Gunfire interrupted the rural silence of a routine patrol in Marjah, Afghanistan. Photographer Adam Ferguson, embedded with Lima Company of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, ducked behind dirt walls and continued making pictures, eventually witnessing the unintentional killing of an Afghan girl in a U.S.-fired mortar strike. Ferguson, who was wearing an audio recorder on a strap around his neck, also captured startling sounds of war in the tragic aftermath.

Ferguson, who is based in Laos and is represented by VII Network, has covered conflict for several years, primarily in Afghanistan. In 2009 he won the World Press Photo Award for Spot News for a photograph of a woman being rushed from the scene of a suicide bombing in Kabul.