War photographer to speak at Butler

Photo

John Wendle, a Youngstown native, has covered the war in Afghanistan as a journalist.

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Butler Institute of American Art, 524 Wick Ave., will present a free talk by internationally known photographer and Youngstown native John Wendle at 2 p.m. Sunday in the museum’s Beecher Center auditorium.

Wendle is an independent photographer, reporter and videographer based in Kabul, Afghanistan. He writes for Time magazine, and his work has been featured in various other media outlets.

A 1998 graduate of Ursuline High School, the West Side native attended the Montessori School of Mahoning Valley. His work can be seen at johnwendle.com.

“John’s work extends a time-honored tradition of war reportage by American artists,” said Butler director Louis Zona. “His work is stunning.”

In Afghanistan, Wendle spent months reporting and photographing alongside Afghan and U.S. soldiers and Marines in some of that country’s most infamous battlefields. He photographed the victims of the war, multiple bombings and many attacks around Kabul.

Before moving to Afghanistan in 2009, he reported for Time in Russia, where he covered political and social issues as diverse as police brutality to Moscow and Fashion Week, as well as the 2008 Russo-Georgia War. Before that, he was a staff reporter at The Moscow Times.

Wendle graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2007, with specialized coursework in conflict reporting, business reporting and photojournalism.

Before Columbia, he was the deputy editor of the Caspian Business News in Azerbaijan and served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan.