photographs on display in an exhibition lining the walkway at El Sawy Culture Wheel.
What is it that makes a good photo? Is it one that makes you stop and think? Or one that grabs your attention for being different or real?
“On the Roads of Afghanistan provides a window into the nature of a country of which little is known about beyond occasional news reports that depict a war-ravaged nation and a still somewhat fractured people.
The central Asian country is a wild land where warlords and tribal elders still hold the balance of power. However, this strategically important country on the old Silk Road has a history as rugged as its landscape.
A photo showing a farmer standing casually in front of his poppy field may be the image you have of the country, given that it produces 90 percent of the world s opium and heroin.
But there are historic monuments dating back to the first century AD that still dot the country’s mountains. One photo that is particularly poignant juxtaposes the destroyed statue of an ancient Buddha in the background and a woman in pink in the foreground balancing a basin of bread or cloth on her head, with what looks like her son and another person trailing her. People going about their daily routine, despite the ongoing civil war. The Taliban destroyed the Buddha in Bamyan province, claiming it was idolatrous.
Behind the camera lens is 34-year-old Cedric Fedida, a French national currently living in Cairo.
He lived in Afghanistan for a year in 2004-05, in his work in conflict zones for a humanitarian aid NGO.
An amateur photographer, with no formal training, he was inspired to take pictures after reading a book by Henri Cartier-Bresson. “He had a real discipline for photography: no retouching or cropping, the importance of framing. He practiced photography like a Zen archer, Cedric said.
Fedida traveled outside of Kabul to visit the charity’s projects with his camera in tow and he wanted to put on an exhibition that showed another side of Afghanistan – not “pictures of explosions and crying faces, the faces of everyday people.
Glancing at the photographs on the wall, they are striking in that the people featured appear not to be posing for the camera. The viewer does not feel as if they are an outsider looking in, but rather that you are sharing in a part of their story. There is something intimate about them.
“The benefit of living there, and sharing everyday life, amongst a people is that after a while you don’t feel or act like a predator who comes for a week or two ‘looking for the shot,’ Cedric responded when asked about how he had managed to win the trust of the people he photographed.
A series of three black and white photographs showing men on horseback playing Bozkachi, Afghanistan’s national sport, is another highlight. Players on horseback carry a whip between their teeth and the idea of the game is to catch a dead ram, run across a field and slam it into a circle made of clay known as the Circle of Justice. Bozkachi is the “soul of Afghanistan reads the short description accompanying the photos.
Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak and Turkmen are just some of the patchwork quilt of ethnic groups that make up the country’s population. In the 17 or so photos, you get a sense of the diversity that comprises the people who have seen many conquerors, including Alexander the Great who married an Afghan woman as he had never seen such beauty before.
Thirty years of civil unrest since the Soviet invasion of 1978 and more recently the US invasion in 2001 have left a nation scarred by battle.
“The country’s in ruins but the people are very good at surviving and overcoming material difficulties, Fedida commented.
When asked about what touched him most during his time in Afghanistan, Cedric said, “They [the people] have lived all their lives in a violent environment. They’re resilient though. Afghans are proud and have a high sense of honor and dignity, and very strong values.
Today is the last day of the exhibit, so pass by El Sawy Culture Wheel (1, 26th of July St, Zamalek, Cairo) to catch a glimpse of these photographs.
