Photo Credit:
Farzana Wahidy
 
Photo Caption:
Afghan women take a break after visiting the Shrine of Hazrat Ali in Mazar-I-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009. 
 
Note on Photographer:
Farzana Wahidy says she got into photography by accident. Unusual for someone who has already made her place in history as the first professional woman photojournalist in Afghanistan. 
 
"I think of photography as an international language which everyone can read. I love it because I find it a way of expressing my feelings," she said in an interview with Smithsonian Magazine. 
 
Once armed with the camera, she began telling stories of women and children with an insider perspective in a country ranked as the worst places in the world to be a woman. She hasn't shifted her primary focus ever since.