Pictures I Simply Love

Photography can be often so powerful. Those snapshots that are usually made in somehow a fraction of a second can be quite affective and life-transforming. They have the ability to draw a variety of emotions. They control your feelings and can easily put a smile on your face or even let you shed a tear or two. They might also work as reminders of what it was like to live during sometime in the past.

Throughout time, some photographers recorded astonishing life moments and saved them in the world’s memory. I happen to have a collection of favorite pictures, but the followings are certainly my best.

Do you remember this face? I know I do. This green-eyed Afghan girl was photographed by the world’s famous Steve McCurry during the Afghan-Soviet War. I hear Afghan people have the most expressive faces. This picture proves it all, I guess. The look on her face tells the so-long agony of a whole nation.

This picture reminds me of how we Muslims have become so vulnerable, so fragile. An old Palestinian woman struggles to save her tree from an Israeli soldier in a tank who is obviously attempting to destroy it. It saddens me when I see this old lady clinging so hopelessly, so deseperately, to what seems so precious to her. It is upsetting. It is anger-inducing.

I am perplexed every time I look at this picture. It is heartbreaking, hopeful & provoking all together. It reflects the miserable reality of thousands, if not millions, of Arab children living under poverty line. This charming, Syrian little girl sets an example for many of us of determination and hardwork. Apparently, the girl manages to do her school homework while selling sweets to passer-bys. The picture, taken by photographer Wasim Kheir Beik, was awarded The Best Picture for 2007 by The Association of Arab News Agencies.

This photo is the most touching, most heartrending I’ve ever seen. A female child struggles on her way to reach a UN food camp during the Sudan famine back in 1994. Obviously, the child stops to rest from her long crawling journey not to realize that she is being stalked by a starving vulture.
The picture was taken by Kevin Carter who was soon awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Best Picture of the Year.

Only a week later, Carter committed suicide leaving a note to the world:
"I am depressed ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners...I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."