Photographer Page

Balazs Gardi

Balazs Gardi’s photo shows us an intimate father-daughter moment: Eleonari Arce Aguilar and his daughter Guadalupe at Rancho Mesa San Esteban in the Sierra de San Francisco, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Read the piece about the dying culture of vaqueros, the cowboys of Baja California, here.

Afghans gather at a graveyard in the Qaryah-ye Wazirabad neighborhood of Kabul on Nowruz, the first day of spring. Nowruz used to be a public holiday, but the Taliban canceled it. The festival has Persian and Zoroastrian roots and is especially important to Shiite Muslims, a minority of Afghans. The Taliban consider it pagan.

Taliban gunmen wait outside the office of Mawlawi Gul Mohammad Saleem, the deputy governor of Jowzjan Province. Saleem, who was a Taliban adviser in international talks, says the regime was “inexperienced” in the 1990s and wants to engage with the world now, not wall the country off as before.

An elderly man (at far right) wafts smoke over merchants’ stalls in a Kandahar city bazaar. The gesture is meant to bring good luck to shopkeepers whose fortunes have plummeted since sanctions on the Taliban and the freezing of the Afghan central bank’s assets severely curtailed trade.

Former Taliban fighter Elham relaxes in his hometown of Kuz Jangjay, Wardak Province, on a break from his government job. For years, Elham set roadside bombs against U.S. and Afghan forces along the Kabul-Kandahar highway. Now a passport clerk, he confides he’s lost his sense of purpose with the war over.

Taj Muhammad, 90, is an ethnic Arab who claims to descend from the Prophet Mohammad. He has spent the past six decades taking care of the Amir Agha shrine in Garmsir District, Helmand Province, as his ancestors did for generations.

Coal miners shower off after work at a government-owned mine in Baghlan Province. Afghanistan’s deepening economic crisis has drawn many men without alternatives or experience into hazardous mining jobs.

Saber (at right) and fellow coal miner Muhammad Nasim push a cart inside the mine.

Coal miner Muhammad Saber inside a state-owned mine in Baghlan Province.

Seasonal poppy farmers harvest opium along Highway 1 near Gereshk, Helmand Province. Used to make heroin, the profitable crop was taxed by the Taliban, then outlawed, perhaps to seek favor with the international community.. The farmers were paid for their two-week labor in product equal to five dollars a day