The Ten Thousand Words

There's a photographer, named David Lang, who photographs the faces and places of Afghanistan and Pakistan - but I love his work because when I look at his faces and places I really see the souls of this region. I've never met him. I first learned of his work when he traveled to Pakistan in 2002 (I think it was 2002) to photograph the aftermath of the earthquake. He has returned numerous times since then and it is obvious from his photos that he is completely in love with this place (and my Mom thinks SHE has it bad) and that his heart will never belong to anyone as completely as it does "the 'Stans".

I learned from him that Afghanistan plans to send a women's boxing team to the Olympics and they are training even as I write. You can meet the girls - as young as 12 years old - and their coach at http://www.davidlang.com/main.php (Index / Afghan Womens Boxing).

The most effective pictures I've seen of a suicide bombing are ones he took of a bombing that happened in Kabul, Afghanistan at http://www.davidlang.com/main.php (Index / Kabul Suicid Bombing). While you are there, you have to visit the "Kabul Street Photographers" link to see life as it is lived between bombings.

Even though I am here, in Afghanistan, surrounded by the faces of locals, I return to his site to stare into the faces in his Afghanistan portraits (http://www.davidlang.com/main.php (Index / Afghanistan Portraits). I see in his faces every Afghan who I have ever asked, "Are you from Afghanistan or Pakistan?" who has either stood a little straighter or gentled at my ignorance and responded, "Af-whan-i-stan".

Afghanistan and Pakistan are so separate and so inseparable at once that I cannot look around Afghanistan without wondering what would have happened were things different in Pakistan. I love the pictures of the 2008 Pakistan election. They are the record of a future that cannot be realized ... but which will always remain possible in those photos. (http://www.davidlang.com/main.php (Index / Pakistan Election 2008).

The tens of thousands of words I cannot find to tell you about Afghanistan can be found in David Lang's work. A man who talks more than me? Who'dda thunk?!