photo américain

Ongoing series of photos taken in the alleyways in Evergreen, Baltimore

 

Photojournalists, LIFE magazine, and AUB in the 1950s

Yesterday I wrote about an interesting BBC video that shows news photographers at work covering the evacuation of Israeli settlers from a house in the West Bank city of Hebron for The Compelling Image blog. (Read it here.) TCI offers lots of great online classes for photographers of all levels. I teach a course called Developing a Photographer's Eye.

I have also been exploring the new Google archive of LIFE magazine photographs. It's a great resource for scholars and lots of fun for everyone, I recommend taking a look. If you want to license the use of a photo for publication you need to go through Getty. But the Google site has fairly high-res images (ones here are the smaller versions) and can even order prints.

I did a search for American University of Beirut and came up with these shots from 1953. (This is just a sample of ones I like.)

These are all by Lisa Larsen.

Listening to another student Mona Asfour (L), of Palestine and Su'ad Habri (R), preparing to be teachers sit in education class.

 

New Engineering School Building.

Studying on the library roof.

Students.

Sex education class.
[I wonder if this is still taught ... and what exactly was being taught at this time!]

alternatives to disaster photographs

Wandering around the web this morning I spent some time reading a call for papers for a conference at Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies called "Humanising Photography". (Proposals by photographers, scholars and humanitarian workers due Dec 19th.) The associate director of the center (at Durham University in the UK) is the geographer David Campbell, who has written quite a bit on the representation of war, famine and disaster. Two projects he was involved in are on the web: Imaging Famine and The Visual Economy of HIV/AIDS.

While I appreciate analysis of images of famine and disaster and how they shape the way the public understands the world (Africa in these cases), I am usually more interested in exploring the alternatives to these depictions. It seems to me that contemporary photojournalism is gradually expanding its visual language to incorporate new visions and ways of seeing that go beyond the simplistic, decontextualized, isolated close up image of an emaciated or suffering individual. (See some of the newer members of Magnum Photos like Jonas Bendiksen for example.) However, the most interesting photographs for complicating our perceptions of a place or a people or a situation seem to be those embraced by the art world.

In that spirit, here are a few artists I stumbled across this morning who create representations of places that go beyond the stereotypes and cliches of the mainstream media.

The curator/photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi addresses this issue directly in a short, interesting interview about the Bamako 2007 photography biennial (in Mali). He put together a smaller exhibit of photography, "Spot On: Bamako 2007," from the biennial at the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) in Berlin. (If you're in Berlin the exhibit is on now until January 11, 2009.)

Check out work by artists from all over Africa (including North Africa and Egypt) by going to the Berlin exhibit website.

Here's a taste.

Sammy Baloji

Baloji makes collages of colonial era photographs incorporated into present-day landscapes. As the exhibit explains: "...in order to understand the present, he reads the traces of the past. He finds such traces and signs in the architecture of Congo’s state mining company. Once the Gécamines stood for the richness of the Belgian colony and the extraction of copper and cobalt was the backbone of the Congoles economy. Under Mobuto’s regime, however, this sector of industry was run down because of the lack of investments and the dictator claimed the profits."

Mouna Karray

"The industrial and harbour city of Sfax, Tunisia, is the home town of the artist Mouna Karray. Since four decades, a series of political decisions has led to the point that public places in Sfax have gradually become non-accessible areas without any function. The remains of these places, redefining the image of the urban landscape, are shown by Mouna Karray in her series Murmurer."

Another artist I found this morning is Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad Aseeri, from Saudi Arabia. He is also a doctor and has incorporated x-rays into his work.

Mixed media on paper, 152 x 102 cm

He explains: "It is designed to be like the opening pages to a religious text. But much larger. Originally the craftsmen would always spend a great deal of time on these pages. They’re the first thing you see. Instead of a traditional geometry I have printed two facing X-ray images of human torsos. I prepared the paper using tea, pomegranate, coffee and other materials traditionally used on these pages. By using them you ensure that when you come to paint onto the paper it will have an extraordinary luminous quality – the paint will truly shine. And that’s what I want to do with this piece, to illuminate. I am giving light. It’s about two humans in conversation. Us and Them. Dar a luz. So many religions around the world share this concept of giving light, not darkness. It is one religious idea that has reached mankind through many different windows."

New issue of Middle East Report out now - The US in the Middle East

The latest issue of the excellent quarterly magazine Middle East Report is out now. Ok, I'm biased, being the photo editor, but it is widely respected for its analysis and I do think the photos are fantastic overall.

Photographers whose work appears in this issue include: Karim Ben Khelifa, Balazs Gardi, Eros Hoagland, Luiz Maximiano and Stephanie Keith.

In this issue be sure to check out the illuminating book review by Waleed Hazbun on US foreign policy towards the Middle East.

If you're going to the Middle East Studies Association conference in Washington, DC this weekend, stop by the MERIP booth in the book exhibit to say hello (and get issues of the magazine).

[Subscribe to Middle East Report or order individual copies online.]

Middle East Report 249
Winter 2008

SHRINKING CAPITAL: THE US IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The Bush administration entered office in 2000 determined to extend the
global dominion of the United States into "a new American century." Yet as
President George W. Bush prepared to depart the White House, the National
Intelligence Council released a report surmising that Washington "will have
less power in a multipolar world than it has enjoyed for many decades." The
winter 2008 issue of Middle East Report, "Shrinking Capital: The US in the
Middle East," examines the Bush-era changes in US regional policy -- and the
continuities with the past -- that have left Washington's clout diminished.

As Yahya Sadowski writes, the Bush administration's go-it-alone spirit -- 
and refusal even to speak to regional actors it does not like -- wound up
sparking a rash of diplomatic initiatives undertaken by US allies without US
approval or participation. Political scientist Waleed Hazbun situates the
Bush failures, which have caused such great damage to the Middle East, in
the historical sweep of US grand strategy and identifies a worrisome lack of
fresh thinking on the subject in the tomes of the Democratic foreign policy
establishment.

It is important to recall the legacies of the Philippines and Vietnam, as
Laleh Khalili writes, when evaluating the newness of Bush-sanctioned torture
and, for that matter, the US military's current focus on counterinsurgency.
Jason Brownlee finds more disturbing echoes of Vietnam in the 2008 field
manual covering "stability operations" -- occupation and militarized nation
building by another name. And, as sociologist Louise Cainkar demonstrates,
the draconian post-September 11 program of detention and deportation of
Arabs and Muslims could not have occurred so easily without the history of
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment in the US.

Cultural historian Melani McAlister offers a different lesson in her essay
on the global engagement of American evangelicals: Their adoption of the
language of human rights to highlight persecution of Christians in Africa,
Asia and the Middle East has simultaneously drawn upon Islam-bashing themes
and pushed the activism of many evangelicals in a more liberal and less
parochial direction.

Also featured: Sandra Beth Doherty looks at why so many women in Lebanon go
under the knife; Tamir Sorek reviews Aziza Khazzoom's Shifting Ethnic
Boundaries and Inequality in Israel; and more.

---

Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information
Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization based in
Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the
Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the
implications of US and international policy for the region.

New Haven's Grove Street Cemetery

During a brief visit to New Haven a few weeks ago I took a walk in the Grove Street cemetery, established in 1797. Here are some photographs of things that caught my eye that day - Egyptian revival railings, a torn, worn American flag, weathered angels, and a Birch trunk scratched up by squirrels.

At home in Baltimore

It's autumn and the leaves are reaching their blazing, colorful peak after which they suddenly all drop to the ground. Everything has an ephemeral, somewhat melancholy feel, including the abandoned couch, upside down in the back alley.

NYC and Catherine Opie

We were in NYC for just an afternoon last week but we managed to squeeze in a visit to the fantastic B&H Photo store (professional photographer's heaven, if you have a little money to spend), a tasty lunch of mezze at a Turkish restaurant called Beyoglu, and a long visit to the Guggenheim to see the Catherine Opie exhibit of photos. Not much time to take photos, but here are two snapshots from the day.

Lunch.

View from inside the Guggenheim.

Here's a Catherine Opie photo from the exhibit:

Untitled #2 (1994), Platinum print, 2 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches

On view at the Guggenheim (this link takes you to the page of her work, including an online exhibition) are a number of her coherent, separate projects - such as Freeways (example above), Being and Having, Portraits, Mini-Malls, Domestic, American Cities, Icehouses, and Surfers. She began in the 1990s by taking formal studio portraits of friends in the queer communities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. They are striking for the way she photographed each uniquely dressed, tattooed and pierced individual against richly colored backdrops and baroque patterns. She refers to being influenced by the 16th century portrait paintings by Hans Holbein. She also photographed domestic scenes of lesbian families around the country, and her own family with her young son. As with most of her work they are done with medium or large format cameras, very deliberately arranged and meticulously lit. Also very tender, expressive and moving.

I particularly enjoyed Freeways, the small panoramic platinum paladium prints of overpasses and roadways in Los Angeles. The forms are sensuous and compelling as abstractions but also visual testimony to the vast - generally unnoticed - infrastructure that connects the LA area (and divides communities, as Opie mentions in the audio tour). By shooting in black and white on Sunday mornings when there are few cars around she heightens the abstract qualities of line, shape and texture, and directs our attention to the forms themselves rather than their usage in a particular era. The platinum process creates an almost antique, historic aura that lacks the contrast (bright whites, dark blacks) usually seen in silver gelatin prints (the most common black and white printing method). By printing them small she pulls us away from feeling their monumental scale as we would if we were standing there in person or if she had made massive prints as is so common these days. Instead of asking us to be awe-struck by the freeways' size in relation to ourselves, she has shrunk them down to a whole new scale. We peer at the prints from up close as if we are getting a glimpse into another world, our world made temporarily unfamiliar.

I also really loved the two series facing each other in one gallery, Icehouses (2001) and Surfers (2003). You can see a video of their installation with Opie's reflections on the images by clicking here. Instead of capturing moments of action among ice fishers in Minnesota and surfers in California she photographs the quiet time of waiting, and from a distance. The horizon lines in these are very important, as they align from photo to photo, but are often almost imperceptible as sky melts into snow or ocean. These photos are huge, 50 x 40 inches and were made with field camera on 8x10 inch film. Both series are about temporary communities, not individuals (no people are even visible in Icehouses, only the little shacks within which people do their fishing). 

 

Untitled #9 (Icehouses) 2001, Chromogenic print, 50 x 40 inches

 

Untitled #9 (Surfers), 2003, Chromogenic print, 50 x 40 inches

It's an excellent show all around. I haven't even mentioned the urban landscape shots of mini-malls in Los Angeles (also without people, which highlights both the signage that points to the presence of multiple cultural communities and the dreary architecture) and similarly large scale, detailed but low-key panoramic shots of Wall Street and Chicago that are also quite compelling.

Her aesthetic of capturing the mundane and the overlooked, and the in-between moments, without drama but with incredible technical finesse and intense detail really appeals to me. So very different from the photojournalism that I normally work with, but more in tune with my own photographic sensibility.

Images close to home

A few new photos from the house and garden. Close-up details, using a shallow depth of field. A bug's eye view perhaps.

 

60 years of the Universal Human Rights Declaration - photo slide show

Oeil Public, a French photo agency that I like to use for excellent photos of the Middle East, has a poignant and compelling slide show commemorating 60 years of the UN's Universal Human Rights Declaration. As you might imagine, from a photojournalistic/documentary agency, the photos almost all show violations of (not respect for) human rights. It's powerfully done. I rarely sit through online slide shows, but this one was riveting (the music adds a sense of urgency). Just click on the link above and it will start up.

One of the photographers whose work appears in the slide show is Karim Ben Khelifa, whose photos I use occasionally for Middle East Report, and who focuses on Islam and the Arab world.

Cool Middle East design and visual culture

I stumbled upon the website for the Khatt Network for Arabic Typography again today and it is even more interesting than I remember (with a lovely new interface).

"The Khatt Foundation is a non-profit cultural foundation dedicated to design research and cultural exchange between Europe and the Arab World/Middle East."

You can join and become a member of the community, post announcements, notices, thoughts, designs. Check out the news section for events, conferences, calls for submission, exhibitions. Learn about such things as Samandal Comics, a quarterly tri-lingual comics magazine, or "Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, a heartfelt tribute by some traditional letterpress printers in America to the literary and bibliographical heritage of Iraq, and its partial destruction."


The calendar section is especially worth visiting for detailed listings of events, including many photo, video/film and art exhibits. For example, here's an exhibit by Egyptian painter Huda Lutfi (a former professor of mine at AUC).

[Democracy is coming! 2008, Mixed Media, 45 x 35]

Also check out PhotoCairo04 put on by the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo:

An international multi-disciplinary visual arts project in Downtown Cairo featuring a series of exhibitions, screenings, presentations, residencies, a workshop and a temporary publishing house.

Opening reception on Wednesday 17 December 2008
Symposia: 19-21 December 2008 | 9-11 January 2009

And here's a curious call for posters by Iranian artists for a roaming display in Berlin, after one in Istanbul, about "Urban Jealousy":