War photographer Andy Spyra: more than just pictures

Andy Spyra was born in the western German city of Hagen in 1984. After finishing high school he traveled around Central America and Southeast Asia while discovering his passion for photography. From 2007 to 2009, he studied photo journalism and documentary photography at an academy in Hanover. He travels to war zones frequently, typically taking black-and-white pictures on long-term assignments.

The region of Kashmir is the world's most militarized region. The area is claimed by India, Pakistan and China. Roughly 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1989. In 2010, Andy Spyra received the "Leica Oskar Barnack Award" for his long-time project, "Kashmir." "The two boys on the picture know nothing but violence," Spyra noted.

Andy Spyra took this picture of men during Friday prayer at the Blue Mosque of Mazar -i-Sharif in May 2014. The son-in-law of the Prophet Muhamed is believed to have been buried on this site at the 15th-century mosque. That's why it is Afghanistan's most omportant pilgrimage site. Andy Spyra prefers black-and-white photography as, in his view, this accentuates emotions more than color photography.

Even during war, most people try to continue with their daily lives as best they can. Spyra took this picture of a school class inAfghanistan's Mazar-i-Sharif in June 2014. What makes it special are added elements like the blurring caused by the light contrast. "These blurred interspaces bring out emotions," Spyra explains. "I often make use of blurring techniques in order to express myself."

In spite of terror attacks by the Taliban, Afghans continue visit the market in order to do most their shopping. Andy Spyra took this impressive picture in Mazar-i-Sharif in May 2015. He wants to stay away from the actual brutality of the theater of war, and rather present the colorful everyday drama on the sidelines.

Heavy fighting between Kurdish milita and Islamists belonging to the so-called "Islamic State" (IS ) and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front have forced many people from Syria's Kurdish region to flee. Andy Spyra shot this picture close to Faysh Khabur at the Iraqi-Syrian border. Over 220,000 people have already used this crossing to flee the violence.

Whoever makes it out of Syria hopes to find security at a refugee camp close to the border. Depending on the severity of the fighting, the UNHCR registers up to several thousand refugees at the inofficial border crossing every day before distributing them to various camps - making this yet another location on the sidelines of war explored by Andy Spyra.

Spyra tends to stay away from actual scenes fighting, focusing on stories from behind the frontlines instead. But when he took this picture, he was right in the middle of events at the frontline Ras al-Ayn in northern Syria. Here, Kurds fight Arabs, Turks fight Kurds, Islamists fight Christians, and all of them fight the regime. "From a distance, the war is almost inscrutable," Spyra noted.

In June 2011, Andy Spyra witnessed a funeral in Al-Qosh in Iraq, where 98 percent of the population is made up of Christians belonging to the Syrian Catholic Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church. IS held the city in its control from August 2014 until October 2016, forcing many of the Christians to flee their homes.

Andy Spyra traveled numerous times to Nigeria where he photographed roughly 80 women and girls who had been kidnapped by Boko Haram. These were his first posed portraits. It was important to him to not present them as victims. "But I think I reached my own limits there as a photographer. There was still so much that I wasn't able to capture in a picture."