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Framing the story in Afghanistan

04 May 2021 1 min read

The Times’s art directors succeed with the lead photo from an article on the war in Afghanistan

The New York Times just published an article by Thomas Gibbons-Neff about the U.S. wrapping up our military presence in Afghanistan. It’s a fascinating piece, particularly noteworthy for the writing style: it has no straight narrative or clear message, and is anything but propulsive. The piece is meandering, scuffing its shoes on the pavement, a little uncertain how to fill an afternoon — a perfect mirror to the state of affairs at the base, it seems.

But what really caught my eye was the lead photo of the piece:

Photo of soldier in military aircraft, as seen in the New York Times article “Day 1 of the End of the U.S. War in Afghanistan“ — Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

From an art direction standpoint, the photo is astounding. The flag rolled up on the soldier’s back tells four layers of the story just in itself, but then we also have the soldier looking away from the Afghan population to underscore our departure. And the whole countryside is framed by the helicopter: our entire view of this country has been seen through a military frame for twenty years (fifty years?) and here now is a perfect visual distillation of that.