Joey L. Creates Portraits of Female Guerrilla Fighters in Kurdistan

An American-based photographer, Joey L., published a blog series, Guerrila Fighters of Kurdistan, featuring Kurdish volunteers fighting a civil war in Syria for independence. All the images were taken in the spring of 2015. They depict the guerrilla fighters, mainly women, fighting for their land which is divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

“During my initial research, I couldn’t help but notice that there were many theories as to whom these Kurdish guerrilla groups were. The foreign press often romanticized the females in their ranks as fearless warrior women, while some of my Turkish friends suggested that they were terrorists, operating more as opportunists in a bloody war. I set out to uncover the truth, or at least to better understand the nuances behind the headlines. Portrait photography has a strange way of humanizing even the most distant of situations, and that was my goal with this project,” stated the photographer.

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Also Joey L. published a short documentary featuring creative process.