This contribution is really something! MANY thanks to Teru Kuwayama and Balazs Gardi! They have sent me this image from an upcoming book.

Back in the 1980′s I went to school with this odd punk kid named Teru Kuwayama.  Teru could take one hell of a photo and thankfully got possibly the only portrait of me back in those mohawk days.

Now over twenty years later Teru is a well respected photographer and journalist/ war corespondent currently working in Afganistan. Along with several others Teru has started a media project called Basetrack.org which chronicles their work. I won’t even try to explain it but you must go see it. You can learn a lot about the war in Afghanistan. basetrack.org

This photo collage is the work of Teru and Balazs Gardi the tattoos are from the US Marines and Corpsmen with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines in Helmand Afghanistan 2010-2011.

Here’s a formal bit about the two photographers…

Teru Kuwayama is a photographer from New York. His work over the past decade has focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir. He was the 2009–2010 Knight Fellow at Stanford University and is currently a 2010 TEDGlobal Fellow and a 2010 Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. He received a 2010 Knight News Challenge Award to launch Basetrack: One-Eight.

Balazs Gardi is a photographer based in Mexico City and Dubai. He first traveled to Afghanistan in 2001, in the first days of Operation Enduring Freedom, and has repeatedly returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan since then. He has received the Prix Bayeux War Correspondents Award and the Alexia Award for World Peace. His ongoing project, Facing Water Crisis, documents water related crises and conflicts around the world.

Marine Tattoos Helmand Province 2010 - 2011 Kuwayama - Gardi