Alex Wroblewski ISIS IN IRAQ

During 2015 and 2016, photographer Alex Wroblewski documented the war against ISIS in Iraq. Made on two separate trips, he photographed in Tikrit, Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Fallujah, Qayyarah and villages south and east of Mosul.

Born and raised in Wisconsin, Wroblewski saw September 11 unfold on television in his World Cultures class as a high school freshman. “I grew up watching the invasion and the war in Iraq and always wanted to understand it personally for myself,” he says. In 2015, when one of his journalism professors at Columbia College Chicago introduced him to an Iraqi citizen who was putting together an embed with the Iraqi military, Wroblewski took the opportunity.

Wroblewski’s journalism career began in 2011, when he began started freelancing part time at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and taking odd jobs to make ends meet. He became a news junkie on the road while working as a truck driver, listening to NPR’s around-the-clock coverage of the 2012 election and the war in Syria. “Since then,” he said, “photojournalism has opened so many doors to people and places I never would have experienced without my camera.”

As a freelancer covering a war zone, Wroblewski did his homework before making “ISIS in Iraq.” “It’s important to work with people that you can really trust, research where you are going and reach out to colleagues who have recently worked where you are headed before,” he says, while also “knowing the culture and etiquette, coming prepared with the right gear, having first aid and hostile environment training.”

Wroblewski is currently working on two projects—one on politics and the other on climate change—and has plans to return to Iraq. His work has been published by The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

—Amy Touchette

Photos © Alex Wroblewski alexwroblewskiphoto.com