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415.867.9615 vic@victorblue.com |
Shir Gul adjusts his cap after washing a car for money on the shores of the Qargha Reservoir outside Kabul.
Back in Afghanistan for the next 6 weeks. Embedded with the 3/3 Marines in Helmand, and the 1-71 CAV and 101st Airborne in Kandahar, until the end of August. Gonna be a long hot summer.
Afghan Cell# 079 411 7105
From the US- 011 93 079 411 7105
Holla at me.
Edith Willingham, center, is surrounded by family and friends outside the home she shared with her husband, deceased miner Bennie Willingham in Corinne West Virginia Tuesday April 7, 2010. An explosion in the Upper Big Branch mine, a Performance Coal operated and Massey owned mine, claimed the life of Mr. Willingham and at least 24 other miners. Bennie Willingham, 62, had been a coal miner for 30 years, and was only 5 weeks from retirement. CREDIT: Victor J. Blue for the Wall Street Journal
Went to West Virginia last month to cover the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster for the Wall Street Journal. Long days, Read more »
Starting to catch up. I won a POYI a couple months back for the work I did in Afghanistan last summer. Nice thing to have happen, even nicer to get it in the company of folks like Matt, Brian, Rachel, Marcus, and of course ABD…
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I moved to Ohio back in the fall. Might be time to catch up a little around here.
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After my embed, I spent a few days shooting a story on day laborers in Kabul. So strange, exactly the same situation as in the US- out of work men, standing on street corners, hoping for just a few hours of work. The unemployment in Afghanistan is rampant, there is almost no economic development, and it all provides kindling for the insurgency.
Day laborer Abdul Moihd, 23, rests with other laborers in the cheap hotel where he sleeps after a day looking for work at the Chowk-E-Kut-E-Sangi circle in western Kabul, Afghanistan Tuesday June 16, 2009. Abdul is from the district of Chak in Wardak province, an area where Taliban militants operate freely. He has come to Kabul seeking work to help support his family at home. According to a report by the Asian Development Bank, unemployment in Afghanistan is an estimated 40% of the labor force. Day laborers like Abdul have little other options for work in a country where chronic unemployment is believed to contribute to instability and fuel the Taliban insurgency.
http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/victorblue/gallery/Kabul-Day-Laborers/G0000rhY_8tol7oo/
A dog lunges at a soldier of 1st Platoon Charlie Co. of the 2/87 Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade 10th Mountain Division based at COP Sayedabad as he searches a house during an air assault on the village of Lachikhel in the Tangi Valley in Wardak province, Afghanistan Friday June 5, 2009.
Pictures from an air assault into the Tangi Valley with 1st Platoon, Charlie Co., 2/87 Infantry, 3/10 Spartan, up on the archive now. Give them a look.
Currently in Afghanistan. Embedded with 3/10 Spartan in Wardak and Logar.
Afghan mobile # 0795942678
from US: 01193795942678
Holla.
Abel Bartanas, center, pats the head of a sikh child as Sikh faithful march through South Stockton in the 11th annual Sikh parade in Stockton CA Sunday April 19, 2009.
Stockton’s annual Sikh parade was last month. I was excited to get to cover it again. 15,000 Sikh folks parading behind the holy book and handing out food to everyone in south Stockton, what’s not to love.
So I am following along, trying to find the picture that says what I want it to about the parade- that got behind the exotic look of it, that communicated how all these cultures, all these people from all these worlds come crashing together in the worn streets of this town, part of the striving that is the real story of Stockton. I was drawn to the families sitting out on their porches, lining the sidewalks, watching all these men with long beards and swords and women in the blazing colors of their punjabi outfits stroll by. I stopped for just a second in front Abel and his families’ house. As he reached out, I reached up, and made a picture of a connection; brief, fleeting, but it was there.
Photographed a Passion Play put on by the youth group at St. Gertrude’s here in Stockton. It was fun watching them get all dressed up like jesus and his persecutors. I love youth group. I was the president of mine in high school.
Sandra Abundiz, 20 left, prepares with other youth group members before a passion play at St. Gertrudes Church in Stockton CA Thursday April 10, 2009.
The Sandra Cantu story has been a tough one. It was so sensational, but so sad at the same time. Tracy seems shellshocked by the whole thing. Unfortunately, it will probably only get more out of hand as the trial gets underway. I only covered a little bit of it. People were really affected by her death. This vigil the night after she was found was strange, people genuinely moved enough to come out, leave flowers, hold candles. No media coordinators or PR people. Just overbearing tv reporters with those weird headlights on their cameras muscling through the crowd.
Maria Ramirez, right, remembers Sandra Cantu, 8, at a vigil in her memory in Tracy CA Tuesday April 7, 2009.
