Peter van Agtmael's Journey Through War

Hell on Earth
Like many of his contemporaries, American Peter van Agtmael felt compelled to cover the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. No matter what war may mean to the soldiers, civilians and politicians caught up in its fury, for photojournalists it has always offered an opportunity to make great pictures. Yet as soon as he began his work, van Agtmael discovered that "the labels that had heretofore defined my perceptions of the world became meaningless ... A lot of my ideas proved to be misconceived, and I began wondering why they had become beliefs at all — why there weren't more answers, or why there were so many." In this photograph, a supply helicopter lands at the Ranch House, a small U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan.

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