A man comforts hus injured son whilst being treated by US marines near the town of al-Quim by Patrick Baz

“AMERICAN soldiers have just fired into a crowd, dropping limp civilian bodies in the dust as they try to stamp their ebbing authority on Fallujah. In the local casualty ward, anger is mounting. As usual, there are no soldiers to face the fury, only journalists.” These are the words of Patrick Baz, a 47-year-old French Lebanese photographer currently residing in Cyprus who has decided to share his war-time experiences in the release of a new poignant picture book.

“My camera swinging relentlessly round my neck, I’m forced back towards the exit, shoved, manhandled, threatened. Shoot? Don’t shoot? Should I raise my lens towards the crowd to immortalise this moment of grief, or slink away and leave the survivors mired in impotent rage?”

Growing up in Beirut during the 1960s, Baz was only 12 when the Lebanese war erupted back in 1975. “I was born on what was to become a demarcation line; maybe it was a sign,” he says. Living a few steps away from what separated the Muslim and Christian communities meant that he had to grow up faster than he would have ever imagined.

Now looking back over a career spanning 30 years, he has spent much of his time covering armed conflicts in the Middle East as a photojournalist for the Associated France-Press (AFP).

His recently published book Don’t Take my Picture: Iraqis Don’t Cry covers the Iraq war from 2003 until 2008 and displays some of the most vivid and penetrating moments of the turmoil as seen through his lens.

One image in the book shows the blood splattered camera of an injured photographer, another depicts two detained Baath party members sitting under the gun of a US soldier with fear written across their distressed faces. Some focus on the simplest daily events as children play beside rubble and heavily armed soldiers, while others beg US military officers for a little food.

“Between ruined homes and ruined lives, I do my best to capture the cruel whims of occupiers, the incomprehension of the occupied, the greed of scavengers and the murderous waste of fratricidal conflict,” he explains. “My task is exciting, difficult and intoxicating, sometimes borderline suicidal.”

Baz’s career began in the 1980s when he worked as a freelancer shooting conflicts in the streets of Lebanon. Offered a job with the AFP in 1989 at the age of 26, he found himself heading for the Palestinian-occupied territories. He then covered a great number of armed conflicts: the first Gulf war in 1990, Kurdistan in 1991 and Sarajevo in 1993.

Baz went on to become the Middle East photography director for the AFP in 1996 but that didn’t stop him from seeking the danger zones where life seemed more fragile. He went to Iraq in 1998 and during the 2003 American invasion he was made director of the Baghdad department.

“I’ve tried to at least capture a fleeting moment of emotion from each stage of the occupation of post-Saddam Iraq, its vicious divisions but also the force of its people’s will,” he says. “I won’t deny that it’s risky. I was briefly kidnapped a few times but I’ve been doing this job for so long that it makes you experienced in how to deal with traumatic situations. Most of the time the adrenaline is just so high that it’s like you’re drugged and just have to take the shot.” Each image in the book is accompanied by text which conveys an impression of daily life in Iraq.

Perhaps the hardest part of the whole experience was that of leaving his daughter behind. One heartfelt quote in the book reads: “I lied to my daughter. I promised her never to return to Iraq. ‘I don’t want you to go there anymore. I don’t want you to get killed’,” he recalls the nine-year-old telling him one day when they were listening to the news in the car. Describing his daughter’s words as a “complete slap in the face”, his work is now dedicated to his child as a way of justifying his years of absence.

But how did he decide to publish this book and the sensitive comments that appear on every page? “The book was my editor’s idea at first. She found my diary and wanted to do something with it. But I didn’t consider that I was ready to write about my life so we managed to go around it with extracts from my diary and pictures,” he explains. “At the time I wrote my feelings because it was an outlet for when you’re depressed and alone.”

Inevitably, the whole experience has changed the way he looks at life, explaining that he has only just started coming to terms with the impact that it has all had on him. “Other people’s problems - in the Western world - seem very futile. I keep telling people that they don’t realise their luck to be born where they are instead of places where life has no value.”

With a personal love story running through some of the personal commentary in the book, Baz also shows how love and death often go hand in hand. “Outside there was hatred and death. But inside there was life and love. The book is not only about me but I think that every Iraqi can recognise themselves in the extract of my diary when it comes to everyday life.”

A book signing of Don’t Take My Picture: Iraqis Don’t Cry will be taking place this Wednesday evening at the French Cultural Centre in Nicosia at 8pm.