When Toronto (Ontario-Canada) based photographer and filmmaker Lana Slezic left free and liberal Canada for Kabul for an assignment for Canadian Geographic magazine, it was supposed to be a six-week work project. Weeks turned into months and months to years as Slezic stayed on in Afghanistan, letting her shutter speak, documenting lives of Aghans, particularly women and children through her lens.

THEY WERE ONCE HERE: A woman walks through the haunting valley of Taliban-destroyed Buddhas in Bamiyan