“Simply to portray war was no longer enough”

“You can live vicariously through images of conflict. There is an underlying exoticism to it. Depicting war doesn’t bring it to an end. I felt sickened by it, but didn’t want to give up what I was doing. I started feeling you had to be more complex in your approach – examine where the weapons were coming from, which governments were profiting from those conflicts. Simply to portray war was no longer enough. First I had a feeling of powerlessness then I channelled that energy into a story.”

Zed Nelson on how a brush with death in Afghanistan changed his approach to photography.