The Art of Manliness - #106： Photographing War & Conflict With Robert Nickelsberg

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.700 Well, today on the show, we have a veteran photojournalist who has spent his career in

00:00:22.100 some of the most dangerous parts of the world, capturing moments for newspapers and magazines.

00:00:26.940 His name is Robert Nicholsberg, and he spent his career in some really crazy places, Nicaragua 0.98

00:00:32.340 during the conflict that happened there during the late 1970s, in India, Pakistan, and he

00:00:37.540 spent a great deal of time in Afghanistan after the Soviet Union began withdrawing their

00:00:42.640 troops back in the 80s.

00:00:44.220 And he's been there all the way through 2013 and seeing what was going on there with the

00:00:49.780 U.S. missions there in Afghanistan.

00:00:51.760 Anyway, today on the show, Robert and I discuss the life of a photojournalist and someone

00:00:57.320 who, particularly a photojournalist, spends his time in some really scary places.

00:01:01.820 We talk about how you become a photojournalist, how you got into it, if you're interested in

00:01:05.360 that, what you need to do, what drew him to that, was it the adventure?

00:01:09.120 We talk about what Afghanistan was like before 9-11.

00:01:12.100 We also talk about what manliness means to Afghans, what he gleaned from that, from being

00:01:16.980 so up close and personal with them.

00:01:19.260 It was a really fascinating discussion, I think you'll really like it, so let's go

00:01:23.560 on with the show.

00:01:27.980 Bob Nicholsberg, welcome to the show.

00:01:30.240 Thank you, Brett.

00:01:30.760 Very nice to be here.

00:01:31.780 So, you are a veteran photojournalist and you've spent a great deal of your career in Afghanistan.

00:01:38.020 How did you become a photojournalist and how did you end up in Afghanistan, of all places?

00:01:43.520 I became a photojournalist in the late 70s as a freelance, starting out in New York City,

00:01:52.440 learning the ropes, starting from the ground up, struggling to sell individual prints, individual

00:02:00.300 pictures.

00:02:01.660 I spent some time in Washington on Capitol Hill learning how that process functions for the

00:02:09.300 media.

00:02:09.540 It's very disciplined and quite different than the rough and tumble street side of being

00:02:15.920 a photojournalist.

00:02:17.660 And then I ended up in Central America in 1979.

00:02:22.120 I had an interest in Nicaragua and particularly the Sandinistas and the conflict brewing there

00:02:32.860 with General Somoza, who was a strong U.S. ally.

00:02:36.900 So, I became interested.

00:02:38.100 I've always been interested in current events and enjoyed traveling and photography certainly

00:02:44.380 fit the bill.

00:02:45.940 So, it seems like you've been drawn to places where there's conflict.

00:02:48.640 I mean, was it just the sense of adventure because, you know, like some of the great

00:02:53.240 writers like Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, you know, they started their careers as reporters

00:02:58.460 or they spent some of their careers as reporters in the front lines of conflicts and they were

00:03:01.960 just there for the adventure.

00:03:03.580 Was that you or were you just generally interested in what was going on here?

00:03:07.440 No, the sense of adventure needs to be in any profession really to do it effectively.

00:03:12.060 But I enjoyed recording the historical moment and the more time I spent at it, the closer

00:03:19.980 I could get to it.

00:03:21.560 You could almost put your arms around it and then see it published the next day.

00:03:25.780 So, I did have some idea of there's a result from all this effort, whether it's a day's

00:03:33.320 assignment or a two-week project.

00:03:35.020 And as far as Afghanistan goes, I moved to India for Time Magazine in 1987-88, coming from

00:03:44.980 Southeast Asia, and knew that this was a very historical moment in context of the Cold

00:03:52.960 War, the end of the Cold War.

00:03:54.340 The Soviet Army was in place in Afghanistan.

00:03:56.500 A lot of Arab jihadis were also filtering through there, and there was also the beginning of

00:04:04.840 the Kashmir conflict inside India, also dependent on the Pakistani political situation, martial

00:04:11.300 law in Pakistan and Bangladesh, a civil war in Sri Lanka.

00:04:15.380 South Asia was very busy, and it was not on the radar screen the way it is today.

00:04:21.640 Thankfully, Time Magazine had an Asian edition out of Hong Kong, which we could publish regularly. 1.00

00:04:28.880 But aside from the Cold War issues with Gorbachev and Reagan, it was very difficult to get the

00:04:37.140 Afghan conflict into publication in the U.S., but I was able to follow it all the way through,

00:04:43.840 and the last trip there was in 2013.

00:04:46.620 I lived in India for 12 years.

00:04:48.880 Wow.

00:04:48.980 What was your first trip like to Afghanistan?

00:04:52.660 Because you were there when the Russian started, or the Soviet Union started withdrawing, correct?

00:05:00.980 Yes.

00:05:02.280 Prior to that, in 1987, there were no visas given during the Russian Army occupation in Kabul.

00:05:10.600 Very few.

00:05:11.620 And also, if you did get to Kabul, you were very closely monitored.

00:05:18.980 So in 1988, my first trip was in January, across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan for

00:05:28.460 a funeral.

00:05:29.300 And there was still the Mujahideen were fighting the Russians and the Afghan army.

00:05:35.540 But there was a truce for the burial of a very well-known Afghan politician from during

00:05:42.540 the British Empire days prior to 1947.

00:05:46.060 And there was a funeral in the eastern city of Jalalabad in January of 1988.

00:05:52.700 That was my first trip across with a visa and my passport.

00:05:57.220 And prior to that, you had to go in, cross the border, I guess you could say illegally, but

00:06:04.020 go in with Mujahideen and you would be off for a week, two weeks, a month, whatever.

00:06:09.240 Very haphazard.

00:06:10.480 But in this case, I realized that the story was going to change once the Soviet Army had

00:06:16.600 announced that they were going to withdraw.

00:06:19.120 And they were going to do that in public.

00:06:21.440 And they allowed journalists to come in in May of 1988 to cover that withdrawal.

00:06:26.500 But the first trip that I had in January of 1988 at this funeral in Jalalabad, halfway through

00:06:33.760 the funeral ceremony, there were two very, very loud explosions in the parking lot off

00:06:39.700 in the field about a quarter mile away.

00:06:43.100 And obviously, it was a set explosion and created complete panic and pandemonium.

00:06:50.240 Close to 20 people were killed.

00:06:53.020 And everyone lost their driver.

00:06:54.940 You couldn't figure out how to get home, back across into Pakistan. 0.91

00:06:59.080 So my first trip in was face-to-face with a violent situation, yet you had to maintain some

00:07:10.080 composure and record it.

00:07:13.600 And then three months later, I applied for another visa and got into Kabul for the first time in

00:07:21.240 March, April, May.

00:07:24.340 Those three months, we were able to get a number of visas to go in and spend time there.

00:07:31.220 When you were there at the beginning, what was it like to be a photographer?

00:07:35.700 Because if I remember correctly, there were rules, particularly with the Taliban, about no photography.

00:07:41.600 You can't take pictures of people or something like that.

00:07:44.580 You can take pictures of stuff.

00:07:45.820 Well, the Taliban came out of the Mujahideen, which came out of the Afghan army, the Communist 0.97

00:07:53.380 Party of Afghanistan, which came out of the Soviet occupation.

00:07:56.460 Pictures were not prohibited in those years from 1988 to 1996 when the Taliban came in. 0.63

00:08:06.040 In fact, taking pictures of women is frowned upon, and that was true in those years prior to the

00:08:16.200 Taliban.

00:08:17.400 But generally, Afghans like to have their pictures taken.

00:08:21.900 The Taliban initiated these very strict guidelines in 1996.

00:08:28.400 And yet, off the side, Taliban would like to have their pictures taken as soon as their 0.95

00:08:34.300 leader or their officer would go off.

00:08:37.460 You'd hear a whisper, please take my picture.

00:08:40.460 So there was a bit of hypocrisy there.

00:08:44.040 But if you were careful and tried to be as unassuming as possible, you could work, not in

00:08:52.560 all situations under the Taliban.

00:08:54.220 But generally, the Afghans are not camera shy.

00:08:57.280 What is it about, like, why do they want their picture taken?

00:09:00.660 Like, did you show them the pictures?

00:09:02.220 Or, I mean, this wasn't the time of digital cameras where you could show them right away.

00:09:05.380 Right.

00:09:05.760 No, they were very unfamiliar with outside media.

00:09:08.800 They had one government radio station, one government television station, one newspaper.

00:09:14.360 And when you have barely 30% literacy in that country, and it's 80% agricultural, wherever

00:09:22.660 you go, there's really no concept of publishing or having your picture seen is often done from

00:09:33.240 a marriage, from a special situation, an anniversary of some sort, a graduation.

00:09:40.020 Maybe Afghans had their pictures taken then, but there were no photo labs.

00:09:44.980 There were very few wedding photographers, for instance.

00:09:49.500 But they enjoy having an image of themselves.

00:09:55.000 And this sort of confirms their identity, if you will.

00:10:00.720 I never found it completely impossible not to work there.

00:10:07.700 It became very awkward at times.

00:10:13.320 The reporter could interview, but I couldn't photograph in many situations.

00:10:17.580 So it became a challenge to go out into the general public and to try to work that way, rather

00:10:25.400 than photograph a leader during an interview, for instance.

00:10:28.440 But the reporter could record them and take notes, yet I couldn't function in official capacity.

00:10:37.640 The minister of justice, who was a very strange fellow under the Taliban, would not allow photographs,

00:10:43.700 yet he spoke clearly into a microphone.

00:10:45.880 So you just have to accept those ground rules.

00:10:49.340 Yeah.

00:10:49.660 So how did things change from after 9-11 and the occupation of, you know, the beginning of

00:10:57.320 ground forces, U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan?

00:11:00.300 What was the change like from before and after?

00:11:06.160 Quite extreme, actually.

00:11:07.840 The Afghans were very happy to be unshackled and to be much freer with their daily lives.

00:11:15.880 And they knew that under the Taliban regime, it was an unnatural situation.

00:11:22.660 And they put up with it.

00:11:24.200 Afghans are survivors in every sense of the word.

00:11:29.360 But they love music.

00:11:31.200 They love dance.

00:11:32.340 And they don't like to be bossed around.

00:11:34.520 And those were many restrictions that they had to live with under the Taliban.

00:11:40.200 Those were gone.

00:11:40.900 And generally, Afghans like Americans.

00:11:44.620 They find them happy, easy to talk to, and easy to steal from.

00:11:49.820 Because Afghans are very clever and they're constantly looking for ways to take advantage of you, often in a humorous way, but then also in a very direct way if you cross the line and don't understand their culture or their traditions.

00:12:08.220 Did that ever happen to you?

00:12:10.120 Did that ever happen to me?

00:12:11.520 Yeah.

00:12:12.600 Did you have something stolen from you?

00:12:15.900 I did.

00:12:16.820 I had some cameras stolen at a press conference in 1997 at a base of military command, an Afghan military commander, when the Taliban were coming up close to Mazar-e-Sharif up in the northwest.

00:12:31.840 And I left some cameras behind the room, went out to get some fresh air, and came back, and the cameras were gone.

00:12:39.400 And I created a – and this was in a compound.

00:12:43.500 And they found the people who served tea during the press conference and roughed them up, and eventually they got the cameras back.

00:12:54.580 But you had to be careful.

00:12:58.160 Don't give people the opportunity to steal.

00:13:00.920 It is a great crime, particularly with – Muslims generally don't steal from each other, and the penalties can be severe.

00:13:10.760 They – you know, what the Taliban did, they would cut off a hand, corporal punishment.

00:13:15.940 And other than that, you just had to expect somebody to try to see if they could get something from you, whether you weren't looking or get into your bag or – it's par for the course.

00:13:31.200 But not just Afghanistan.

00:13:32.620 Remember, I worked in South Asia, all the countries have a very similar culture that way.

00:13:37.420 And you have to tip people, and if you don't, they'll try to come back at you the other way.

00:13:45.400 It's just they expect foreigners to give them a tip.

00:13:49.340 And there are certain customs and traditions that if you're willing to take the time, be a good observer, you'll see how the local people function.

00:14:02.160 And they're, of course, robbed, but it's due to ignorance, really.

00:14:08.220 Yeah.

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00:16:32.720 And now back to the show.

00:16:34.560 What's the, I'm always curious about this.

00:16:36.400 Like, what is the status of a journalist like yourself, like in a conflict zone?

00:16:40.920 Um, I mean, how do, how do the, the American troops see you?

00:16:44.900 How does the, the locals see you?

00:16:48.320 Um, cause sometimes it seems like you're sort of in a no man's land at times if you get really

00:16:52.680 in the thick of things.

00:16:53.620 Well, you do have to figure where are you the most secure in a chaotic situation that you

00:17:03.760 don't always obtain an answer or find a solution to that.

00:17:08.940 And that may be what you're referring to, this no man's land, but, um, you certainly want

00:17:15.060 to be around the commanding officer or someone who's giving the orders to find out what they're

00:17:20.900 trying to do or what they're, what the plan is.

00:17:23.320 And then you can go off and see how it's carried out.

00:17:27.480 Um, but you do need to introduce yourself with the Americans.

00:17:33.180 I've been working with American military since the early 1980s in Central America.

00:17:38.060 For me, embeds were never an issue.

00:17:41.040 I knew how to work with the military.

00:17:44.460 It didn't restrict me.

00:17:46.420 It provided the way I looked at it.

00:17:48.680 It provided me with transportation and security to areas I wouldn't be able to get to as a

00:17:54.620 civilian.

00:17:55.620 It does limit you in that you're not able to talk to the opposition, for instance, whoever

00:18:01.780 those people are.

00:18:03.660 But, uh, the idea was to see what the Americans in their big military footprint, what they were

00:18:09.860 doing.

00:18:10.600 And, uh, I would try to maximize my time with him, whether it was a week, a day, a month,

00:18:20.580 uh, living on a base, looking for opportunities to get out on a helicopter, uh, photographing

00:18:28.120 daily life of the soldier, uh, whatever it took to spend time with one side or the other

00:18:35.180 during the main days in civil ward in downtown Kabul, for instance, you needed to know how

00:18:42.300 to get in and out of different neighborhoods, where the frontline was, where to be before sunset

00:18:48.460 so you could get out of that area and how good your driver was, uh, find out who the

00:18:53.960 neighborhood leader was.

00:18:54.820 You had to do a lot of homework and that would help, uh, with the limited amount of time you

00:19:02.040 had in a conflict zone.

00:19:03.160 You have to figure you might be out of there in 20 minutes.

00:19:06.840 You have to start working immediately and then ask for permission in some cases rather

00:19:11.860 than ask for permission first.

00:19:13.660 So you have to be able to juggle that kind of a situation as quickly as possible and, uh,

00:19:21.380 either go formal or go informal.

00:19:23.500 Find out where the communication center would be, for instance, find out where the clinic

00:19:27.400 is.

00:19:28.700 You can always, if you can't work at the frontline, you can work at the clinic where the wounded

00:19:33.320 come back to.

00:19:34.140 So you could do both ideally, but you had to plan very carefully how you would spend

00:19:44.120 your time.

00:19:45.880 You and I have, uh, exchanged some emails about, uh, situational awareness.

00:19:50.860 Um, was that something you had to develop?

00:19:54.480 Like, as you, I don't know, like, did you realize you'd have to learn how to become situationally

00:19:59.640 aware before you went into these places?

00:20:01.860 Or was that something you just sort of developed naturally as a matter of being in these, uh,

00:20:06.940 environments that with, there were always rapidly changing.

00:20:10.520 Um, and how did you go about developing that?

00:20:14.980 I think in a lot of, uh, third world countries, developing countries where I lived, remember,

00:20:20.520 I didn't parachute into places and go back to first world countries.

00:20:25.280 I stayed, uh, four years in El Salvador and you get to know the rhythm of a place as best

00:20:32.440 as you possibly can, what to expect, which is often to expect the unexpected, the spontaneous.

00:20:40.780 Remember where your car is.

00:20:42.280 Don't park your car face in and park your car with the rear so you can get out of there

00:20:46.900 fast, you know, or if you hire a driver, make sure the driver doesn't, you know, spend his

00:20:51.700 time in a restaurant when you most need them to get going, for instance.

00:20:56.160 But, uh, yes, situational awareness, you either have it or you don't.

00:21:00.360 You can get rusty, certainly, if you're all of a sudden covering the flower show for six

00:21:06.840 months and then you drop yourself into a conflict zone, you're going to see that you are a little

00:21:12.340 bit slow getting out of the gate.

00:21:14.580 But yes, uh, one of the beauties and one of the main elements that attracts me to developing

00:21:22.160 countries is how spontaneous they are.

00:21:24.460 It's the unpredictable.

00:21:26.220 It's also the ambiguous, the gray area, the shade, what's going on.

00:21:30.360 Out there and nothing is as clear as we like it here in the United States.

00:21:34.600 Yes or no.

00:21:35.680 It's in the maybe zone that, uh, you're going to find an answer to really what's happening.

00:21:42.860 How long have you been back in the States for a continuing period?

00:21:47.140 I moved back to the United States in, uh, 1999, 2000, but I continued to go overseas and I

00:21:53.460 continued to go to Afghanistan and India, uh, throughout that period.

00:21:58.720 Well, when I was here, um, and the last trip to Afghanistan was in May of 2013 for the last

00:22:06.080 pictures of the book.

00:22:08.320 And what have you done since then?

00:22:09.860 Uh, since moving back to the States, the States, you know, having lived close to 25 years outside

00:22:18.280 of, uh, the U S I'm relatively new to my own country and getting to know it, uh, again, uh,

00:22:27.600 I've, I've worked a lot around the nine 11 issue.

00:22:30.480 Um, once that happened, certainly with the Homeland security department and counterterrorism

00:22:37.460 all the way down to street gangs in, in Los Angeles with the Los Angeles police department,

00:22:44.340 Mark Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13 street gangs from Central America that are very violent here.

00:22:50.420 I found to be a legacy of the time that I spent in Central America, actually, uh, many people

00:22:56.540 who came North as, uh, immigrants, then got pulled into these street gangs after I left

00:23:02.760 El Salvador.

00:23:03.340 So it was a way for me to tie those, uh, environments together.

00:23:08.540 Uh, and particularly now I've, I've worked, uh, quite a bit on human trafficking as well

00:23:16.880 as, uh, Muslims in America on post nine 11, uh, how they handle, uh, being targeted or how

00:23:26.460 they integrate themselves in daily life in the U S um, very much issue oriented.

00:23:33.340 So, um, I'm curious about this and it's okay if you don't have a full answer for it.

00:23:40.260 Um, but you had a chance to be up and up close and personal with, uh, Afghans. 1.00

00:23:47.220 And I'm curious if you observed anything about their notions of masculinity that are different

00:23:52.900 from say in the United States, or was it different from tribe to tribe, or was there sort of an

00:23:59.220 underlying ethos amongst all of them?

00:24:03.340 Well, there's a great amount of pride in, uh, either the tribe or the individual.

00:24:12.260 And there's still from the rural areas to the urban areas, you will see a difference

00:24:21.140 obviously, but they're very independent people.

00:24:24.060 Uh, there's certain sensitive areas that as Westerners, you don't talk about and, uh,

00:24:33.600 particularly about their family or about the women in their family, for instance, you have

00:24:37.300 to be very, very careful about that.

00:24:39.880 Um, and also I noticed that things start off very formally, uh, and within an hour you've

00:24:51.680 made a friend for a very long time and they're looking for ways to see if you can be trusted.

00:25:01.140 Uh, remember there's, the contracts are not signed there.

00:25:04.740 It's, it's done on a handshake.

00:25:06.880 So trust, faith, confidence, um, really has to be built up over a period of time, whether

00:25:15.700 you have a half an hour with somebody or, or, or three, four or five years as a neighbor.

00:25:21.740 Uh, they, they, they want to feel confident about you and they certainly do exert their

00:25:29.600 masculinity over members in their family.

00:25:33.280 Elders must be listened to, particularly the men and women are very often kept, uh, down

00:25:42.780 in a sense, the way we look at gender equality in this country and in Europe, for instance,

00:25:47.840 women are, are, uh, uh, in a not so subtle way looked at as property. 0.99

00:25:53.620 So it's not that difficult for a male to, uh, exert his authority, uh, over his family

00:26:02.720 and particularly women. 0.92

00:26:04.800 Um, it's a complicated issue in that country, gender equality, and it's not easily addressed 0.99

00:26:12.660 in the, in the countryside as much as it might be evident in, in urban cities.

00:26:17.840 That's also true in India and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, all the countries that I worked

00:26:23.580 in recently, as well as the Middle East.

00:26:27.020 So, uh, it, it comes through in different ways.

00:26:32.420 Uh, you can know somebody in Afghanistan for 10 years yet never meet their wife in a very

00:26:38.920 traditional family, or there'll be, the daughters will come out and then eventually you might

00:26:44.060 get to, uh, get to, uh, meet the spouse.

00:26:47.080 There might be more than one and you have to figure out whether or not you can reach out

00:26:51.300 and shake their hand the way we, so, uh, our first reaction is to shake people's hands.

00:26:57.980 Are you there, you wait to see if the woman will put their hand out and the, and the males 0.89

00:27:03.180 are watching this very closely.

00:27:06.480 So, uh, you have to respect that.

00:27:09.900 And I think they, there might be subtle indications that there's a masculinity difference between

00:27:17.880 the cultures and then some not so subtle, the way you cannot intervene if a woman is being 1.00

00:27:23.640 abused or, or pushed around by a male.

00:27:27.600 Well, you pretty much have to go across the street and, and not bother, whereas that kind 1.00

00:27:32.440 of chivalry would be expected here.

00:27:35.240 So it's slightly complicated, but, uh, it's a very good question and point that you raise.

00:27:42.920 So I'm sure there's some folks who are listening to this and we have a lot of younger guys, um,

00:27:48.440 who are like, they'd want to become a photojournalist.

00:27:51.180 Um, if for those guys, what's your advice for them?

00:27:55.260 If that's the way they want their career to be, what's the best way to get started?

00:28:02.260 Well, the best way is to perfect storytelling, uh, whether it's through sound video or still

00:28:09.260 photography, uh, we're all storytellers and that can't be, uh, you can perfect it, but whether

00:28:18.740 or not that can be learned from zero to a hundred, that's one issue that you have to decide whether

00:28:26.000 you're able to tell a story with pictures and how closely you want to work with individuals or do you

00:28:34.240 work better in a studio with objects that don't talk back to you or architectural photography, for

00:28:39.720 instance. But I also think you need to read, do home, do your homework, become as well informed

00:28:46.160 about an issue as you possibly can, and then go out and, uh, try to work from dawn until dusk, work

00:28:55.580 with light, work with the elements, understand the machinery that you have. Cameras are just

00:29:00.260 machines. It's the person behind it. It really has to figure out aesthetics, sequencing, uh, chronology,

00:29:10.840 editing, and all that comes out in the wash as a story and how you present that to editors. So

00:29:18.160 it's a, it's a 360 degree approach and that's not as easy as people think it is. You may have

00:29:28.740 good impulses, good instincts, but you have to get that under control and have strict discipline

00:29:35.520 and a work ethic. Can you have a family with this job? Cause it seems like you travel a lot.

00:29:41.840 Uh, journalism, photography is not great for domestic tranquility, I guess you could say,

00:29:50.820 but, uh, I, I don't have children. Um, I pretty much led the life of a gypsy, uh, until I was married

00:30:00.560 in 2000, uh, but no children. Yes, it is. It, it presents a lot of stress and you better have the

00:30:06.640 right partner. That's all I can add to that really respect other people. And, uh, I don't go to work

00:30:16.540 and come home at five. That's pretty obvious. Um, and nor, nor do other successful photojournalists

00:30:25.640 or videographers or reporters for that matter. It's just not possible. Um, I'm not often around

00:30:34.140 for anniversaries or Thanksgiving or Christmas. Uh, and if that can be established, a relationship

00:30:41.920 will be able to be maintained. So you gotta be upfront with a potential partner that.

00:30:48.640 Uh, it's no secret that I have a bag packed, um, pretty much all the time, or at least I know

00:30:55.140 how to do it with one eye closed. Yes. Well, Bob, where can, uh, people learn more about your work?

00:31:01.000 I would think the best place, particularly with the Afghanistan work is, uh, the book that's

00:31:08.160 recently come out in Afghanistan, a distant war, which is available online, of course, or in bookstores

00:31:14.360 and on my website, robertnickelsberg.com. You can see a lot of the work that's, uh, that I've done

00:31:21.400 over the years. Fantastic. Well, Bob, this has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for

00:31:26.500 your time. Thank you, Brett. Enjoyed it. Our guest today was Robert Nicholsberg. He is a photo

00:31:31.260 journalist and he just recently come out with a book called Afghanistan, a distant war. It's a

00:31:35.780 collection of just really arresting, beautiful pictures throughout his career in Afghanistan,

00:31:41.220 starting in the eighties with the withdrawal Soviet troops, really just beautiful photography.

00:31:46.100 Go check it out. You can find that on amazon.com. And like Robert said, you can find out more about

00:31:50.240 his work at robertnickelsberg.com. Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness

00:31:57.320 podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:32:01.400 artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy the podcast, I'd really appreciate it. If you would go to

00:32:05.560 Stitcher or iTunes or whatever it is you use to listen to the podcast and give us a rating,

00:32:09.620 doesn't matter what it is. I don't care. Just give us a rating that will help us out and give us some

00:32:13.880 feedback and also let your friends know. We appreciate that as well. Until next time, this is Brett

00:32:18.240 McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - March 19, 2015

#106： Photographing War & Conflict With Robert Nickelsberg

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