Photographer Monika Bulaj's Quest to Find the Hidden Light of Afghanistan

Image Credit: DVIDSHUB

"Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice." - Marie Colvin, War correspondent

As a documentary photographer, I enjoy discovering amazing visual storytellers who inspire me to seek authenticity in my work. One such storyteller is Monika Bulaj. A documentarian, photographer, and journalist, Bulaj has traveled to many countries in search of truth to shed light on the stereotypes often told by mainstream media's single story. In this short but compelling TED talk, Bulaj gives us a glimpse into her work documenting the aftermath of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Responding to questions about what compelled her to embark on this journey, Bulaj says:

This is the tenth year of a sick war and we still don’t know what’s coming next, or how the population lives in spite of our military presence there. We are dazed by all the propaganda and the indifference of the Media. This is why I went. I wanted to see things as they really were: not through the bullet-proof glass of an armoured vehicle, not as an embedded journalist, but as an Afghan sees things on the street. I wanted to feel people’s fear, to be as vulnerable as they were. Never losing hope that all this will end some day.

On what she set out to accomplish:

I have been walking and traveling, by horses, by yak, by truck, by hitchhiking, from Iran’s border to the bottom, to the edge of the Wakhan Corridor. And in this way I could find ‘noor,’ the hidden light of Afghanistan.

You can find more of Bulaj's work on her website.