Faces of Afghanistan

Beautiful people are all over the world. But no country has as many of them as Afghanistan. I’m serious. The beautiful combination of green eyes and brown skin is quite rare, but not in Afghanistan. No women asked to be photographed so I can’t show their beauty here, but many men did. The beauty of the men is in the stories that the lines in their faces tell. We met several men who were a lot younger than we would’ve guessed. It was like time had taken its toll on their faces, making their struggles in life visible to the world.

Photographing people is not something I usually do. But all over Central Asia, people would come up to me asking for their photo to be taken. In the beginning, I felt awkward whenever I was snapping a photo of someone, but after a while, it just became natural and something that I even expected to do whenever I stepped outside and onto the streets.

In the Afghan village of Sultan Eshkashim, all the locals were very curious about us and seemed to love getting their photos taken. Often, when I would be photographing one person, more and more would come over, stand in a circle around us, and stare with curiosity in their eyes, awaiting their turn to go in front of the lens.

I spent ages photographing the people of Sultan Eshkashim, who became more important than anything else during our time there. Just by being their lovely selves and showing us a different side to Afghanistan than it’s portrayed by the media. Here are my favourite photos from the hundreds and hundreds of photos that I took of the villagers in Sultan Eshkashim and the nearby village of Khirmani:

Update 2021: Life is a learning experience and thankfully, travelling has taught me a great deal over the years. One of these lessons is to never publish photos of children online as they cannot give consent. Therefore, all photos of children in this post have been deleted. I’ve decided to keep the photos of the adults since they gave consent, and because I believe sharing these with the world can shed some positive light on Afghanistan and its wonderful, hospitable people.