Afghan Election in Pictures

From New York Times:

Lynsey Addario, a freelance photographer who has been taking pictures in Afghanistan since 2000, returned recently to shoot photos of the campaign leading up to the presidential election on Aug. 20. Ms. Addario says she has never seen Afghans as excited about an election. “People are talking about change, people are talking about who might win,” says Ms. Addario, who is represented by VII photo agency and whose work appears regularly in The Times. [For campaign picture, click here]

Ms. Addario began photographing President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in December 2008 and has also photographed the two leading candidates running against him, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and Dr. Ashraf Ghani. Last weekend, she took pictures of President Karzai at a campaign rally in Baghlan, the first time she had photographed him outside the palace. At the rally, Ms. Addario says, she and other journalists were roughed up by the president’s security guards. “They basically came off the helicopter with the president and just beat up all of the journalists,” she says.

In an audio slide show, Ms. Addario discusses this most recent assignment, the first since an automobile accident in May that killed her driver and left her with a broken collarbone, and talks about the challenges of working as a female photographer in a conservative Islamic culture. Her pictures accompany a Times Magazine article about President Karzai and his campaign.
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I would recommend taking a further look at the NYTimes blog that includes many great pictures on various topics, from many places, including those from Afghanistan and Pakistan.