Life In War

Majid Saeedi's "Life in War" turns a humanistic lens on people who live in war torn Afghanistan. Speaking the language, Saeedi embedded with the population rather than alien forces. The war is present but only on the periphery, in boys swimming off the rusting hulk of a tank or Afghan soldiers in training but, for a people at war for 40 years, daily life goes on and this is Saeedi's focus in "Life in War." "Life in War" reveals a level of access unattainable to Western photojournalists. Saeedi's beautiful black and white photographs evoke the best tradition of humanistic photography, taking us from ironic images of public officials sitting on couches outdoors to witness the destruction of seized opium, into the intimacy of a bath house where men bathe. His photographs are sometimes subtle, as when a woman in focus in the background, gazes with trepidation at her older husband. And sometime direct, as in a portrait of a young boy looking into the camera and flexing his muscles in a clear expression of his aspiration to become a body builder. Saeedi's photographs will endure and provide a bittersweet document of life in Afghanistan long after the endless images of war have lost their significance.