Picture Story: Seeds of Renewal in Afghanistan

In two decades of shooting for magazines, Paula Lerner has been drawn repeatedly to women's issues. Four years ago she learned of the Business Council for Peace, an NGO that helps women in war-torn countries rebuild their lives by establishing small businesses. By 2005 she was on her first volunteer mission for Bpeace, documenting its work with women entrepreneurs in Kabul, Afghanistan. Three trips and 18,000 photographs later, Lerner's multimedia feature, "The Women of Kabul," appeared on washingtonpost.com last November.

"From both a journalist's perspective and an activist's perspective, [the project is] doing all the things I hoped?telling important stories and helping bring some attention to Bpeace," Lerner says. She adds, "Being a journalist and an activist is most important to me, but if I can, I also want to make art in the process."

Lerner's project focuses on the five women who suffered tragedy and dislocation under the Taliban. With the help of Bpeace, they now operate various small businesses, including a women's fitness center, a baby clothing company, and a child care center. The photographs capture a mixture of hope, determination, anxiety and confidence among the women?and considerable beauty too.

Getting to know the women and their stories took time. "When tragic stories are involved, it's not like you just knock on the door," she says. Lerner's first trip to Kabul was postponed after unrest there and a health crisis at home: she was diagnosed with breast cancer. By December 2004, she was well again and her Bpeace team leader offered her a place on the next trip.

"The first thing I did after I recovered from treatment and went back to work was get on a plane and go to Kabul. Difficult as the trip was, it was very life-affirming and put my illness in perspective," Lerner says.

The Bpeace project was particularly gratifying because she wasn't rushed by deadlines, and so she was better able to connect with her subjects. "One of the frustrations of being a photojournalist on assignment is that you parachute into somebody's life, connect briefly and then leave," she says. "It makes a big difference to commit to being there for the long haul, and it really shows in the quality of the results you get."

Lerner faced a variety of technical challenges along the way. Electricity was unreliable, and power surges posed a threat to her gear. Dust was another nuisance. "There's dust every where, in everything," she says. "On the second trip, one of my zoom lenses stopped zooming because of dust." Anticipating technical breakdowns, Lerner carried two of each critical item, including digital cameras, laptops, digital recorders and microphones.

Security was another issue, she says. Since single women are frequently harassed and threatened in Kabul, Lerner didn't venture out without an Afghani man?usually her fixer, Najib Sedeqe?to protect her. She also dressed like an Afghani woman, wearing baggy trousers, a long tunic and headscarf. Although she had cameras dangling around her neck, many people assumed she and Sedeqe were working for the local TV station, she says.

Finally, Lerner had to cope with logistical issues. "One of the frustrations of multimedia is that when you're in the field, you're a one man band," she says. "Whenever you're recording, you see some great picture you're not taking." To help solve that problem, she trained Sedeqe to help record interviews and ambient sound. "He really increased my productivity," she says.

While she was working on the story, Lerner pitched it just about everywhere she could think of, but found no takers. Then, while attending an NPPA Northern Short Course in New Jersey last March, she ran into Tom Kennedy, managing editor/multimedia at washingtonpost.com.

"I told him what I was doing, and we sat down with a bunch of my pictures. He said, 'This is really good work. Let's work together on this.' I was thinking about multimedia already, and I was going to approach him anyway. It was a serendipitous coincidence."

Kennedy says it was clear to him that while Lerner was passionate about her subject, she wasn't presenting PR images of the situation. "It was a judgment call I was comfortable making because I've known Paula 15 years. The issue was the women's stories, not [Bpeace] or even NGOs in Afghanistan."

Kennedy put Lerner in touch with Nancy Donaldson, who became project producer. "I picked her brain before I left [on the third and final trip] for tips and information," Lerner says. Donaldson offered technical advice, as well as suggestions about "which parts [of the women's stories] to emphasize, what to include and what to leave out," Lerner explains.

Taking a massive pile of pictures and interviews and creating a Web-ready story was an enormous undertaking. Donaldson did the heavy lifting on whittling down the photographs and audio clips, Kennedy says. The whole production effort took about six months. In the end, "Women of Kabul" included an introductory video, six slide shows with voiceover, a transcript of an online discussion and an essay about the project's genesis.

"The Post was very conscientious about being transparent that I was both a volunteer and a journalist," Lerner says. "That's one of the reasons they had me write 'About This Project.'"

Kennedy reports that the response from viewers has been positive. "Really well done visual content allows people to see the universal in a human story even when the specifics are far from their experience. The anecdotal feedback so far suggests? that people were moved emotionally by what they saw."

ASMP chose the multimedia story as one of the best of 2006, and a segment of the project?a photo essay on the child care center one of the women started?won an honorable mention in the 2006 International Photography Awards. Lerner plans to return to Kabul this year to continue the work for Bpeace.

See Lerner's project online, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/interactives/afghanistanwomen/. E-mail: paula@lernerphoto.com.