Western media spent twenty years filming Afghanistan through the green tint of night-vision goggles or from the dusty back of a military Humvee. You saw smoke. You saw ruins. You saw broken clay walls and men with guns. If that is the only image sitting in your brain, Daniel Malikyar wants to wipe it completely clean.
Malikyar is a first-generation Afghan-American who grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by skateboards, rap music, and commercial glitz. He spent years directing music videos, running creative direction for Marshmello, and photographing global icons like Drake and Lil Baby. Yet his most vital work is contained in a heavy book simply titled Afghanistan, released by fine-art publisher teNeues.
This project is not a typical war-photographer photo dump. Malikyar used a rare, fragile sliver of time right before the Taliban retook control to slip into remote provinces that outsiders had not seen for decades. He traveled without a massive security detail or a corporate news crew. The result is a striking, human archive of an active, living country that exists entirely outside the nightly news cycle.
From California Street Culture to Kabul
Malikyar did not take the traditional route to high-end documentary photography. Born in Los Angeles in 1995, his first real studio was the concrete pavement of Southern California. He was obsessed with documenting what was right in front of him. By age 20, he became the youngest official Fujifilm X-Photographer in the United States.
Daniel Malikyar Quick Profile
• Born: 1995, Los Angeles
• Notable Commercial Roles: Creative Director for Marshmello (4 years)
• Commercial Subjects: Drake, Lil Baby, Snoop Dogg, Nike, Porsche
• Fine Art Focus: Humanist documentary photography in remote communities
If you watched music videos or live concert visuals between 2017 and 2021, you probably looked at his work without knowing his name. He ran creative strategy for Marshmello during a run where the producer’s digital footprint exploded into tens of millions of fans. He co-founded a production powerhouse called MGX Creative. He directed major studio documentaries. He had the kind of Hollywood career young creators kill for.
But the commercial world has a habit of chewing up raw reality and spitting out polished, bloodless products. Malikyar felt a different pull. His grandfather had been a journalist in Afghanistan, an energetic documentarian who used to bring home home movies and physical photo prints showing a vibrant, peaceful, culturally rich nation.
Those family photos didn't look anything like the explosive, tragic imagery broadcast on American television networks. That contrast stuck with Malikyar throughout his youth. He realized that the American public knew everything about the weapons used in his family's homeland but absolutely nothing about the people who lived there.
Documenting the Hidden Sides of the World
Before turning his lens fully toward his ancestral home, Malikyar spent years testing his documentary style in other parts of the world. He shot street portraits in Cuba, tracked down the distinct subcultures of South Sudan, and spent months embedded with communities in India. He even photographed the Weed Nuns of California, a group dedicated to organic plant medicine.
Every single one of these projects shared a common thread. He avoided the standard tourist spots or the easy, sensationalized headlines. Instead, he relied on simple chance encounters. He focused on building genuine trust with everyday people, moving slowly enough to let his subjects dictate how they wanted to be seen.
When the opportunity arose to travel into Afghanistan, he knew he had to go. He needed to shoot before the shifting political tides shut the doors to the outside world completely. He packed light, took his trusted camera gear, and landed in Kabul with a clear mission to find the human stories beneath the geopolitical static.
The Rare Window Inside Remote Provinces
The images in Malikyar's book represent a fleeting moment in contemporary history. He managed to independently venture deep into territories that were physically inaccessible to Westerners during the peak of the twenty-year conflict.
He did not focus on politicians or military leaders. He sought out the small, quiet moments that define actual daily survival. His photographs feature children playing in ancient, sun-baked streets, merchants arranging bright mounds of saffron and dried fruits in crowded local markets, and elders sitting together sharing tea against a backdrop of massive, rugged mountain ranges.
There is a distinct warmth to his color grading. He avoids the cold, clinical, hyper-sharp look of modern digital journalism. He opts instead for rich, deep tones that mimic the look of classic mid-century film print. This choice connects his contemporary work directly back to the archival photographs his grandfather took fifty years prior. It forces the viewer to see Afghanistan as a place of historical continuity, rather than a permanent disaster zone.
What Most Media Profiles Get Totally Wrong
When outlets cover artists like Malikyar, they love to build a dramatic, fake narrative. They try to claim he dropped his slick American life because it was shallow, or that he views his commercial work as completely separate from his documentary art. That is a lazy way to look at a complex career.
The truth is simpler. The years Malikyar spent capturing the energy of LA subcultures, handling fast-moving music tours, and directing high-budget commercial campaigns gave him a specific technical edge. He learned how to capture an striking visual story in a split second, under intense pressure, where you only get one chance to get the shot.
When you are standing in a remote village in a province with unpredictable security, you do not have time to fuss with lighting grids or second-guess your frame. You need to know your camera like an extension of your own hand. His time working with global celebrities taught him how to put people at ease quickly, stripping away the awkward barrier of the lens to capture something completely authentic.
Moving Beyond Visual Stereotypes
The real value of this work lies in how it challenges our lazy consumption of international news. It is easy to feel a hollow sense of pity when looking at standard crisis photography. Pity is cheap. It does not require you to understand a culture, and it doesn't force you to see your own shared humanity in the subject.
Malikyar's photographs don't ask for your pity. They demand your respect. They show an incredibly resilient population maintaining their deep cultural traditions, finding moments of genuine joy, and building community despite decades of continuous structural upheaval.
How to Apply this Photographic Perspective to Your Own Work
You do not need to buy a ticket to a conflict zone to create meaningful documentary work. The core principles behind Malikyar's transition from commercial director to fine-art documentarian can be applied to your own creative projects right now.
- Find the subcultures in your own backyard. Every city has distinct, insular communities that are completely ignored by local media. Start there.
- Ditch the heavy gear. Move around with a single camera and a fixed lens. It makes you less intimidating and forces you to interact with your environment instead of hiding behind equipment.
- Prioritize connection over the perfect shot. Spend time talking to your subjects before you even lift the view-finder to your eye. Trust shows up clearly in the final image.
- Look for continuity. Stop hunting for the most shocking or unusual thing in a room. Look for the small, everyday habits that show how people actually live.
To get a better sense of how he balances his fast-paced commercial projects with this intimate style of street photography, watch his behind-the-scenes breakdown in the Fujifilm Spotlight Series on Daniel Malikyar. The video offers a direct look at his physical process and shows how he uses a minimal camera setup to capture cinematic moments across different continents.
