from Asia Calling: A Photographer’s Notebook, 1980-1997, photographs by Ed Grazda
Having spent a good part of the 1970’s photographing in the American southwest and Latin America, I was looking for a change of scene. As the 1980’s started, things were happening in Asia, countries were opening up, the Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan, and globalization was getting going.
I went with no agenda and no “assignments.” I went to see what was going on and what things felt and looked like. I concentrated on Afghanistan and the Mujahideen who were fighting the Soviets. I also traveled to Hong Kong, Macau, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, India and Pakistan.
Asia Calling: A Photographer’s Notebook 1980-1997 is not a collection of my “best” photographs but rather a collection of moments, insights, and magic that tells a fiction/nonfiction story of those years through the use of photos and texts.
— Edward Grazda
/ / / /
Baltit, Hunza, Pakistan / 1982
Bangkok, Thailand / 1985
New Delhi, India, watching cricket match / 1986
Peshawar, Pakistan / 1989
Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday prayers / 1989
Luang Prabang, Laos, young monks / 1990
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam / 1990
Kabul, Afghanistan, open city / 1992
Bangkok, Thailand / 1994
Hanoi, Vietnam, Tet, paper and smoke from fireworks (banned after 1994) / 1994
Hanoi, Vietnam, “Welcome Back,” the day the US trade embargo was lifted, Coke ads on TV / 1994
Hanoi, Vietnam, Tet, paper from fireworks / 1994
Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan / 1997
/ / /
Asia Calling: A Photographer’s Notebook, 1980-1997 was published by Powerhouse Books on September 14, 2021, 72 pages, $35.00 hardcover. You may acquire a copy from Bookshop.org by clicking here.
Starting in 1980, Grazda traveled to Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, India, China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. This was a time of change in Asia – globalization, wars, drugs, tourism, and religion remaking ethnic traditions and governments alike. Grazda’s photos – accompanied by a few fictional and literary texts – is a passport to that period of emergence and ferment.