Photos: Emilio Morenatti

I am not sure how I missed these when they were first published on the Denver Post site, glad I went wandering around and found such a wonderful set of unusual and atmospheric images, Emilio Morenatti is a photographer I will follow in the future

Emilio Morenatti began his career in Spain covering both national and international events. In 2003, he traveled to Afghanistan as a correspondent to cover the war and the fall of the Taliban for the Associated Press. He was sent to the Middle East to cover the conflict for the AP in 2005. In 2006, while covering the conflict in Gaza City, he was kidnapped by gunmen before being released unharmed a day later. He is currently based in Pakistan and covers Central Asia for the Associated Press. He was named 2008 Newspaper Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International. Below is a collection of his images from 2008 and so far in 2009.

A Pakistani Kushti wrestler washes himself after a training at the Champion Khalu Behalwan wrestling club in the Old City of Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008. Kushti, an Indo-Pakistani form of wrestling, is several thousand years old and is a national sport in Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Hamas security officers stand guard as thousands of Hamas supporters gather during a rally in Gaza city, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007. Hamas marked the 20th anniversary of its founding with a huge rally Saturday, sending a message of strength and defiance even as it is struggling to keep Gaza afloat. (AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti)

An Afghan man carries a bundle of balloons as he walks along a street on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 27, 2008.   (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Pakistani men pray at Waseer Khan mosque during Friday prayers in Lahore Pakistan, Friday, March 13, 2009. Pakistani officials appealed Friday to the opposition to join talks aimed at resolving the country’s political crisis, even as police stepped up a crackdown on activists trying to reach the capital for a planned anti-government protest. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A Pakistani vendor hangs a poster of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at his shop in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday Feb. 13, 2008. Pakistan’s ruling party expressed confidence Wednesday that it will form a new government after next week’s parliamentary elections, despite surveys pointing to a strong victory by President Pervez Musharraf’s opponents. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Pakistani court scribe Ruhman Khan, uses an old machine to type forms at his lawyer’s office in the Civil Court of Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, March 18, 2009. For two years many lawyers regularly clashed with police, staged hunger strikes and walked off their job to pressure the country’s rulers to reinstate the deposed Supreme Court chief justice fired by Musharraf in 2007. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s announcement that Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would resume his duties as the chief justice on March 22 headed off a political crisis that threatened to destabilize a government facing a teetering economy and rising Islamist violence. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

a Pakistani lawyer runs away from tear gas fired by police officers outside the residence of the country’s deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mahmood Chaudhry during a protest in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti/FILE)

There are about 50 images in this gallery and all are worth your time

Photos: February 2013 in Afghanistan

A large selection of images gathered by the always excellent Denver Post

Afghan villagers attend a protest against U.S. special forces accused of overseeing torture and killings in Wardak province February 26, 2013. More than five hundred men marched through the capital of Afghanistan’s restive Wardak province on Tuesday in an outburst of anger against U.S. special forces accused of overseeing torture and killings in the area. A U.S. defence official in Washington said a review in recent months in cooperation with Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry and National Directorate of Security (NDS) intelligence agency found no involvement of Western forces in any abuse. REUTERS/Mirwais Harooni #

In this Monday, Jan. 14, 2013 photo, female members of Afghan special forces, first row, pose for a picture after attending in a practicing a house raid on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s army is training female special forces to take part in night raids against insurgents despite cultural taboos as foreign combat troops take the backseat ahead of their eventual departure at the end of 2014. In a country where women traditionally are expected to stay home, their participation in the special forces is breaking new ground in ultraconservative Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

An Afghan refugee, center, stands while a group of men make their way along a muddy path of a slum during a rainy day, on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, Feb. 4, 2013. Pakistan has been hosting hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees dating back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan three decades ago, thousands of them still live without electricity, running water and other basic services. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) #

Afghan farmers work at a vegetable field in the outskirts of Jalalabad on February 17, 2013. The economy of Afghanistan can be categorised as poor and unstable as it lacks proper industrialisation, there is a lack of well-developed manufacturing and infrastructure facilities, and it is dependent on foreign aid and assistance. Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images #

An Afghan man flies his pigeons over a rooftop in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Ahmad Nazar) #

An Afghani woman walks in front of the Sakhi shrine during a snowfall in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday, Feb. 4, 2013. Kabul has been experiencing below freezing weather and snow for several days. (AP photo/ Ali Hamed Haghdoust) #

See all of the images from the Denver Post here

Giles Duley: ‘I lost three limbs in Afghanistan, but had to go back … ‘

Photographer Giles Duley was nearly killed after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan. Back home, fighting for his life in hospital, he made himself a promise: to return to Kabul to complete his mission of documenting the savage toll that war takes on civilians……..

This is his story. From The Guardian

A few months earlier, I sat in the searing heat of Sudan with Gino Strada, the charismatic chainsmoking surgeon who set up the Italian NGO Emergency, discussing the plight of civilians caught in the Afghan conflict. I was visiting their project in Khartoum, documenting their groundbreaking Salam Cardiac Centre. Over dinner, Gino told me about the work Emergency was doing in Kabul. I had shied away from Afghanistan because I felt so many great photographers were already working there. I’ve always said that if I get somewhere and there’s another photographer there already, I’m in the wrong place. My main interest has been the untold stories of human suffering around the world. However, as Gino explained, with his typical Italian passion, about the plight of civilians caught up in the years of conflict, I realised it was a story I had heard little of. So I resolved at that point to go and document Emergency’s work there, and I made that promise to Gino……….

Seven-year-old Ataqullah at the Red Cross limb-fitting centre in Kabul. A year before, while walking to school, he’d stepped on a landmine, losing an arm and leg. Photograph: Giles Duley

While on this embed, one cold morning in February 2011, I stepped on an IED (improvised explosive device), which had me fighting for my life in intensive care for the next two months and left me a triple amputee with only one arm intact……….

Giles Duley with Afghan boy Sediqullah at the Emergency hospital, Kabul. Sediqullah’s hands were damaged when he played with an unexploded fuse. Photograph: Neil Bonner/Minnow films

Read all of this moving and powerful story here If you can’t read there will be a documentary on the tv Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline will be shown on Channel 4 at 10pm on 21 February

Afghanistan: April 2012

From The Atlantic Magazine

“For nearly three years now, I’ve been posting monthly photo essays on the war in Afghanistan, and a question I hear fairly often is, “Why do you do this?” My intent is to continue to focus attention on what is actually happening on the ground — far from policy debates or speeches. As long as we, as a nation, are sending thousands of men and women into harm’s way and tasking them with acting on our behalf in a foreign country, we need to be aware of what we are asking them to do, what their lives are like, and what the lives of the Afghan people are like. This is true even if the conflict has been going on for more than a decade — and even if we don’t all agree on whether we should be there at all. As of April 12, 120,000 soldiers from 50 nations are committed to Afghanistan, with 90,000 of them from the United States. All are working toward the planned 2014 withdrawal. Gathered here are images of those involved in this conflict over the past month, as part of the ongoing series here on Afghanistan.”…MORE PICTURES

A firefighter sprays water on a burning fuel tanker in Kabul April 23, 2012. The cause of the blaze is unknown and police are investigating. (Reuters/Omar Sobhani)

An Afghan woman looks into the camera in Mazar-i Sharif, capital of Balkh province, on March 30, 2012. Mazar-i Sharif means “Respected Shrine” but the city is known by tourists as the city of the blue mosque which is located in the center of the city known as the Shrine of Hazrat Ali. (Qais Usyan/AFP/Getty Images)

Georgian soldiers and a translator greet Afghans traveling on the major supply route while on patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan.(US Army/Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey Duran)

A Marine MRAP sits on a patrol base in Helmand province, run by 5th ANGLICO and Co. A, 31st Georgian Light Infantry Battalion. The Georgians’ mission is to provide security for the local area and a main supply route.(US Army/Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey Duran)

U.S. soldier Nicholas Dickhut from 5-20 infantry Regiment attached to 82nd Airborne points his rifle at a doorway after coming under fire by the Taliban while on patrol in Zharay district in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, on April 26, 2012.(Reuters/Baz Ratner)

More pictures here