Category: Contests

At 24—the same age as many of the soldiers he would go on to document—van Agtmael began the project during an embed with American troops engaged in heavy fighting around Mosul, Iraq. “As an American of the generation shouldering these wars, I feel a strong responsibility to document their cost,” says the photographer, whose lens captured everything from violent firefights and days-long foot patrols to the rehabilitation of those maimed by war. ”Over the course of my lifetime, I intend to keep returning to [these conflicts] to create a comprehensive document.”

a slide show of van Agtmael’s images, along with those of Massimo Berruti, who won the W. Eugene Smith fellowship to continue his work on Pakistan. “The Dusty Path,” Berruti said, is a project “about a nation trapped between violence and political corruption. A trembling giant on the brink of a deep abyss.”