The Syria I Found Again

Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Salwan Georges returns to Syria to document a nation emerging from decades of dictatorship and war, and to confront his own past. Working for The Washington Post, he covered the early days of the fall of the Assad regime, capturing the fragile reopening of a country long sealed off from the world. His photographs reveal a society suspended between grief and renewal: families searching for the disappeared, young Syrians rebuilding amid ruins, and moments of unexpected grace after years of silence.

In The Syria I Found Again, Georges weaves professional coverage with a deeply personal journey, revisiting the monastery of his childhood, the prison where his father was once held, and the streets of Damascus where memories and history collide. It is both a document of transformation and an intimate meditation on return, loss, and resilience. Along the way, he opens a window into how visual storytelling can responsibly navigate trauma, dignity, and truth in a post conflict landscape.

What you will take away:
• Practical approaches to photographing recovery and remembrance with sensitivity and respect
• How sequence, caption, and context turn single frames into a coherent narrative of social change
• Insights into working in restricted environments, from access and safety to ethics and verification

Who this is for:
• Photojournalists, documentary photographers, and editors working on conflict and post conflict stories
• Students, educators, and scholars interested in contemporary Middle Eastern history and visual evidence
• Anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Syria through first person reporting and nuanced imagery