Photographs explore war-torn Afghanistan
by Brian Shults

    Tom Pennington was sent to Afghanistan last November after the events of Sept. 11 to take photographs of the country for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

    Now Pennington is exhibiting photographs he was commissioned to take in Afghanistan on SE Campus.

    Pennington's objective was to tell the story of the countrys war-battered legacy through the expressions of the indigenous peoples faces.

    He wanted to capture America's imminent attack across the desolate landscape and bring it all back home to North Texas.

    It was tough being neutral, in order to do my job, after being in New York to cover 9/11 and smelling and tasting death and then going to Afghanistan and smelling and tasting what death is like over there, but I tried to remain objective in my work,Ó he said.

    Pennington is displaying what he saw and photographed in Afghanistan on SE Campus, from Sept. 5-Oct. 11 on the walls of the Art Corridor II.

    The exhibit, entitled Afghanis-tan: A War-Torn Land, is curated by John Frost, SE gallery organizer, and is free to the community.

    After receiving his assignment from the Star-Telegram, Pennington flew to Washington, D.C., London, and then Pakistan before having to be smuggled across the border into Afghanistan by heroin drug-smugglers.

    Getting into the country was chaotic and nerve-racking because all the journalists were working in Pakistan along the border trying to figure out how we were going to get into Kandahar, he said.

    Journalists had gotten into Kabul because it had already fallen, but no one had gotten into Kandahar, he said.

    We heard reports that there was fighting and looting along the roads and that no one could make it in alive. There were trucks still being bombed in the attack. Finally you just have to roll the dice and try to find the biggest, baddest person you hope can get you in alive, he said.

    Sneaking into the region unscathed proved to be a surmountable challenge, but once there, Pennington was forced, out of necessity and respect, to acclimatize himself to the foreign culture.

    He donned the traditional male Muslim garb in the radical conservative areas and on holidays.

    His blue eyes and light-brown hair were not obscurities in the region. The faces of Afghanis were as diverse as anywhere, Pennington said.

    The most obvious difference to him was the absence of women and the overbearing presence of tremendous firepower, including rocket launchers and an array of machine-guns.

    After a few days you just get used to it. It's just the way things were, and you began not to think twice about it, he said.

    Pennington's photos conveyed the way of life he spoke of.

    One particular photo features a close up of a child's face, eyes centered straight ahead, probably knowing no other way of life but war.

    A similar photo depicts a child armed with bullets strung over his back like a book bag.

    The plight of the people, and especially of the women, is also apparent in a scene where an older woman buries her head in her lap.

    Her face remains unseen, but her hands are visible, almost touchable because the color of the bruises and cracks in the skin are so vivid.

    The most personal moment for Pennington surrounds two related photos captured on Christmas Day.

    I photographed a 15-year-old boy in a hospital with his parents while he was dying, he said.

    He was injured while playing that afternoon with some unexploded ordnance, anti-aircraft rounds, basically large bullets. He had one explode in his face, he said.

   The first photo depicts the child horizontally on a stretcher, his bloody feet at the forefront and his face hidden near the rear of the picture because of the perspective.

    The child lies surrounded by his family and a doctor.

    The boy died in the hospital, and Pennington followed the family to watch them bury him.

    It is Islamic custom to bury the dead before sundown and Penning-ton's next picture captures the family during the burial.

    The sunset is dimming over the horizon as the parents dig the hole; their movement causes their images to be blurred while they stand in front of the sun.

    After I took those photos, I had to call my wife and parents on the phone to wish them a merry Christmas and try to act happy. That was the hardest day, he said.

    The trip was arduous, but he would not hesitate to go back if given the chance, Pennington said.

    I think often it's difficult for us to understand what it's like over there because of their different culture and religious beliefs, but it's important for the Western world and America to see what is going on there, he said.

    Not all of Pennington's pictures are gloomy and without hope. One photo shows a man praying over shallow graves after a short rain with a rainbow cast behind him.

    Pennington said it was a grave and a place for fallen Taliban, where their sympathizers went to pray.