Fabio Bucciarelli

Sirte, Libya 2011

Fabio Bucciarelli (b.1980, Italy) received a MS in Engineering in 2006 from the Politecnico of Turin. He also attended the Universidad Politecnica of Valencia, where he specialized in digital imaging. From 2009 he devoted himself entirely to photography and started working as staff photographer for the agency La Presse/AP. Fabio has won several international awards and his work has been published in Stern, The Times, The Telegraph, Vanity Fair, Internazionale, La Repubblica, Le Monde, L’Espresso among others. He recently wrote the book ‘The Smell of the War’ about the Libyan conflict. He feels an urgency to tell the story of people who are rendered powerless and to provide unbiased information focused on human rights. Fabio is represented by LUZ photo Agency.

About the Photograph:

“In 2011, I spent three months in Libya covering the war. From the beginning, before the NATO actions, passing from the fall of Tripoli, until its end, when Gaddafi was captured and killed in Sirte. During the final siege of Sirte, a few days after covering the fighting, I came back from the front line and was searching for something to photograph that would help explain the spirit of the Libyan conflict. An image that was different from the thousands of others depicting the cruelty and inhumanity of war. A few hundred meters from the fire I saw a revolutionary soldier wearing a military hat similar to those worn by Gaddafi’s military looking at the horizon while sitting on a rocket mounted on a pickup in the desert near Sirte. The pride in his expression was iconic, telling of the weariness of war and the deep hope for a change. A freedom denied for so many years.”