The windows are blown out, and rubble from a crumbling wall litters the floor, but Mohammad Mohiedine Anis, sits peacefully smoking a pipe and listening to music in his destroyed bedroom in Aleppo, Syria.
The haunting portrait taken by AFP photographer Joseph Eid is as perfectly composed as a painting. “I’m a war photographer and I’ve seen lots of atrocities. This one is different,” Eid said this week from his office in Beirut. The image shows the tragedy of war, but it also shows someone rising above it through the transcendent power of music. “It talks about life.”
70-year-old Mohammed Mohiedin Anis, who is also known around town as Abu Omar. He owns a collection of 1950s vintage American vehicles that would make any auto aficionado drool.
An overhead view shows the bombed-out neighborhood in Aleppo where car enthusiast Mohammed Mohiedin Anis still lives. Photo by Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images
A beat-up 1948 Buick is part of Mohammed Mohiedin Anis’ car collection. Photo by Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images
