Talented Photojournalists Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson documented the profound impact and aftermath of the US-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. Their work is currently being showcased  at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in a exhibition titled 'Eye Level in Iraq' until June 16^th, 2013.

Alford and Anderson created this body of work during a two-year span that began in the months leading up to the invasion and continued into the period when armed militias emerged to challenge the coalition forces and later the new central Iraqi government.

In an attempt to get closer to the daily realities of Iraqi citizens, the photographers worked outside the confines of the US military’s embedded journalist program. Though this shift in physical perspective placed them in great danger, they sought to learn how the war and the seismic political and cultural shifts that accompanied it were affecting ordinary people.

Civilians, so often caught in the crossfire of conflict, are the primary subject in the photographs of Alford and Anderson. They are approached not from a fixed military perspective, but from a more intimate point of view, one closer to “eye level.”

For more information about the photo exhibition, visit deyoung.famsf.org.