The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Nina Berman photos

I know this isn't work by a Middle East photographer, but I stumbled across Nina Berman's photographs recently and found them striking. She has an Afghanistan series, "Under Taliban," (which raises all the usual questions about photographing women in burkas--is she exoticizing? or recording reality?). But more strikingly, she has a series of incredibly disturbing photos of US soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan with very serious injuries. The "Marine Wedding" series--which shows the wedding of a young marine whose face was basically blown off--has won her particular attention. It shows the price some American are paying for this war in a way that we usually avoid doing.