The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
Sept 2015 back issue
by Martin Alan Smith
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt is part of an ongoing project exploring the impact that the group ISIL or
Daesh has had on the people and territory of Kurdistan. It touches on the Peshmerga soldiers who are fighting them,
the refugees who are fleeing from the group and finally the people who live under the constant threat of attack.
A mother and her child shelter from a sandstorn in Khazir refugee camp which was a transit camp for people fleeing
from ISIS. The camp was home to 700 mostly Muslim people. It is now abandoned because of it's proximity to the front
line.
An Erbil resisdent attends the call to prayer at a Mosque on the outskirts of Kalak.
Traffic police patrol the intersections at night in Northern Iraq.
A modern shopping mall in Erbil designed to cater for wealthly western oil workers.
A young boy sells fruit juice on the streets of Kurdistan.
The wreakage of a car that was used by a suicide bomber while he detonated his explosives killing 2 Peshmerga
soldiers in Kirkut.
The shopkeeper of a Christian Church in Qaraqosh which is east of Mosul has been a safe haven for up to 2000
Christian refugees who fled from Mosul. The town is now under the control of ISIL.
The Christian town of Qaraqosh. Before ISIL issued an ultimatum for the Christian residents to either convert to Islam,
pay a large amount of money to stay or be killed.
Wedding dresses and Qaraqosh resisdents in the Christian town. They were all made to flee before ISIL took over
control of the town.
A restaurant worker prepares for the evening trade despite Erbil being under the threat of attack from ISIL.
Khazir Refugee Camp.
A cafe on the outskirts of Kirkut.
A Peshmerga Soldier patrolling at the front line in South West of Kirkut in Iraq/Kurdistan in an area called Taza which
is the Bashir front line between the Kurdish military of the Peshmerga and the ISIL.
Evening prayers finish in the Cathedral of St. Joseph in the Ankawa district of Erbil.
In the cool temperatures of the evening, the city of Erbil comes alive and people enjoy a local theme park.
A Peshmerga stationed near the town of Gwer, which has been fought over several times by ISIL and the Kurds.
A Yazidi child and his family who escaped ISIL and Mount Sinjar now live under a motorway bridge in Duhok.
The local children and kids from the Bilal refugee camp in Kalak, 40km from Duhok, compete to jump from the highest
point of a bridge. The bridge is near a Yazidi refugee camp.
A girl in the CO77 Behrka Camp that now houses Shia Turkomen refugees from Tal Afar.
