Backstory: A burqa's-eye view

As odd as it may sound, I thought that a burqa might be the answer to my problems. Here on a five-week assignment to shoot photos for a humanitarian organization, I was dismayed to realize that I wasn't going to be able to move freely. There was a standing threat against Western women working for aid organizations – prime targets for kidnapping and sale to the Taliban. Understandably enough, the organization restricted my movements, rarely allowing me out on the street unless I was in a car – and never allowing me to go anywhere alone.

My exasperation grew as I discovered that even when I could go out, I couldn't take a step without being the center of attention. It wasn't unfriendly attention; I actually never felt unsafe or threatened. It's just that wherever I went, everyone watched me. Heads swiveled the moment I stepped out of the car. People were curious about the presence of a foreigner, and even more so when I held up my camera. In other words, the pictures I love to make – street scenes and moments of gesture and interaction between people, all taken as if I'd had gone unnoticed – were impossible.

So, I began eyeing those voluminous blue burqas, still ubiquitous in Kabul. I wondered if I could "hide" underneath one and find a way to work comfortably on the street.

The irony didn't escape me – looking for a measure of freedom in a garment that had come to symbolize the brutal repression of women during the Taliban era.

At my request, my driver asked his wife to find a burqa for me. He delivered it early one morning, and I hurried upstairs, threw it over my head, went straight to the bathroom mirror, and made the first of several discoveries. The burqa has an oddly comforting quality at first – reminiscent of the cozy intrigue of a kid hiding in a makeshift tent under the dining room table. But it's also hot and stuffy. It's tricky to walk in because it allows no peripheral vision and catches on things like bushes and doorknobs. And the headpiece is so tight that it's impossible to shoot with a regular camera from inside – there's only an inch or two of space between one's eyes and the mesh screen that hides the face.

So I picked up my cellphone and slipped it up between my nose and the mesh. I began with the most obvious pictures of all – self-portraits in the bathroom mirror.

I'd seen many pictures of women in burqas, but here was a whole new point of view – pictures from inside the burqa.

I was eager to see if my theory of anonymity would work on the streets of Kabul. But I didn't get past the front door. My driver and the organization's security officials objected, arguing that I'd be immediately identifiable as a foreigner – by my shoes and the way I walk – and that the police would suspect that I was trying to hide something.

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