TALIBAN - Magnum Archive photographs

An absurd and fascinating record of Pashtun fighters, comprising text alongside vanity pictures that were discovered inside hole-in-the-wall photo shops in downtown Kandahar.

TALIBAN
Photographs From The Magnum Archives

In Afghanistan, Mullah Omar banned music on pain of prison and torture. He forbade all images of the human face, or indeed any animal that had suckled at its mothers breast, so grave a sin was this against the Koran. To all intents and purposes, even photography was outlawed.

But Kandahar was a city of Pashtuns noted for their gaiety, so to speak, where Mullah Omar made his final headquarters. A city that had traditions of men in high-heeled sandals two sizes too small, the bulging flesh considered sexy, with make-up of kohl and painted nails like sultry silent-movie stars. 'Soldiers there would tickle the palm of my hands; there were furtive caresses in crowds.

On war assignment for the New Yorker, Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak discovered a photographic gallery of faces that revealed this obscure joie de vivre, the gay vanity, of the fierce Pashtun fighters who liked to paint their nails.

Because some of the Taliban needed passports, official photographs were sometimes a necessity. However, unofficially they liked to have their pictures taken, and their vanities were accommodated in the hole-in-the-wall photo shops that still exist in downtown Kandahar. After taking the required identity photograph, they would retire to a back room for an intimate portrait.

The subjects chose exotic backdrops of chalets in the Swiss Alps, where the mountains are green and Julie Andrews sings, rather than the forbidding grey and brown of their own country. Some are alone, others with a friend, with garish colours stroked into the theme, along with flowers. Some are holding hands. Some are holding a Kalashnikov pointed at the viewer, others pointed at each other.

I dont think theyll be back for them," said one studio owner. The pictures, awaiting collection, had hung among portraits of Bruce Lee, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ahmed Shah Massoud, their faces retouched by the artful brushwork of the photographer closeted in his darkroom, using human hair (its softer).

These are images of the killers who have fled, leaving behind an absurd and fascinating record of their presence, in TALIBAN.

Author/Photographer Details: Thomas Dworzak was born in Germany in 1972. He began freelancing in Eastern Europe and the Middle East in 1991. Three years later he was based in Tbilisi, Georgia, covering the Caucasus and Chechnya. He became a member of Magnum in 2000, his work appearing in such prominent publications as The New Yorker, Newsweek, Paris Match, etc.

TALIBAN: THOMAS DWORZAK MAGNUM ARCHIVES
With text by John Lee Anderson
Published summer 2003 by Trolley
ISBN 0-9542648-5-1, 128 pages
$24.95 Hardback