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Subscribe to RSSSebastian Rich has covered every major war and conflict of the past 30 years. He has been wounded several times, kidnapped and held hostage while on assignment as a photographer and television cameraman.
Children in Conflict, an exhibition at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., is showcasing a selection of images from Rich's career alongside a new body of work produced for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The new collection illustrates the plight of Afghan refugees in the Jalozai refugee camp in Pakistan.
Sebastian Rich
Young Afghan refugee in the Jalozai UNHCR refugee camp, Pakistan, 2012. Jalozai is one of the largest of 150 refugee and transit camps in Pakistan, holding Afghan refugees from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the present day.
By Sebastian Rich
The reason I became a photojournalist is summed up eloquently by this saying:
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
Being a chronic dyslexic to the point of near-illiteracy, I guess taking photographs was a natural progression, given the old adage, "A picture speaks a thousand words."
I left school, or should I say, ran away from school, at the tender age of 15 and have been looking through cameras of one sort or another at the world's wars ever since.
Sebastian Rich
Pakistan, 2012. An outside classroom for Afghan women and young girls in the UNHCR Jalozai refugee camp.
One of the women had brought her small son with her, and he cheekily leaned back from the group to look at me.
Sebastian Rich
Bosnia, 1993. A local priest talks to the crew of a British United Nations tank. He is trying to negotiate some sort of cease-fire between a local Bosnian militia and a group of heavily armed Croatian fighters. The cease-fire lasted all of ten minutes then the priest and myself ran for cover!
These past decades have not been without personal loss and pain. I have lost so many friends in the theater of war that I am ashamed to admit I have lost count.
I have lost most of the hearing in my right ear and 30 percent of the vision in my right eye -- courtesy of a Serbian sniper with a high velocity rifle. Obviously, not a very good sniper, otherwise I would not be telling the tale, but good enough to cripple.
Sebastian Rich
The first prisoners of war taken by the United States Marine Corps during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A large chunk of my lower intestine is missing due to the shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade. I was lucky that the hot shrapnel was slowed down by two Lebanese soldiers standing in front of me. They were not so fortunate.
My sternum is cracked and deformed, once again from a Serbian sniper, this time hitting me directly in the center of the chest smashing the ceramic plate in my flak jacket and crushing my rib cage. Last, but not least, I have experienced being kidnapped in Lebanon and a mock execution in an unpronounceable town in the former Yugoslavia with far too many consonants in its name--particularly difficult for a dyslexic.
Sebastian Rich
Fighters of a warlord in Mogadishu, Somalia. They tolerated me as they fought but as you can see there were those whose burning eyes did not fall too kindly on this photographer.
I am often asked how I keep my objectivity while constantly photographing and filming the worst the world has to offer. Well, I believe we all have an agenda to some degree or another, however subtle. My agenda, if you like, is not left or right of the political spectrum, but in the center of the insanity that I witness. Hoping somewhat (very) naively, that a single image one day might change the course of that conflict, ergo an agenda.
Sebastian Rich
A terribly malnourished Afghan baby boy in a UNICEF Therapeutic feeding center in Herat, Afghanistan. His fate is unknown to me.
Objectivity was ironically summed up for me by my mentor and friend, the extraordinarily talented American combat photographer John Hoagland.
John and I had been trying not to get shot by Salvadoran troops in that bloody civil war by hiding behind a cow. To the left of me was the dead body of a pregnant woman, who had been shot through the stomach revealing part of the fetus. In a moment of calm from the hail of bullets, I lay on my back shaking and asked John, "How do you stay objective in all this horror?" He answered, "It's easy Sebastian. You do something good, I will take your photograph. You do something bad, I will take your photograph."
John was shot and killed just a few weeks later photographing Salvadoran troops doing something very bad. He was 36 years old.
Sebastian Rich
U.S. Army Medics fighting hard to save the life of a young baby girl on board a Blackhawk medevac helicopter in Afghanistan, 2011. She had been hit by shrapnel from a Taliban RPG. Inside an airborne Blackhawk helicopter you can hardly hear yourself think. But I could hear the little girl's screams of terrible pain clearly above the roar of the rotors.
Sebastian Rich's exhibition, which is supported by UNHCR and The Diplomatic Courier, runs at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. from October 2 to October 12, 2012.
Rich will be giving a talk at the Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts and Design in Philadelphia on Thursday, October 4th.
Click here to see more of Sebastian Rich's work and here to view a trailer for Crossing the Line, a documentary about his experiences in Bosnia.
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Leave a Comment:
Mr. Rich. Your photographs are breathtaking, revealing and thoroughly tell the story of war and it's aftermath. You sir are a true success story. You are proof that you don't need a college education to succeed. You found something you were good at and honed your skills. You were able to make a living and not depend on the government to take care of you. You will leave behind a rich legacy with your photographs and stories.
Mr Rich is lucky to have the skills and to thus support himself-------there are those in our society who do not have skills but suffer from disabilities, who we as a society, should help support ----if we allow them to live after birth!!-----------"we are our brothers keeper!!"
Heaveto - what??
Thank you for sending these images to us Mr. Rich. All to often Americans shut their eyes and only see the middle east as this terroizing place full of human waste, but it's so clearly filled with people who have no choice but to live, grow and die young in a war torn nation.
F*ck War.
And these countries still continue their barbarism. The US included.
Why do we do this to each other? We're all human beings who feel pain the same way, both physically and mentally. Why are our military leaders always so eager to play the war game? Is it a battle of testosterone? Dispute this all you want, but our generals (and others at the top) are always champing at the bit to put our troops' military training into practice, as if it's a "waste" if we don't use it. And don't forget all the cool new weapons of destruction that we need to try out. I'm so tired of war being some kind of "game" to prove who's the biggest power. The blood and loss of life are all too real and I, for one, am sick of it.
Stories and photographs such as these should remove all romantic childhood ideas about the nature of war.
Why are we so quick to "rattle or sabres" and act all macho when these beautiful/startling photos so graphically reflect the true price of war?
"It is good that war is so terrible, else we would get to like it." Robert E. Lee
US invasion of Iraq, Yemen, Afghan, and Pakistan have brought death and destruction to the poor and primitive people of the region. These people do not know from whence or where the White Soldiers came. But they do know the White Soldiers are to be feared.
The White Soldiers descend from war birds and transported by powerful heavy machinery. They herd the local people into groups for interrogations. The suspicious ones are subjected to brutality and arrest. Some never to return. Properties are destroyed, mutilated or confiscated. People hide from the heavily armed terrorists.
In Iraq, Afghan and Pakistan, there are no pictures of little girls crying in horrific pain, burnt from Napalm, running down the rice paddies. The White Soldiers have perfected the shrapnel and thermbaric bombs, having spent hundreds of million dollars in R&D at the nation's high-tech laboratory and universities.
Tens of thousands of mothers and fathers who lost their children and thousands orphans and relatives have pledged a new purpose in their lives: The killing and driving out of the White Soldiers from their land. Mothers who lost her children have vowed to be suicide bombers to avenge their death. Likewise, Fathers who lost family members joined the insurgent forces. Extremists have easily harvested nationalists and the victims of the White Soldiers for a jihad war.
Too much blood and tears have been shed in Iraq, Yemen, Afghan, and Pakistan. America will not see peace for a hundred years, courtesy of the Military Industrial Complex, war lovers and hate mongers.
Heartbreaking images, that we should all see. War is ugly, and it needs to be seen. And, maybe in the future mankind will get wiser and recognize that war is senseless, destructive and is the cause of much suffering.
Wallstfatcat. Shame, Shame, shame on YOU! How dare you spout such utter nonsense. These people were killing each other before we ever got there.
'Too much blood and tears have been shed in Iraq, Yemen, Afghan, and Pakistan. America will not see peace for a hundred years, courtesy of the Military Industrial Complex, war lovers and hate mongers."
If you really are a wall st fat cat you would be one of the profiteer's who are making a killing on the wars.Your post is the most hateful thing I've seen today. Guess you know what you are talking about.
Good thing he was able to work without a degree. Your an idiot.....
There appears to be two levels of bravery-------one if you have a 'gun in your hand' and the other if you have 'a camera in your hand'-------!!!!
Lance, not that you have the intelligence to understand but when Adam and Eve broke Gods trust in the Garden of Eden we as a race were cursed with free will. We make our choices and pay the price for same. When God saw how badly this was going he sent his son Jesus to teach us to love one another. Look what we did to him. We are responsible for the death and destruction. God cannot save us.
You speak of intelligence yet you place all of your eggs in a basket of two thousand year outdated thought.
The bible is a collection of stories intended to be a guide on how to live in harmony with our fellow man.
It is also a useful tool to keep people in there place. The nobles in their castles no doubt found it useful to keep the peasants from climbing the walls killing them and taking their women and gold.
The rich love to see you tithe so that you stay poor. Any self made millionaire will tell you it is saving or investing that 15% that will elevate you to the next class.
Those who us who realize that we are truly in control of our own destiny do not need saving.
I'm a photographer, but no way do I have that kind of balls. Weddings are terrifying enough. He has my complete admiration.
Please, everyone, pray for Peace! It doesn't matter what country you live in or what your religious beliefs are, I think we are all programmed at birth to be warm, calm creatures. How do we turn into such monsters in the name of God? I'm humbled by the images I see here. God bless you Mr. Rich.
Why didn't your God help that little girl before she was shot? Was he busy talking to Sarah Palin?
Amen Auzziegirl!!! The pictures are so amazing and the wrath of war and the humane suffering is on black and white. We all live in this wonderful world. I'm with you, we ALL need to pray for peace for ALL mankind. Deb from Utah
Miss Sydney, I believe in the warm and fuzzy part. But there is no proof of the religious part. If everyone just lived by the motto to help one another whenever possible we'd all be good with each other. The problems arise when one people want to control another people. Like sharia law.
I do like Austrailia though. I've been all of the world and I can hoinestly say Aussies are the nicest people we have befrinded. The Irish are not very far behind.
I think Shakespeare said it best -- "Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner"?
Sir ... your photos are worth way more than 1000 words. I just wish more people "read" them.
So much pain and suffering inflicted upon the world in order to help George W. Bush not look like the inept President that he was.
Congrats GCV for being the first person to enter in politics. It was our government that started El Salvador right? What about the one in Somalia, Bush clearly started that one too. While a lot started under his watch, a lot happened off it too. There is plenty of blame to go around, but to put all the worlds suffering on one person is ridiculous. I hope you dont vote.
Breathtaking and Heartbreaking and the same time. Why do children have to suffer because of adult stupidity?
These show the true cost of war--what a rich legacy you have shared with those who do not often see the "real" side of war. You are to be commended.
The war is a crime!
All war is a crime.....
Terrorism is a weapon of the poor, a war is a weapon of the rich. Profiting from it, even as a photographer, is just as criminal, as the war itself.
ALL war is a crime against Humanity.
Thank you for sharing and taking those pictures... Wow.
99% of the humans in this world wants peace throughout this world. Us 99% really need to do our share on reaching that goal for all.
Rich man's war. Poor man's blood.
Always, common sense. That has always been the case. Always.
Truly astonishing photographs taken by an extremely brave man only wishing to supply the world with truth and not political rhetoric. Thank you Sir!
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it" ..... Albert Einstein
It's comments like the one you posted that has started 2 World Wars and countless other wars and death of millions of human beings. One death begets another . . . where does it all end??? Certainly not with that philosophy.
Intelligence has limits while ignorance is boundless. Thanks for proving the theory. So I guess when evil rears its head, you are one of the cowards who stand by, watch and do nothing? The USA could have stayed out of WW2 and not retaliated for Pearl Harbor. So now all of our history books would be written in German or Japanese or both and the freedom you have to post your opinion on this forum would be all but a dream and not a reality.
Wow Blue Dog-
Hope you have no issue with the ghosts of Nanking, Aushwitz, the Jews of Western Europe, hundreds of thousands of Slaviks, Gypsies, undesireables such as Gays and Writers and Political Activist and Catholic Preists and...
Yes, sometimes war is necessary when idiology goes amoke and removes common reasoning and decency.
As a society, we must work to end all wars. Prayer is the only answer, as humans are hell bent on killing each other. God bless you, Mr. Rich.
Wrong! Nothing fails like prayer! It is the abrogation of responsibility, and of handing those over to an imaginary friend and father figure. This mis-firing of the limbic system is one of the primary causes of war, strife, and poverty in the world. It is precisely religious delusion that's at the very core of the human misery and killing we see right in these photos. When -- oh when -- will my species finally grow out of its childhood stage of credulity, shed these nonsensical ancient superstitions and realize there is no supernatural daddy-in-the-sky, and that we must learn to firstly be our brothers' keepers?
As long as God occupies a portion of our thoughts, mankind must be content to suffer the hatred and antagonism of man." ~ Joseph Lewis, 1920.
God is our HOPE. Anyone who expects him to do it for you is an idiot. Nothing fails like prayer without action. To sit on your hands and expect a miracle is nonsense and not in the Bible. The book says work for the betterment of the world and believe. We the People are responsible for the actions of our Government. Take responsibility. Take Action.
That last picture is heart wrenching. I've seen a lot of bad things in my life, first hand, and second hand and I can never, never, get over the witnessing of children who suffer at the hands of those that they should be able to trust the most. Adults.
I don't care who you are, where you come from or what you believe once someone harms an innocent child on purpose far as I'm concerned they're target practice.
Looking into the face of that beautiful little boy who is starving and suffering so much, is enough to make me want to line up all of the adults who have done this to harm and torture him and just, just go at them with my bare hands. Primitive sounding I know, but it is difficult for me at least, to try to explain in words what seeing pictures like these does to ones mind and heart. Borderlands, target practice will do, as you said. This poor little Soul could/is most likely have passed on by now without any intervention to ease his suffering. That picture does more than break my and any decent human beings heart.
Mr. Rich, thank you, for showing the world the true and most gut wrenching realities of mans inhumanity towards one another. And I ponder, what a most terrible thing to thank someone for. Isn't it? Man will never learn the true sufferings and sickest, mind-bending tortures of war other than through pictures and stories like yours. I will never forget the face of that little boy. Carry on your brave work, and know you are teaching/showing the world the stark, human costs of hatred and war and how the most innocent and helpless among us suffer.
Maybe the day will come when we stop finding new ways to hurt one another..... For every action there is reaction. Unfortunately human beings do not take heed .....
BEFORE people start talking war and making comments to "kill our enemies" or "drop the bomb" they should look at these pictures of horror and devastation to human life. It's so easy to say "go to war" from an armchair inside your cozy little house, isn't it?
So true
You may have a different feeling if you had a loved one in the towers or at the Pentagon or on flight 93. What is your solution to having an act of war perpetrated on the USA? Send them money?
I also believe we had to act. Sadly that is the way things are done. Still after all these centuries and all the lives lost. There has to be a better way but as long as cowardly 'leaders" like BinLaudin hide in holes in the ground, they must be searched out and destroyed. We as a people must find a better way .
Should be required viewing for all the chicken hawks, armchair generals, and neocons in Washington
wow,
looking at the replies, i guess people never looked to history. i read searing pictures and had to look.
is this what passes for "SEARING"?!
no you want to se a searing picture, look at this!!
http://www.thedreamlounge.net/you-will-be-shot/
yea, i bet you think it is a porno pic, but it was a picture of a NVC being excuted during vietnam.
THAT IS A SEARING PICTURE!!
the photos above arent searing, they were mildly interesting at best.
one more searing pic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/02/girl-vietnam-napalm-photo-peace
this is a girl who was running from her village that just got napalmed and some landed on her.
there are even more searing pictures coming from the drug wars in mexico, severed heads and dismembered bodies, and that is just 3 hours from me.
They make their point. So, back off a bit. You may be a bit nore jaded than the others. I know I grew up with the images of the Vietnam war streaming into the living room every night. What people are exposed to now in the mainstream media is pretty tame. Being startled into thinking about war and its consequences is not a bad thing, no matter what the "sear-level" of the photos.
By the way, what was even more horrifying was watching the video of that VC soldier being shot. The general just walks up and unceremoniously shoots him.
It's much worse to have those images seared as part of your childhood. I'm originally from El Salvador. I wish somebody had been there to show you all a 6 year old kid climbing over dead bloated bodies. I don't know how I didn't go insane.
Independent, I also remember the video of the soldier being shot. It was absolutely horrifying. This is terrible, but I remember thinking the blood pumping out reminded me of the way water spurts out of a drinking water fountain. I was old enough to know what had happened yet young enough to only be able to describe it using those terms. Even now, I cannot think of a different way to describe it. My uncle was in the Air force on his 3rd tour there and even at that young age, I was so afraid that was going to happen to him.
This got in the wrong article some how.
Not all US Military are meant to do the right thing! there are always bad a s s people seek army, police other source of power to spread their evil messed up way of thinking and influence and message.
Same s h i t goes in our schools, some love to be the bully, not sure what do they get from it!whatever it is pleasure, power, if F u k up
Once we discover those wrong people in the wrong place, we should immediately get them out so they dontspread their deseases on others
Your pictures tell a sad story of life in the countries you have been to. Thank you for shaing them with us! We have it so good over here under most circumstances!!
very sad photos in a so called civilized world of 2012
That s very brave for someone to capture & share those photos with us today, my question is: why did it waited this long? what's the purpose of bringing those pictures back to live after decades now?
it s good to be reminded of what goes on out there! what so sad is no matter what we do! there will always be bad, evil people who will make this place a worse place possible and what we can do is keep fighting it because it works all the time.
Bad people dont get it but that s what they were meant to do and it only brings the best out of you and that s what God loves the most.
Heros
What's the purpose of bringing these pictures back to life?
Why do you ask, are you uncomfortable with OUR part of the evil?
Apparently God's love doesn't include the people in those photos. But you would rather have them buried someplace in order not to face truth in your face.
With your reasoning we shouldn't keep seeing and publishing the atrocities of VietNam or WWII. But we do.
What I meant Rasputin: why F u cking wait for decades to show those pictures now? what good does it do now when those pictures were suppose to be out to public during their time it happened and when indeed it was effecting others at that time!
As I said no matter how old those picture gets, it s good to be reminded sometimes of how evil it gets with some evil peple/ placed!
and Yes I am uncomfortable with that part of evil and if it was up to me with a big Army on my side, I will chase evil any where any time before it effect others.
and F. the UN/NATO, to me that s just a dirty place if you have power! you mean something! but if you dont you mean nothing! and little is done to your problem! like when US came up with pictures and tapes showing Sadam have Nukes. When in fact hundreds of Palestinians are been killed by the Israeli army and no one can say a word, when Syria citizens are been killed and nothing has been done, when ruwanda totsis massacre are nothing has been done until they lost alomst all population and more....
With me, you could be whom ever you are as long as you are not abusing power, but if you are abusing it you will have problem with me, but too bad I dont have an army on my side to deffend the weak and innocent people
To Butch, the first poster in this blog:
Are you taking the lines that Mitt uttered in that infamous video?
You mean that EVERYBODY can survive without the government helping? You implied elitist comment is revolting. Not everybody can have some skills that save his life, this man has them and he took advantage of them, many others fall by the wayside through no fault of their own. But you expect them to tough it out without help from anybody, because you are, apparently, no part of the 47% who are freeloaders. Right?
How can anyone see these pictures of children suffering and believe that war ever has a purpose?
It has a purpose, power and money. Ask Bush.
A picture is worth a thousand words. [WAR] Wasting All Reason...without purpose.