Christian Werner RUBBLE AND DELUSION

Referring to today’s swiftly shifting news cycle and celebrity compulsion, German photojournalist Christian Werner only has modest expectations for the reception of his work. “If my stories and my messages only reach a few people, it’s a success,” he says.

By his terms, his series “Rubble and Delusion,” which has been published by DER SPIEGEL and The Washington Post, can be seen as a success several times over.

Werner began the project with writer Fritz Schaap in 2016, documenting the Syrian cities of Damascus, Homs and Latakia. The series is an attempt to understand the conflict that began in 2011 and how a culture has been able to endure—and live relatively normally—in the face of grave danger, decimated metropolitan centers and death. “People live their daily lives despite war,” he says, and find a way to continue extending generosity, too.

Werner’s first taste for photojournalism came from smuggling a camera into a compulsory military service, where he spent a few months documenting his life in the army. Since then he’s produced numerous multimedia stories in the Middle East, making more than 20 trips to Iraq and Syria, and also covered the plague in Madagascar, immigration to Europe, religious war in Central Africa, and the impact of uranium on public health. His top priority: maintaining journalistic ethics to protect his photographic subjects and their families.

When he’s not in the field, Werner resides on a small farm in Germany where he says he tries to live as self-sustained as possible, finding moments of reflection while gardening.

—Lindsay Comstock

Photos © Christian Werner/Zeitenspiegelwerner-photography.com