The frozen front line

Louie Palu is a documentary photographer and filmmaker focusing on human rights, poverty and conflict. He has covered the Afghanistan war, the lasting health effects of asbestos, and the drug war along the U.S.-Mexico border. His work has won numerous awards, including two grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. He is a Guggenheim Foundation fellow and Research Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.

Photography and video by Louie Palu; photo editing by Clare Vander Meersch; digital design and development by Christoper Manza; audio and video production by Melissa Tait, Deborah Baic and Patrick Dell; graphics by Murat Yükselir and John Sopinski; editing by Dawn Calleja; art direction by Ming Wong

Photography for this article was supported by grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Pulitzer Center.