The Photographer pairs the work of French photographer Didier Lefèvre with the art of Emmanuel Guibert to create a haunting, suspenseful, and memorable story about a 1986 Doctors Without Borders mission into the most isolated and war-torn areas of Afghanistan.

The narrative will keep you turning the pages (but be careful, the book is over-sized and a bit heavy! :-) and it's perfectly woven throughout the images - seamlessly providing a story in both words and images. The use of multiple media in the telling of the story results in the reader quickly becoming emotionally connected to the doctors, guides, community warlords and leaders, and the patients - many of whom have suffered horrific injuries. The journey the mission takes from Pakistan is beyond arduous, beyond dangerous, and beyond beautiful.

What I found most revealing about The Photographer was how dangerous Western hubris can be in a climate and culture as remote and different as this one. Lefèvre, a savvy, open-minded hiker in better than average shape, is the weak link in his group - not just physically but in his ignorance of how unlike France, and even Pakistan, Afghanistan will be. To his credit, he's a quick study who tries to adapt (and the people he meets love having their photos taken, so that helps to bridge barriers!) but his failure to adapt his Western style thought and behavior patterns to the realities of the landscape, political climate, and social norms nearly results in his demise. If anything, this is the most valuable lesson any of us can take away from his story and his work.

i've always thought that afghanistan is the most spectacularly beautiful place i've ever seen in photos, so dramatic and expansive. this book is an incredible mix of photos and drawings documenting a doctors without borders trip from the personal perspective of a photographer.

Nunca tinha ouvido falar deste livro. Ofereceram-mo e foi uma surpresa total. O livro é o impressionante relato de um trabalho fotográfico do fotógrafo francês Didier Lefèvre (falecido em 2007) acompanhando uma missão dos Médicos Sem Fronteiras em plena guerra do Afeganistão em 1986.
A particularidade do livro é o seu formato - é uma graphic novel (pelo desenhador Emmanuel Guibert) que nos mostra toda a aventura real de Lefèvre, intercalada com as suas fotos e folhas de contacto. Desta forma é possível não só ver muito boa fotografia, mas também ter acesso ao processo criativo de Lefèvre e acompanhar todos os detalhes da história que estão 'por trás' das fotos.
O livro é impressionante e imprescindível. Foi uma das minhas maiores e melhores surpresas deste ano.

A simple journey, that isn't so simple. Amazing use of mixed media, combining the photographers images with the illustrations and story. Somber moments permeate, and small chords of situational humor find their way or the surface. Some interesting moments of what happens behind the wall of war to those caught up in it and on the sidelines.

This is a memoir in a graphic novel format with some actual photos included taken by the author. If you need to flesh out your knowledge of Afghanistan, this seems like a good choice to have on your list of informative books to learn about that terrible country.

I'm glad to have discovered 'The Photographer' on my library shelves and I highly recommend it to folks wanting a look at Afghanistan from a travelor's viewpoint. I have the greatest respect for the Doctors Without Borders organization and this book will win more admirers for them. Although the book was about a trip during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan I don't believe it is out of date except things are probably worse now in 2012, the year I am reading this innovative and informative comic.

If there is a hell on Earth, Afghanistan is it. Didier Lefevre tells an unbiased, even-handed account of his journey. My opinion from reading these pages is that Afghanistan is a horror. The social infrastructure and culture that appears in these pages shows an extremely corrupt and rotten society. One telling aspect of this society which reveals the underlying sadism is how travelers pass dead, exhausted donkeys and horses on the dirt roads. All human necessities for survival are almost completely unavailable. An ancient and religious environment obviously is not adequate on any level to lift a society up from depravity and deprivation.

The comic book format is amazingly good and makes for a great memoir.

A combination of photos and a comic-style narrative, this book is the shocking and beautiful story of a French photographer's trip to Afghanistan in the 80's with a group from Doctors Without Borders. Be warned: two graphic photos of gunshot wounds, but the book is worth the memory, and encapsulated in the memory.

Its the travelogue of a photographer who tagged along on a Doctors Without orders trip into Afghanistan in the mid 80s. The individual parts (drawings, pictures and writing) are mostly average, but they fit together very well and make it engaging (sometimes intense).

Cette série de romans graphiques en est une de très grande qualité. Le style documentaire qui mélange les photographies et la BD est tout simplement génial. C'est très très très bien fait et cela nous permet d'avoir accès à des lieux auxquels le commun des mortels n'a pas accès. Le DVD inclus dans ce 3e tome est un beau bonus qui permet de mettre encore plus d'images sur les missions en question. Du bien beau travail!

4/5stars

FASCINATING graphic narrative - super interesting use of comic and photography

This book resonated with me particularly because of its format. I was an enthusiastic film photographer in high school ("was" because my college doesn't have the resources, aka a darkroom, for me to continue my love of developing and printing film). It was a comfort to me to examine Lefevre's contact sheets.

The book as a whole, though, was an amazingly well-put-together compilation of writing, artistic recreations of Lefevre's memories, and Lefevre's own photos, in contact sheet form. (For those who aren't film-minded, a photographer makes a print of every exposed frame on his or her roll of film at once to make a contact sheet. The images on the contact sheet are the same size as the film itself and, unlike the negatives, are tiny versions of how the images would look when printed.) The combination of these elements gives the reader a sense of the depth and complexity of Lefevre's experience and the lives of those in Afghanistan in general.

The Photographer is unlike other nonfiction graphic novels in that it includes a large number of photographs taken at the time of the story. The photographs serve as the visual element for about a third to a half of the total panels in the book. These photographs keep the reader grounded in the story and prevents the reader from thinking about the story as a fictional one, or from growing too distanced from the characters and events involved. The photographs truly sucks the reader into the book and keep him or her close to the story from beginning to end.

While the photographs were what made this graphic novel stand out to me, the writing and illustrations were also very well-done. It's clear that Guibert and Lemercier put in the time and effort to tell Lefevre's story in detail and to do it the justice it deserved.