Afghanistan

Hi Antonio

i came back from Afghanistan day before yesterday.
the situation in Kabul seems okay.
but i was imbedded and was only in Kabul for one day.
the rest of the time i spend in Helmand province and that place is not a place to go on your own.
i hear that the northern part of afghanistan is okay to work in.

All the best

Thomas

hey antonio, what do you plan to cover for a month w/o embedding? why aren’t you embedding, choice or time limit, etc? thanks

hey man,
was in kabul in february, mustafa has internett, pretty good connection.
I travelled by myself as well and was not with any army or whatever.
All works, grow a beard, get a local dress and you are fine on the street by yourself.
need a good fixer, e-mail me.
p

Antonio

I was in Afghanistan last November/December and travelled to Mazar e Sharif by taxi without any problems.
I also returned to Kabul by taxi against the advice of several security people in Mazar. I was told the road was full of bandits and I suppose it probably was but the journey is awesome and worth the risk.

Not sure about other parts of the country. Quite a few people have made it out to Bamian(sight of the destroyed Buddha’s) without any security problems although you will need 4×4. It’s spectacular from the pictures I have seen.

The Mustapha in Kabul has wireless and TV, DVD players in the room.

Best of Luck

BTW Here is the taxi ride from Mazar to Kabul – Shot in a day.

http://www.markseager.com/Mazar_to_Kabul/index.html

To Mark Seager: Beautiful slideshow !!!!!
I’m a bit curious about the cooking ingredients: (focal length etc) is it Leica+BW400+35mm+50mm?

I would like to go there next winter, how did you plan your trip ? (visas, accomodation, etc?)

Thanks

Dear Mark, very nice slideshow. Why did you shoot it in black and white? I really wonder what it would look like in color.

I wanted to thank everyone for the advice i got online as well as privately. Just a few thoughts I would like to share with you. I was mostly in kabul and I found it safe as easy to work in. Security was very good and not once did i feel in any danger. The only hassle I got was the overzelous cop or soldier wondering what I was doing. I had both Afghan Ministry of Information and ISAF Press passes which helped. I also worked in Lashkargar and Kandahar where the situation was totally different. You need an experienced Fixer to be your eyes and ear to potential problems. In the south of the country you need to be wary of potential problems and its a good idea not to repeat your movements and be very low profile.

Its a beatiful country regardless and I found almost every Afghan I met extremely kind and generous. Its easy to forget that there is more to the country besides war. There are stories to be had there outside the Embed process. I for one can’t wait to go back.

and finally…As you know I never toot my own horn….but i actually made a video. I am ambivalent about the multimedia future but it was a great experience learning a new skill.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/may/23/kabul.drug.crisis

and a small picture gallery..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/gallery/2008/may/25/afghanistan.heroin?picture=334325637

I also did a blog about growing a beard to blend in with the Taliban but I wont bore you with that…

feel free to boo and hiss

Antonio

Christian and Michiel. Sorry for the delay in responding. I no longer get any email notifications from Lightstalkers.

Christian I am not really one to care about the technical aspects of photography but I shot it all on a Nikon F100 with a 24mm prime lens with Fuji Neopan 1600. They are actually more grainy than the film suggests because they were scanned by the lab at the time of processing. I have not had time to re-scan to a good standard. I kind of like the grain anyway.

Michiel I shot it on B/W because all I had left was 12 Rolls of Neopan which I thought I should just use up. It was a dreary day so colour would of been B/W anyway.

be sure to go to La Cantina, best mexican food in Kabul: http://lacantinakabul.blogspot.com/ and stop by the Cabul coffee shop, they have wi – fi but you have to pay a small fee for it…
this is a good place to stay : http://lemondeghkabul.blogspot.com/
also check out this web site for great advice:
http://www.kabulguide.net/