Photographer Max Becherer's Haifa Street portrait
over at the New York Times Baghdad Bureau blog is accompanied by a
reflection on a country and conflict he has covered for years.
Of his photo, he writes:
Mohammad Raheem looked out the window of his home and showed me
where the blast shattered his windows four years ago to the day. The
shards went flying through the room where he slept on the floor with
his wife and three children between them, he told me.
Mohammad’s face was cut by the glass and so were the legs of his
small daughter. He sat down on the simple wooden bench looking
shattered by the memory of the blast.
In 1/30th of a second the moment passed. Teba, Mohammad’s
nine-year-old daughter, ran from behind her mother, who was listening
out of sight in the hall, to her father. I raised my camera in
anticipation of human contact.
Mohammad embraced his daughter and was momentarily relieved of the
burden of his experience. My gut told me of the intimacy of the moment
I had witnessed and I knew I had what my crew and I had spent all day
looking for.
"Being a photojournalist covering Iraq today," Becherer writes, "takes everything I have
ever learned about photography, Iraq and the human experience and
applying it to an event that has turned all of those things on its head."
Recent articles on Electronic Iraq:
