Cemetery in Aleppo, Syria

Volkswagon Beetle in Homs, Syria

I took these photos when traveling through Syria in the spring of 2008. The people I had met and who helped me get from point A to point B safely were incredibly hospitable and kind, and yet all the while the regime hung over the country like a dark cloud. Ironically I found a VW Bug - a symbol of peace - parked on a side street in the city of Homs. Watching the recent events unfolding there has been disturbing and heartbreaking. Paul Conroy, the British Sunday Times photographer who survived after being wounded and trapped in Babr Amr, said this of the FSA fighters who risked their lives to smuggle him out of the country:

"It was the rebels' ability to face death with equanimity that gave them their strength. They'd accepted that they weren't going to get out alive. It's a way of taking power away from a brutal regime. I saw the same thing in Libya. A government has power over you as long as you are afraid it will kill you. Once you accept your fate and come to believe that if you survive, it will be a bonus, you have the power to achieve extraordinary things."