Zalmaï

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Zalmaï left the country after the Soviet invasion in 1979. He travelled to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he became a Swiss citizen. Following his passion for photography, Zalmaï pursued combined studies at the School of Photography of Lausanne and the Professional Photography Training Center of Yverdon. In 1989, he began to work as a freelance photographer, traveling the world and eventually returning to Afghanistan, where he continues to document the plight of the Afghan people. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Time, the New Yorker, Harper's, and Newsweek. He has also worked for a number of nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations Office On Drugs and Crime, and UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.