Standing at the edge of a minefield in Afghanistan last year was a difficult, dangerous experience for photographic artist Paul Seawright.
His work, which went on view at the Irish Museum of Modern Art this week, is entitled Hidden - a reference to the danger that was present everywhere, he said. He visited Afghanistan in June last year, just after the war, at a time when troops were looking for Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda.
"You are walking about in minefields," he said at the opening of the IMMA show. "Red lines show you where you can walk, but quite often they are only little channels, little walkways. You have to be careful that your tripod doesn't go over the stones. It's very unstable."
"The desolation, the ruins, the bleakness of the place - he's captured it really, really well. It's very, very striking," said Dr Nazih Eldin, of Navan, Co Kildare, who originally hails from Jerusalem. Dr Eldin dropped in to the opening with his wife, Mary Eldin, before attending the graduation ceremony at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham of their daughter, Soraya Eldin. She graduated top of her class in the Inchicore College of Further Education's diploma in social care course.
For Seawright there was no great resonance or link between Afghanistan and his experiences growing up in Belfast. "Nothing would prepare you for being in a place like that," he said. "It's a place where there's no infrastructure, no phones, no roads."
His work, that of an artist using a camera, is, he added, "the antithesis of photo-journalism. It's about what we don't see, it's a little bit evasive, it's the idea of looking sideways, of being a bit more contemplative".
"It does have impact," said Niall Crowley, chief executive officer with the Equality Authority. "It's a very subtle capturing of a very horrible conflict. It's very striking."
Seawright, who is professor of photography at the University of Wales College, Newport, was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum in London to respond to the war in Afghanistan and its heavily mined landscapes. According to Angela Weight, keeper of art at the Imperial War Museum and the exhibition's curator, these are not commissions for boys.
"They're not cushy numbers. They're for grown-ups," she said.
Aidan Dunne on Paul Seawright's work: W6