Afghanistan Photographs

While waiting for a bus in an old caravansi in Herat, I encountered this fellow...

In the spring, the dry desert of Afghanistan can awaken to a green carpet of...

The outskirts of an adobe town serves as the sheep market. Here sheperds and butchers...

An innkeeper works two samovars, keeping his customers supplied with constant china pots of tea....

In a courtyard of the great blue mosque, two gentlemen engage in a debate one...

Along an unpaved street at dawn, stores remained shuttered until the afternoon sun warms up....

Two men load up a camel for the long haul back to their farms. This...

Waiting at a caravanasi, which now serves as a bus stiop. The pegs in the...

"Get the carcass to the goal"; that's the only rule of the game. In this...

Riders provoke their horses to head into the furious melee. Some riders have partners who...

The ball for this game of buzkashi is the headless carcass of a calf. Sometimes...

A buzkashi rider pauses during a game. Clutching his whip in this teeth (the whip...

Traditionally this game is played on Friday afternoons (the Muslim "Sunday") on an empty field...

It looks romantic and photogenic but this wonderful lighting is caused by horrible amounts of...

The inside of a traditional adobe farmhouse can be surprisingly bright and cheery. This farmer's...

Carpet bags saddle a donkey. Woven as kilim, the bags reflect traditional arts. Donkey and...

This classic bridge in the historic town of Kholm still sees a lot of traffic...

The collison of the west and the oriental is clearly seen in this Afghani scene....

It's not unusual for musicians and balladeers to be blind, as this one was. He...

Where timber is expensive, you can make a roof with adobe mud by creating domes....

Breakfast in Afghanistan. Green tea in handleless cups. Golden raisins, dried on roof tops. Walnuts....

The tools for carpet weaving are simple and few. There's the loom, in a horizontal...

Once called the "mother of cities" Balkh is now untidy ruins of mud. Farmers still...

A wholesale market for melons, Afghanistan's reknowned export. These will go to Iran and Pakistan,...

I recall this market scene distinctly because it was a dense, crowded and active market,...

Two boys rest. They are hearding goats (not in view) in a totally barren landscape....

Because of the Islamic prohibition against pictures of people or animals, the great Islamic mosques...

On carpet market day in a northern border town, men display the carpets their wives...

On a fall day a father heads to market with his son. Normally a child...

Bcause of its climate, Afghanistan produces some of the world's best melons: watermelons, cantalopes, honeydew,...

A barber uses a pair of hand-operated snips to give a close haircut to a...

Most of the items in this display were not antiques. They were only recently used,...

My brother Brian and I were taking a bus from Ghazni to Gardez, along a...

Proudly wearing their sharpening bars on their belts, two butchers in the marketplace take a...

Like a truck stop, caravansi are places to rest, refuel your vehicle, and transfer freight....

Denuded by goats, the hills in northern Afghanistan are moon-like in their barrenness. The small...

After the steady browns and muted earth tones of rural Afghanistan, the vibrant blues, greens...

The Afghani version of Starbucks. Men sit on carpets and sip green tea from well-worn...

If camels are the trucks of Central Asia, then donkeys are the jeeps. While kids...

Afghani weaving skills go into making a horse blanket and a saddle carpet -- as...

The fatter the sheep, the better. This fat-tailed variety of sheep was especially prized in...

Looking north from the foothills of the Amjuman mountains. This was once known as the...