KABUL, Afghanistan — Through the dark days of the 1990s civil war and the Taliban’s oppressive rule, the Afghan photographer Shah Marai never left his country. As the bloodshed continued after the 2001 American-led invasion, he repeatedly expressed a feeling shared by so many Afghans caught in the devastating cycle: “There is no more hope.”

Yet through it all, Mr. Marai, 41, continued to bear witness, focusing his camera on the profound human suffering that has become so routine, so forgotten.

On Monday, he was among the couple of dozen journalists in Kabul who had rushed to the site of yet another bombing, when a second attacker detonated his explosives amid the reporters and first responders. Altogether 25 people were killed, nine of them journalists.

[Read about the two-stage attack, which became journalists’ deadliest day in Afghanistan since at least 2002.]