Married at the age of 8. That fact alone is hard to fathom. It's even more difficult to stomach when you think of the resulting forced sex, physical abuse and early pregnancies that often result. But for girls in more than 50 countries in the developing world, and for a minority in the developed world, this is their reality. The reality of child marriage.

Stephanie Sinclair / VIl

Faiz, 40, and Ghulam, 11, sit in her home prior to their wedding in the rural Damarda Village, Afghanistan on Sept. 11, 2005. Ghulam said she is sad to be getting engaged as she wanted to be a teacher.

Photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair has been documenting this issue around the world since 2003. A large body of her work was published last year in National Geographic.

We asked Sinclair to tell us more about her reporting:

How did you come up with this story idea and how long have you been reporting it?
This project began in 2003, after I met several girls in Herat, Afghanistan who had attempted suicide by self-immolation. I noticed that many of the girls who had set themselves on fire had been married at very young ages, in many cases prepubescent. It was the first time I’d ever encountered anyone who had been married so young. This phenomenon seemed to link many of these girls and this intense act of desperation. I couldn’t help but feel a responsibility to research and document whatever it was that would make these girls take such drastic measures. The resulting project has taken almost a decade to date, and I am still working on the issue. What makes it so complicated is its prevalence in more than 50 countries worldwide. To document it properly, one needs to address the many cultural reasons behind the issue as well as the differing impacts on the varying societies.

How many different countries did you travel to for this story, and how did you gain access to these sensitive stories and events?
I have documented this issue in Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Ethiopia and Yemen. Access has always been incredibly difficult for several reasons. The most obvious obstacle is that parents and families innately know that what they are doing can harm their children. But they continue this harmful traditional practice because they may feel societal pressures, have concerns for their safety and well being should they remain unmarried, or may even need to simply sell their girls in a desperate move to feed their other children. Fortunately, almost every image in this project was done with the help of the locals living within these societies. They wanted this issue to get support so they could be further empowered to combat child marriage. Those people were key in helping me gain access, and telling these stories would have been impossible without them.

Stephanie Sinclair / VII

Nujood Ali was ten when she fled her abusive, much older husband and took a taxi to the courthouse in Sanaa, Yemen. The girl's courageous act and the landmark legal battle that ensued turned her into an international heroine for women's rights. Now divorced, she is back home with her family and attending school again.

What is most disturbing to you about child marriage and what would you most like people to know about it?
There are many disturbing factors related to child marriage. But I think the thing that we must acknowledge is that in most cases these young children do not want to be married. They want normal lives — to play with their friends, be educated and have a full adolescence. These marriages rob many girls of their innocence, many times before puberty, and this is something that as a global society we cannot tolerate. The bottom line is child marriage isn't just harmful to the girls involved. It's at the root of so many other societal ills: poverty, disease, maternal mortality, infant mortality, violence against women. All of those are symptoms connected to the same problem: child marriage. If you solve the child marriage problem, these other issues benefit as well.

Is there a solution?
A multifaceted approach is needed to address the issue of child marriage. In fact, yesterday Sec. Hillary Clinton announced a USAID-sponsored pilot program in Bangladesh that will work with religious leaders, media, local governments and NGOs to foster community support for an end to child marriage. However education is still the single most protective factor against this practice. This means keeping the children in school as long as possible, as well as educating the communities about its harmful impact on the health of their girls, their grandchildren, as well as their societies as a whole. 

I also strongly believe there is not just a need for awareness-raising and prevention work, but we must find ways to help these girls who are already in these marriages — be it through giving financial incentives to their families to let them stay in school, or vocational training so they can have more say in their lives and households. Quality medical treatment is also needed for girls who are giving birth at these young ages. These girls need long-term solutions. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. But there seems to be a growing  movement aimed at ending child marriage. In fact, at yesterday's State Department announcement, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of The Elders, announced a very ambitious goal: to end the practice by 2030. If this issue remains a global priority, I'm optimistic that we can meet that deadline.

To mark the first inaugural International Day of the Girl Child on October 11, 2012, the United Nations Population Fund will partner with VII Photo to host an exhibition at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to present the personal narrative of the girls themselves. The hope is that their stories, presented in photography and video productions by Stephanie Sinclair and Jessica Dimmock, will renew global attention toward this critical issue and accountability across the international community. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will be among many prominent figures attending the opening.

• Follow the campaign at Too Young to Wed and tooyoungtowed.wordpress.com
• See additional images from Sinclair's project and read more about child marriage at National Geographic Magazine
• View a video including interviews with some of the child brides at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
• Read 'In Niger, child marriage on rise due to hunger' in PhotoBlog

Follow @NBCNewsPictures

Sign up for the NBCNews.com Photos Newsletter

Sebastian Rich has covered every major war and conflict of the past 30 years. He has been wounded several times, kidnapped and held hostage while on assignment as a photographer and television cameraman.

Children in Conflict, an exhibition at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., is showcasing a selection of images from Rich's career alongside a new body of work produced for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The new collection illustrates the plight of Afghan refugees in the Jalozai refugee camp in Pakistan.

Sebastian Rich

Young Afghan refugee in the Jalozai UNHCR refugee camp, Pakistan, 2012. Jalozai is one of the largest of 150 refugee and transit camps in Pakistan, holding Afghan refugees from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the present day.

By Sebastian Rich

The reason I became a photojournalist is summed up eloquently by this saying:

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

Being a chronic dyslexic to the point of near-illiteracy, I guess taking photographs was a natural progression, given the old adage, "A picture speaks a thousand words."

I left school, or should I say, ran away from school, at the tender age of 15 and have been looking through cameras of one sort or another at the world's wars ever since.

Sebastian Rich

Pakistan, 2012. An outside classroom for Afghan women and young girls in the UNHCR Jalozai refugee camp.
One of the women had brought her small son with her, and he cheekily leaned back from the group to look at me.

Sebastian Rich

Bosnia, 1993. A local priest talks to the crew of a British United Nations tank. He is trying to negotiate some sort of cease-fire between a local Bosnian militia and a group of heavily armed Croatian fighters. The cease-fire lasted all of ten minutes then the priest and myself ran for cover!

These past decades have not been without personal loss and pain. I have lost so many friends in the theater of war that I am ashamed to admit I have lost count.

I have lost most of the hearing in my right ear and 30 percent of the vision in my right eye -- courtesy of a Serbian sniper with a high velocity rifle. Obviously, not a very good sniper, otherwise I would not be telling the tale, but good enough to cripple.

Sebastian Rich

The first prisoners of war taken by the United States Marine Corps during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A large chunk of my lower intestine is missing due to the shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade. I was lucky that the hot shrapnel was slowed down by two Lebanese soldiers standing in front of me. They were not so fortunate.

My sternum is cracked and deformed, once again from a Serbian sniper, this time hitting me directly in the center of the chest smashing the ceramic plate in my flak jacket and crushing my rib cage. Last, but not least, I have experienced being kidnapped in Lebanon and a mock execution in an unpronounceable town in the former Yugoslavia with far too many consonants in its name--particularly difficult for a dyslexic.

Sebastian Rich

Fighters of a warlord in Mogadishu, Somalia. They tolerated me as they fought but as you can see there were those whose burning eyes did not fall too kindly on this photographer.

I am often asked how I keep my objectivity while constantly photographing and filming the worst the world has to offer. Well, I believe we all have an agenda to some degree or another, however subtle. My agenda, if you like, is not left or right of the political spectrum, but in the center of the insanity that I witness. Hoping somewhat (very) naively, that a single image one day might change the course of that conflict, ergo an agenda.

Sebastian Rich

A terribly malnourished Afghan baby boy in a UNICEF Therapeutic feeding center in Herat, Afghanistan. His fate is unknown to me.

Objectivity was ironically summed up for me by my mentor and friend, the extraordinarily talented American combat photographer John Hoagland.

John and I had been trying not to get shot by Salvadoran troops in that bloody civil war by hiding behind a cow. To the left of me was the dead body of a pregnant woman, who had been shot through the stomach revealing part of the fetus. In a moment of calm from the hail of bullets, I lay on my back shaking and asked John, "How do you stay objective in all this horror?"  He answered, "It's easy Sebastian. You do something good, I will take your photograph. You do something bad, I will take your photograph."

John was shot and killed just a few weeks later photographing Salvadoran troops doing something very bad. He was 36 years old.

Sebastian Rich

U.S. Army Medics fighting hard to save the life of a young baby girl on board a Blackhawk medevac helicopter in Afghanistan, 2011. She had been hit by shrapnel from a Taliban RPG. Inside an airborne Blackhawk helicopter you can hardly hear yourself think. But I could hear the little girl's screams of terrible pain clearly above the roar of the rotors.

Sebastian Rich's exhibition, which is supported by UNHCR and The Diplomatic Courier, runs at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. from October 2 to October 12, 2012.

Rich will be giving a talk at the Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts and Design in Philadelphia on Thursday, October 4th.

Click here to see more of Sebastian Rich's work and here to view a trailer for Crossing the Line, a documentary about his experiences in Bosnia.

Follow @NBCNewsPictures

Sign up for the NBCNews.com Photos Newsletter

"I didn't think I could become an up-and-coming artist at my old age," says taxi driver Hans-Jürgen Watzlawek, 68, whose photos of passengers' breasts have gone on display at a Berlin gallery.

MUNICH, Germany – A Berlin taxi driver whose pictures of women exposing their breasts in the back of his cab are being displayed at a local art gallery insists that the black-and-white photographs are nice not naughty.

"It's not about eroticism or sex, but about the breast as a female attribute," cab-driver-turned-artist Hans-Jürgen Watzlawek told NBC News.

Known for its hip and cutting edge exhibitions and galleries, the Berlin art scene sees many edgy pieces of art. Nonetheless, in Europe's self-proclaimed art capital one can always find a new twist on modern art.

It all started four years ago on a night shift when a regular customer told Watzlawek that she suspected she was pregnant because her breasts had grown.

When he said he didn't believe her, she lifted her shirt and exposed her breasts. The cab driver, an avid amateur photographer who always carries a camera, asked if he could snap a picture. She agreed.

How does the 68-year-old explain this openness? 

"The cabin of a taxi has a certain intimacy, it's like in a confessional box," Watzlawek said. "Passengers often share their stories – especially during journeys at night."

So over the last four years, he took 50 pictures of topless women. They posed for him after he asked a few who showed an interest in his photography, Watzlawek said, who added that he had never photographed their faces.

Read more international stories on NBCNews.com

"The project lives on anonymity; no woman I have asked has ever complained of sexism," he said.

And he denied that some of the women were drunk when he pictured them, as tabloids have suggested.

About half of the passengers he asked to pose agreed to do so after he told them that he hoped to run an exhibition.

"I was surprised myself, but they told me that I seem trustworthy – maybe you could even call me a lady whisperer," he said.

'A provocation'
Compared to Berlin Art Week, which took place in the city's illustrious galleries earlier this month, Watzlawek's exhibition, which opened on September 20 at the Galeria Casablanca, is a low-key affair although it has attracted considerable attention.

Gallery owner Zoltan Labas said the show, "Flash Berlin 0.1", has been well-received, especially by women, but admits it has been controversial.

"Of course, it's a provocation and it touches the border between art and non-art," he said.

"While the breasts are in the center of the pictures, the backgrounds tell the stories," Labas added. "You see the clothes and posture of the women, or who else is sitting in the cab – at times it's the boyfriend or husband."

Read more stories from Germany on NBCNews.com

Watzlawek is not alone in his unconventional approach to routine places.

Recently, garbage collectors in Hamburg remade a waste container into a pinhole camera to snap the city's streets. It was a successful public relations stunt that won a silver lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.

Watzlawek, who is retired but returns to the steering wheel for a couple of nights each month, insists that his exhibition was not a public relations stunt.

"I just want to finance my expensive photography hobby which is difficult with my small pension," he said.

So after several decades working nights as a baker and cab driver he seems to have found his calling, although he doesn't think he's destined to become the next Damien Hirst or Andy Warhol.

"I didn't think I could become an up-and-coming artist at my old age," he said.

More world stories from NBC News:

• 'Lady whisperer': Cabbie's snaps of topless women go on exhibit
• Officials: Terrorist groups in Libya tried to unite
• Women on ballot in Palestinian city's 1st election in decades
• 'Overwhelmed' aid agencies seek $340M to help Syria refugees
• Free speech? Egypt cleric burns Bible pages at US Embassy
• Italy rocked by corruption, drug scandals
• Libya leader to NBC: Film had 'nothing to do with' consulate attack
• Royal censorship? BBC 'sorry' for daring to report queen's comments
• China brings 1st aircraft carrier into service, joining 9-nation club
• Robbers try to blow up ATM, but blow up entire bank instead
• Ancient land of 'Beringia' gets protection from US, Russia
• Stay informed: Sign up for our newsletter

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and 

Kate Brooks

Dec. 2001: Pakistani militants are held in a makeshift prison after being captured for illegally entering Afghanistan. The Afghan authorities later released them on a Ramadan amnesty. This photo is one of several prints donated for a Christie's auction to raise funds of the family of photographer Anton Hammerl.

Unai Aranzadi

Freelance photographer Anton Hammerl working near Brega, Libya, April 1, 2011.

A little over a year ago, on April 5, 2011, South African photographer Anton Hammerl was killed in Libya, shot by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi during the fight for Brega, a key oil town on the coast. His body has still not been recovered.

It was initially reported that Hammerl was captured and was being held by the Libyan government along with fellow journalists James Foley, Manu Brabo and Clare Morgana Gillis, who witnessed the shooting but weren’t able to report his death for 44 days while they were held captive.

Foley and Gillis, who have both returned to Libya in search of his remains, believe they have traced his body in a mass grave, though it has not been positively identified or returned to his family. Due to the current chaos surrounding the current Libyan government and the tens of thousands still missing, getting DNA testing is complicated, but they hope that, with the support of the South African government, they will prevail and bring his body home.

As a freelance photographer, Hammerl didn’t have the support of a publication behind him and didn’t have a life insurance policy. He leaves behind his wife, Penny Sukhraj, and three children, Aurora, 11, Neo, 8, and baby Hiro, 1.

To help the family, a group of international journalists have organized a silent auction of contemporary photojournalism prints to be held at Christie’s on May 15 in New York City. It is the first sale at Christie’s to feature contemporary photojournalism exclusively.

Lynsey Addario / VII

A Bhutanese man walks through a forest in Rethung Gonpa village outside of Trashigang, in east Bhutan, August 8, 2007.

Several lots of limited-edition, signed prints by some of the world’s leading photographers, such as Platon, David Hume Kennerly, David Alan Harvey, Bruce Davidson and Sebastião Salgado, will be offered. Some of the prints, which can be viewed online ahead of the auction, come with additional donations, such as a book or a meeting with the photographer. New York Times photographer Fred Conrad is auctioning off a portrait sitting along with a print.

Foley and Gillis helped organize the auction with the support of photojournalist David Brabyn based on an idea from Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch. “Anton’s death, unlike Tim (Hetherington) and Chris (Hondros), leaves behind two young children,” Bouckaert wrote on Facebook. “I am wondering if we can’t organize a common print auction where various photographers donate a favorite print.”

Larry Fink

Philadelphia, 1990

With the help of Brabyn, they solicited photographers and built a website. But, deciding that wasn’t enough, they decided to approach a top auction house, eventually gaining the support of Christie’s auctioneer and senior vice president Lydia Fenet. CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour will host the event and Hammerl’s widow will be in attendance. Those who cannot attend can submit an absentee bid or place a telephone bid. Additionally, there are ways to adopt a print, become a sponsor or make a donation.

In addition to providing support for his family, the organization hopes to raise awareness about the dangers facing an increasing number of freelance journalists who work in perilous situations without the backing of a major news organization.

Economic pressures and changes in the media landscape in recent years have resulted in fewer staff positions and an increase in journalists going it alone. In addition, assignments in areas of conflict have become more dangerous, in part due to increased anger at Western nations. The Newseum lists 70 journalists that lost their lives in 2011, and so far this year 21 more have died. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 179 journalists were detained in 2011, a 20 percent increase over 2010 and the highest level since 1990. Hammerl’s name, along with 69 other journalists killed in 2011, will be added to the Journalists Memorial at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., during a ceremony on Monday, May 14.

Ed Kashi / VII

A young Kurdish boy enjoys some play time with found objects in his home in Kirkuk, Iraq on June 6, 2005. The boy's home is a camp for internally displaced Kurds at a former Kirkuk football stadium. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Iraq in 2003, many Kurds who had been forcibly removed from Kirkuk during Saddam's program of Arabization returned. There were no homes for them, so they set up camps in abandoned buildings, the football stadium and tents on the outskirts of this embattled city.

Some of the photographers who donated prints spoke to msnbc.com about why they donated and described the dangers journalists have been facing in recent years.

Ed Kashi, a New York-based freelance photographer and filmmaker represented by the VII Photo Agency, covers social and political issues and often works in hazardous locations. Winner of numerous awards and exhibited worldwide, Kashi has also produced seven books.

Kashi says his print donation is a “reflection of his support for the brotherhood/sisterhood of the people who do this kind of work” and an acknowledgement of how much more dangerous it has become. “Just today (May 4, 2012), three journalists were killed in Mexico,” he said. He ascribes the growing toll in part to warfare where there is no front line and therefore no protection offered by being with one side or the other, In addition, he says, there is a growing perception, particularly in Muslim countries, that Western journalists are not neutral actors, thus creating a more treacherous and unpredictable atmosphere.

Rather than working on spec, Kashi is often on assignment for publications such as National Geographic, which, he says, offers a journalist more security in the sense that it strengthens their “network of communication” should something happen. He says, though, that being willing to take risks is the “nature of the beast,” whether on assignment for a publication or not.

For journalists who want to work on these kinds of stories, Kashi offers some advice: Build a strong network and line of communication. Set a specific time period to check in and communicate if you’re going to be delayed. Take a rigorous set of precautions, have a plan to get out and listen to your fixers and other people you are working with locally.

Ron Haviv / VII

A displaced Muslim girl takes up shelter at a destroyed mosque after fleeing a government offensive against the Tamil Tigers in Nanathan, Sri Lanka, September 2007.

Ron Haviv, a New York-based freelancer and co-founder of the VII Photo Agency, has made a career covering conflict and humanitarian crises around the world. He has been on assignment for such publications as Fortune, The New Yorker, Paris Match and Time magazine, and has published books on Haiti, Afghanistan and the Balkans.

Though Haviv never met Hammerl, he says he has been touched personally and professionally by his death and the increasing dangers journalists have been facing, describing the “powerful bond” among those who put their lives at risk.  Competition, he says, isn’t as important as getting the story out, and often they share food, logistics, and information.

Haviv says that since the War on Terror began after 9/11, journalists’ deaths and injuries have been “eye-opening events for those more established photographers” like himself. The deaths of Anton Hammerl, Tim Hetherington, Chris Hondros, Remi Ochlik, Marie Colvin and Anthony Shadid in the last year also have created a new problem: Editors have pulled back coverage and have been reluctant to put photojournalists on assignment where they would become responsible for their safety.

Though Haviv hasn’t stopped covering conflicts, recent events have made him more thoughtful about his methods. Early in his career he took a more “haphazard” approach, but is now planning on taking a refresher class in trauma first aid, among other precautions. Despite having covered the Balkan wars, where over 50 journalists were killed from 1991-1995, Haviv says the evolving dangers facing journalists today have taken things to a “whole new level.”

Joao Silva

Iraq: Kurmashia Marsh: February 18, 2004: A Marsh Arab poles his canoe through Kirmashiya Marsh in southern Iraq.

Joao Silva, has been covering conflict since the violent uprising in South Africa in the 1990s as part of what is known as the “Bang Bang Club.” He met Hammerl during this time while they were both working at The Star, one of the most prestigious daily newspapers in South Africa.

Silva was nearly killed in 2010 and lost both his legs when he stepped on a mine while accompanying soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan. “We’ve taken a big hit,” he says of the conflict photographers’ community, but he doesn’t think they should stop covering the stories. “We are the messenger,” he said. “If we’re not there, who will be?

“We have a responsibility as journalists to be there. We have a role and a responsibility to society.”

Silva was injured while on contract for The New York Times, but was not covered as a staff member. Soon after, though, the Times put him on staff and fought to keep him in the military hospital system, where he was cared for at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. “I was one of the lucky ones,” he says, “but Anton was a freelancer, and he didn’t have that support.”

Joao Silva

Malawi: Blantyre: June 29, 2005: At a prison in Malawi, inmates sleep on the floor, so tightly packed that they turn only when a designated prisoner wakes them to do so en masse.

Silva hopes the auction will raise a lot of money. He donated two prints; one was taken in 2004 in Iraq and is one of the more peaceful images he made covering the conflict. It shows how Marsh Arabs reclaimed their way of life after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power. The other is from a Malawian prison in 2005 and depicts inhumane conditions. Silva said the scene reminded him of stories of the conditions aboard slave ships.  Read Silva’s talk at the Bronx Documentary Center about his experience.

Donate or find out more about the auction at FriendsofAnton.org

Follow @msnbc_pictures

AP

Photographers Guillermo Luna Varela, left, and Gabriel Huge, right, were among four people found slain and dumped in plastic bags in a canal in Veracruz, Mexico on Thursday, May 3, 2012. A fellow journalist said Luna was Huge's nephew.

Three photojournalists who worked the perilous crime beat in Mexico's violence-torn Veracruz state were among four people found dismembered and dumped in plastic bags in a canal Thursday, less than a week after a reporter for an investigative newsmagazine was found dead in her home in the state capital.

The targeting of sources of independent information by two warring drug cartels threatens to add Veracruz to the growing list of Mexican states where fear snuffs out reporting on the drug war.

Reuters

Regina Martinez was found dead in the bathroom of her house in Xalapa on April 28, 2012.

The bodies of photographers Guillermo Luna, Gabriel Huge and Esteban Rodriguez were discovered in the town of Boca del Rio along with that of Luna's girlfriend, Irasema Becerra.

Regina Martinez, a correspondent for the national magazine Proceso, was found dead in her bathroom on Saturday with signs she had been beaten and strangled.

The London-based press freedom group Article 19 said in a report last year that Luna, Varela and Rodriguez were among 13 Veracruz journalists who had fled their homes because of crime-related threats. 

In total, more than 70 journalists have been murdered in Mexico in the last decade, according to the government-funded National Human Rights Commission. The latest grisly discovery came on World Press Freedom Day.

-- The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Follow @msnbc_pictures

Felix Marquez / AP

Police remove from a canal plastic bags containing the dismembered bodies of four people in Boca del Rio, Veracruz, on May 3, 2012. The fourth victim was Guillermo Luna's girlfriend, Irasema Becerra, state prosecutors said.

Handout / Reuters

People run for cover from smoke after shelling in the Karm al-Zeitoun area of Homs, Syria on March 12, 2012. The image was supplied to Reuters by a network of activists.

The bloody uprising in Syria, which marked its first anniversary Thursday, has been markedly different to other Arab Spring revolts. It has also been documented in a different way.

In contrast to the popular protests that toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen last year, the flow of information and images out of Syria has been severely restricted. President Bashar al-Assad's regime has denied visas to many journalists and insists those it does let in be accompanied by government escorts.

SANA via Reuters

A handout photo distributed by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows electrical workers at what it says are buildings destroyed by opposition forces in the Baba Amr area in Homs on March 14, 2012.

To fill this void, photographs have come from a variety of sources. Citizen journalists and activist groups upload videos and reports to YouTube and Facebook. The state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency distributes photographs. Anonymous photographers work as "stringers" inside Syria, supplying images to foreign news agencies. Finally, a small group of international photojournalists have been smuggled in and out of the country, often with the help of opposition groups.

One of the latter group, Italian photographer Alessio Romenzi, produced a series of photos showing how activists have used their cellphones and laptops to document the uprising. Their amateur videos, often impossible to verify, have nevertheless become the primary source of images of the year-long conflict.

At times the same images have been appropriated by both the government and the opposition, each aiming to pin the blame for massacres on the other.

• Through clandestine network of anonymous contacts, Syrian shop-keeper wages lonely war from England

AFP - Getty Images

An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on March 13, 2012, allegedly shows shelling by regime forces in Maaret al-Numan in the restive Idlib province.

Khaled Al-hariri / Reuters

A man puts a picture of President Bashar al-Assad on his chest as he attends a rally at Umayyad square in Damascus on March 15, 2012.

Like the activists, journalists working in Syria face substantial risks. Last month, French photographer Remi Ochlik and American reporter Marie Colvin were killed in army shelling of an opposition stronghold in Homs.

Syrian journalists and bloggers continue to be arrested, according to Reporters Without Borders, which ranked Syria 176th out of 179 countries in its press freedom index. On Saturday the Syrian Information Ministry issued a warning that journalists who enter the country illegally "are accompanying terrorists, promoting their crimes and fabricating baseless news."

• Leaked emails: Assad likes country music

Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd, whose pictures of the conflict have been featured on PhotoBlog over the last three weeks, acknowledged the dangers he had faced in taking this path, but said "it was the only way to cover the story properly, without being at the mercy of government minders who try to control what you see and whom you meet."

Ricardo Garcia Vilanova / AFP - Getty Images

Members of the rebel Free Syrian Army gather in a mountainous area of the restive Idlib province in northwestern Syria on March 13, 2012. Some 100 fighters are gathered in this region, a hotspot of rebel operations against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Another photojournalist, Zohra Bensemra of Reuters, described how the car she was traveling in came under direct attack:

Rockets whizzed above our heads and assault rifles rattled in our direction. But we drove slowly, afraid to speed up lest we draw more attention.

Finally, we stopped in an olive grove, where we lay face down in the mud. We could hear shelling, far away and close by. Dusk was falling and we could make out the red tracer of anti-aircraft fire lighting up the sky. They were firing heavy weaponry at journalists. We were not armed. Nor was our guide.

Zohra Bensemra / Reuters, file

A defaced poster of President Bashar al-Assad is seen on the ground after heavy shelling by government forces in Sermeen near the northern city of Idlib on February 28, 2012.

A year on from the first, daring demonstration held by a few dozen protesters in Damascus, the Syrian uprising has become one of the most protracted and bloodiest of all the Arab revolts. 

Photographs, which hold the power to shock, outrage and to shift international opinion, will continue to play a pivotal role in the global response to the conflict, a fact of which Assad seems only too aware. The stifling of independent reporting will almost certainly remain a part of his regime's strategy for survival.

Stringer / AFP - Getty Images

Syrian children hide behind sand bags on the street in the central town of Rastan, near Homs, on March 13, 2012.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

Ed Ou / The New York Times via Redux Pictures

Photojournalists Guy Martin, left, and Dominic Nahr take cover behind a wall as anti- and pro-government protesters throw stones during a clash near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Feb. 3, 2011.

The 27-year-old was in a group of photographers caught in a mortar attack in Misrata on April 20, 2011. Martin was seriously injured and two of his friends and colleagues, Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, were killed. 

• Slideshow: Chris Hondros retrospective
• Slideshow: Tim Hetherington retrospective

Martin's life was saved by doctors who then prepared him for a perilous evacuation by boat from the besieged city.

Ten months on and still recovering from his injuries, he spoke to NBC News. Watch the video below:

Martin had spent several months covering the Arab Spring, documenting the historic events in Egypt and moving on to the brutal civil war in Libya. His pictures documenting the unrest in Cairo's Tahrir Square have just gone on display in London. 

As well as the chaotic scenes of violence, Martin prides himself on capturing the quiet, contemplative moments that give some context to the historical moments he has witnessed.

"Despite the physical violence, the risk that we put ourselves in, you have a duty, a responsibility to come out of those situations with pictures, with strong images that communicate what was happening on the ground," he says.

Guy Martin / Panos Pictures

Rebel fighters moved from house to house, back street by back street to fire on Gadhafi's forces. Here a rebel soldier takes cover in a stairwell as he prepares to fire on Gadhafi loyalists in the adjacent room, just a few meters away. Tripoli Street, Misrata, Libya, April 20, 2011.

Guy Martin / Panos Pictures

Rebel fighters run across an intersection that was frequently targeted by sniper fire. Misrata, April 18, 2011.

Guy Martin / Panos Pictures

Rebel fighters takes cover behind trees on the strategically important Tripoli Street in Misrata during a fierce battle for control of the road on the morning of April 20, 2011. Hours later Guy Martin was seriously injured.

The Last Days of Mubarak, an exhibition by Guy Martin and Ivor Prickett, runs at London's Foto8 gallery until March 10. 

• Audio: Guy Martin and Ivor Prickett discuss their work in Egypt and Libya
• Slideshow: Chris Hondros' images from Libya 
• Slideshow: Conflict in Libya