The Photographer

In 1986, during the Soviet-Afghan war, French photographer Didier Lefèvre traveled into Northern Afghanistan with a team of doctors and captured more than 4,000 images of the land, the people, and the devastation. Years later, Lefèvre’s friend, graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert, encouraged him to share his story. The Photographer (2009), originally published in France, is the result of a collaborative effort between Lefèvre, Guibert, and colorist Frédéric Lemercier. With Guibert’s captioned cartoons bridging the narrative gaps between Lefèvre’s black-and-white photographs, The Photographer graphically recounts a harrowing expedition “into war-torn Afghanistan” to bring humanitarian aid to people caught in the crossfire.

The book opens with an introduction by Alexis Siegel. In broad strokes, he outlines the conflict between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, which began in 1979 and pit Afghan insurgents—the mujahideen—in guerilla warfare against the government of Afghanistan and the Soviet army. The fighting occurred largely in the countryside, leaving a path of destruction and bloodshed through rural communities with few resources, medical or otherwise, to deal with the damage. The French organization “Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), or “Doctors without Borders,” took it upon themselves to deliver medical aid to the war’s forgotten victims. To raise awareness—and funding—for their cause, Juliette Fournot, the organization’s founder, enlisted 29-year-old photographer Didier Lefèvre to join a team of doctors to document the urgency of their missions.

Lefèvre’s story begins in Normandy, France, where he says farewell to his mother and leaves for his three-month assignment in Afghanistan. In Peshawar, Pakistan, he meets Fournot and the small group of medical professionals with whom he will travel. Because they will cross the border into Afghanistan illegally and on horseback, Lefèvre exchanges his clothing for customary local dress and receives a riding lesson. His dubious horsemanship skills earn him the nickname “Chapandaz.” Fournot and her team are familiar with the terrain they will cover, having undertaken a number of previous missions there; they warn Lefèvre that the landscape and altitude are taxing, and he will lose weight.



The MSF team dons chadri (robes worn by Afghan women to conceal themselves) and enters Afghanistan alongside a mujahideen arms caravan, because “the only viable solution, to protect yourself from racketeers and kidnappers, and also from the Soviet army helicopters, is to join the arms caravans. So we have … 40 AK-47s against would-be thieves and two or three shoulder-fired missiles against the helicopters.” For their safe passage, the team also relies on support from all manner of Afghan men with whom Fournot has established trusted ties or otherwise skillfully negotiates: village leaders, nomads, rich landowners, and warlords. They travel through mountain passes, arriving at an open plateau. On a previous mission, Soviet helicopters ambushed the team as they crossed here, killing a crew member, but this time, they cross uneventfully. After a month-long journey, they arrive in Yaftal, their destination.

Nearly the moment the doctors set up their make-shift hospital, people arrive in need of medical attention. One of the first is a boy who burned his foot in a bread oven. Two men appear, both wounded by a single AK-47 bullet. The incoming flow of warzone victims continues: a boy who has been shot in the arm, another boy disfigured by shrapnel, a man whose mangled legs require amputation. When need be, the doctors tend to patients at night, wearing miners’ headlamps as they operate. Considering the severity of the wounds they treat and the crudeness of their working conditions, Lefèvre asks one of the MSF doctors, Régis, why he chooses to work in such a destitute place. Régis replies, “The basis of medicine, whether here or in France, is always the same, it’s clinical observation, the study of symptoms. … And you won’t find a better school for that than practicing in a sanitary wasteland, like what we do here.”

When bombs strike Pustuk, a nearby village, Lefèvre grabs his camera and follows the doctors to the town bakery, which now shelters the wounded. After snapping up a roll of film, he learns that one of the doctors, John, has been called to a villager’s home to examine a young girl. According to her father, she has not moved since the bombing occurred. Lefèvre joins John inside the dimly lit room where the girl lies, but stops taking pictures (and here, once again, Guibert’s simple drawings recreate the narrative moments not caught on film). Although the girl has no apparent wounds, she cannot stand. John looks her over carefully, and, pointing to a small dot on her stomach, tells Lefèvre, “It’s a hole. A fragment of shrapnel got in there and cut the spinal cord. That means she’ll never walk again.”



While Lefèvre’s graphic memoir foregrounds the raw suffering he witnessed on his mission with MSF, it also contains striking images of Afghanistan’s remote landscapes and offers glimpses into the culture of its rural population. Fournot explains that the chadri women wear, although seemingly oppressive, actually permit women to go out in public with a sense of security. The MSF doctors respect this cultural practice, and, whenever possible, leave their female Afghan patients fully clothed while caring for them. Lefèvre learns that to avoid provoking suspicion, or worse, it is best to identify himself in ways that match Afghan assumptions about a European man—as a practicing Christian, a husband, and a father (although he is only the first of these).

After three months, Lefèvre’s film supply is shot, and he decides to leave ahead of the MSF team. Fournot strongly objects, fearing for his safety, but Lefèvre departs for Pakistan with four guides to accompany him. The guides have little interest in their job, and one morning, he wakes to find they’ve abandoned him. He continues alone on horseback. Although he worries about landmines as he passes through the mountains, it’s exhaustion that assails Lefèvre. Certain he is done for, he takes a picture “to let people know where I died,” but a passing caravan rescues him. They repeatedly demand money from him as they journey onward, so Lefèvre is relieved to arrive at a village where Fournot has connections. The village chief outfits Lefèvre with a reliable guide, and he finally reaches Peshawar, after a brief stay in jail on trumped-up charges. The MSF team arrives the next day. Lefèvre returns to France, and a photograph of him in Blonville with his mother concludes the book.

Didier Lefèvre traveled seven more times to Afghanistan. In 2007, at age 49, he died of heart failure. That same year, The Photographer received the Essentials of Angoulême award.