Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

This young man has a slingshot around his neck. Anyone with a camera in hand was considered fair game for Afghan little boys with slingshots, rocks, or chunks of dung. Most of the time it was a grand game, and in the end I usually had cordial relations with my young hosts. This picture was taken on the day before my departure from Afghanistan, three days before the Teraki coup, which overthrew the Daoud regime and brought a Communist Party to power. My friend the late Abdul Wassey Noorisher told me point blank that a coup was coming and that I should leave the country for a while. My photographs of Swat were taken at this time.


The Slingshot

Haddah (near Jallalabad), Afghanistan, 24 April 1978, 35 mm Nikon, 50 mm Nikkor lens, Ektachrome 200 film, Dye transfer print 1984, �Luke Powell, 1996.