Lana Šlezić

A Window Inside, is a series of portraits of Afghan women made through an old Afghan Box camera in which Šlezić installed a modern camera. The calm and serene look of the women reveals a hidden world in which they are often invisible behind their veils. With this series she recently won 3rd prize in the 2008 World Press Photo competition.

In March 2004, when award-winning photographer Lana Šlezić went on assignment to Afghanistan from her native Canada, she never dreamed she would stay for two years. At the time she believed that since the ousting of the suffocating Taliban in 2001, Afghan women and girls were living under considarably less oppressive conditions. She soon discovered that life for Afghan women was not as she expected and felt compelled to stay and document their story.
With the help of a young female Aghan as her friend and translator, Šlezić photographed women all over the country. Over endless cups of tea in sitting rooms from city to village, she learned that Afghan women are still living in a harrowingly oppressive society where forced marriage, domestic violence, honor killings, and an unpalatable lack of freedom still exist. Even today many are not allowed to leave their houses or go to school, and the burka remains a common sight on the dusty streets of the war-torn country.
In 2007 her book Forsaken was published.