photo américain

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!]

A building comes alive

The other day I got an interesting comment on a photo I posted on December 25th. I responded and he wrote again, with an amazing story. I thought I'd make it into a post, because not everyone sees the comments and it's worth reading. It's just a reminder of how many stories are buried in our environments that photographs can only vaguely hint at. One reason I took the photo, besides the tree, is the line of jars on the shelf on the ground floor apartment's balcony. The personalized decoration gave me a sense of the particular people who dwell there, but I never expected to hear a real story of this building.

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From Nadim:

Oh my God! The top picture is the building where my grandmother's house was. I grew up there! The balcony at the top of the picture is where I spent a large part of my childhood. Amazing. I was just discussing the building with a friend here in the US the other day and wondering whether it still exists. Just to make sure I'm not crazy, the building is on Bliss Street, just past IC and just before Mike's barbershop, right?

Michelle:

Hi Nadim, thanks for the comment. You're exactly right about the location. I'm thrilled to have delivered a photo with so much meaning to someone else. The side of the building (to the right) has a lot of scars, bullet holes from the civil wars I imagine. If I take another photo of it, I'll let you know!

Nadim:

Michelle, the scars are from a shell that fell in front and to the right of the building during the war (~1975). I remember the day clearly. I was playing with my cousins and three siblings (on the balcony at the top of the picture) when we heard the doorbell ring. For some reason, we all decided to go answer the door. It was a family friend coming to warn us not to go outside because of expected shelling of Beirut. Right at the moment he finished telling us, the shell landed, exploded and sprayed the building and balcony with shrapnel. We all avoided death by a few seconds. Answering the door saved us.

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Here's the photo again.

different images of Beirut

In my last post I mentioned looking at a map of Beirut that shows the gardens, orchards and hedges (as well as buildings and streets) as they were in 1947. Here's the section that shows Hamra.

The green blocks are buildings, the open spaces with a dot in the center are orchards, and the spaces with a little circle in the middle are gardens. Curved lines like this ( denote a hedge with cactus. There seem to be more of these as you go further west.

On a random note, here's a shot of the spectacularly brilliant rainbow that appeared this afternoon.

US in the Middle East

The longer I live in Beirut the harder it is to see the place as a visitor from the US would see it. But the other day, while attending some panels at the Beirut Media Forum, I heard a talk by the smart and informed journalist and press critic, Michael Massing who was visiting for just a few days. [He often writes for the New York Review of Books, which is where I have read his critiques of US press coverage of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and later of coverage of the war itself.] He has spent time in Iraq but had not been to Beirut before. His talk explained the various impediments to reporting from Iraq –- non-Arabic speaking journalists, violence restricting their movements and interactions with Iraqis, the embed system of tagging along with American military units leading to isolation from other points of view, and lack of trust in Iraqi sources. I appreciated the talk, even though most was nothing particularly new especially if you've read his work, because I like straightforward analysis of how journalism works and what that means for readers’ understanding of the world.

Massing’s concluding point was also interesting. He explained that in order for a story to be told it has to be recognized as a story by the journalist, then the editor, and lastly it must fit within the bounds of what the public is willing to hear and tolerate. The location of these boundaries is something he has been noticing more lately. All societies have boundaries of what’s acceptable or not, but this part is distressing to me as he described the US public as still largely affected by an atmosphere of “fear, distrust, and xenophobia” since September 11, 2001.

Massing mentioned that the US is still very isolated from Arab views. For example, US cable companies don’t carry the new Al Jazeera International, which is in English. At the beginning of the talk he had admitted that seeing Beirut made him realize how misinformed he was on the situation and the city itself. I later asked him what surprised him. He had a couple of examples. He explained how he had taken a walk around the neighborhood of Hamra and from its appearance had assumed it was the Christian part of town, which he had been led to believe was more Western than the Muslim areas of Beirut. He was surprised to learn later that Hamra is not the Christian area but a mostly Muslim neighborhood. And when he was given a tour of the southern suburbs (Dahiyya) where Hizballah is the most popular party and has its various offices, he noticed that not all the women are swathed in black and there aren’t mullahs on every corner (he was poking fun at the stereotype too, I doubt he really expected that...did he?).

Also surprising to him was the effect of US support for the current majority (called the March 14th forces) in the Lebanese government. He seemed surprised to learn from people here how the US does not support compromise with the opposition (which is led by Hizballah). He said that the US stance of no compromise seems to stem from its “with us or against us” mindset and black and white definition of allies and enemies in the Middle East.

I too find this very frustrating. The more the US marginalizes, undermines and refuses to deal in any way with forces such as Hizballah and Hamas or countries like Iran and Syria the more their supporters and others will resist anything to do with the US. Any US support of democracy, human rights, NGOs, arts and education in the region, for example, then becomes tainted by this one-sided position and renders everything the US does here suspect and partisan in many people’s eyes.

One way for the US to do things differently is to interfere less directly (especially in the use of military force) and reduce the sense of threat that those not supported by the US in the region feel. By allowing the broadest range of voices and giving the region as a whole a sense of security and autonomy, internal forces can more freely work out new social and political relations on their own terms.

Now for something entirely different -- a new graffiti image on Jeanne D'Arc street of the French character from the book The Little Prince.

The words say "come to my heart."

[Here's the original Petit Prince, drawn by the author of the book, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in 1943.]  

improvised music in Beirut

The other night I went with some friends to hear a group called 6 at a theater in Ashrafiye. The event was billed as a "free improvised music concert." Free as in, for example, free jazz, not free entry. There were six musicians playing with their instruments -- trumpet, guitar, drums, saxophone and double bass (though the poster said "electronics" for that musician).

I said playing with because the music came from their creative manipulation of the sounds made by scraping, vibrating, scratching, plucking, rapping, and sawing on their instruments with various tools. The trumpet, by Mazen Kerbaj, was my favorite. His techniques were a bit different since it's an instrument you blow air through (must be a word for that). (The saxophone too of course, but his back was to me, so I can't describe his methods.) So, Kerbaj often put objects directly in front of the horn such as an aluminum plate, glass bowl, plastic things. Sometimes he just blew through the trumpet in a different way or through alternative pipes, creating new sounds. (Kerbaj is also a visual artist whose drawings have appeared in Middle East Report, for example see this cover.)

The effect of all this was really mesmerizing. I imagined doors creaking, trams rattling, machines, busy streets, industrial landscapes, screams, birds chirping, fog horns, cities, raspy breathing, ships and much more. That might seem very unmusical, but it's the way they made the sounds build up or ebb away and intertwine with each other and create patterns that made it so engaging.

For me, the sounds conjured up images from the films of Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay, Andrei Tarkovsky and Dziga Vertov (the movie Man with a Movie Camera poster below). So, it was a really enjoyable evening.

sporting

Views of the Mediterranean from the "beach" club called Sporting. It's a set of concrete terraces out on the edge of Ras Beirut with outdoor pools and access to the sea. Despite the fact that there's no sand to call a beach, it's a lovely place with its great views and sea breezes (and fantastic icy lemonade). These photos were taken at the end of the day, after summer, so there were few people left and the sea water pools were being drained. I like the minimalist feel of the place, nothing fancy.

exploring my neighborhood (again)

I was about to go to a photo exhibit at Galerie Sfeir-Semler, but there is so much traffic this afternoon and it's way across town. Today's the last day of Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast during daylight hours, and everyone seems to be out getting ready for the 3 days of Eid el-Fitr, when people will go to the mosque, visit family and friends, give gifts and generally celebrate. So, instead I'm home scanning some recent photos of Hamra. The exhibit will still be there next week.

[Captain's Cabin, another example of the curious facades and odd themes of bars in Hamra. This one makes pretty good fish and chips and is not, that I know of, a disreputable place like some others around.]

[An old building that I'm fond of on Sadat Street. Rafik Hariri posters on the wall. I like the light inside the bottom door and the fan in the top balcony.]

[Same building, ornate window grates. Posters and graffiti adorn almost all available wall space here.]

[There's a gate to the backyard of this building, and through it you can glimpse the overgrown garden plants, like the hibiscus, one yellow bloom remaining.]

[After I took the photo above looking through the gate into the backyard, I stepped back and noticed two cats watching me. One is up on the wall on the right. Then I noticed the tiny kitten perched on top of the column in the middle, no wonder they were monitoring my every move. But really I took this photo because I like the textures and designs of the graffiti, gate and column.]

[Same building, looking up.]

Lebanese politics

One reason I find Lebanese politics difficult to follow is that it seems obvious no one is telling the truth. Besides verbally attacking each other, politicians here talk often about finding a compromise between the main factions or they say things aren't as bad as they seem. The news constantly reports that various leaders are planning to meet and talk things out. And yet, none of that ever makes the slightest difference, the crisis continues or worsens. In the Middle East Report Online article titled "Rallying Around the Renegade," Heiko Wimmen describes the system as a "Byzantine political game, whereby decisions and distributions of spoils are supposed to be worked out behind impenetrable smokescreens of lofty principles and diplomatic cant." This is definitely how it appears to me.

As the article points out, the traditional leaders (and a few newcomers) don't want this system of back room dealing to change. However, those in the opposition do. Their motives might be just as self-serving, but they talk about increasing transparency in the system and combating corruption and nepotism. I can see the appeal. This situation also reminds me that I read recently that much of the civil war (1975-1990) was a battle between those who were defending the status quo and those who wanted reforms and a non-sectarian system. Much is different now, and perhaps that sort of dynamic is usually present in civil conflicts, but still it strikes me as eerie.

Wimmen's excellent article is primarily about Michel Aoun and his Free Patriotic Movement. He describes Aoun's history, appeal and popularity and discusses why he is now aligned with the Hizballah-led opposition and despised by people in the ruling March 14th coalition. Along the way he illuminates how Lebanese politics works (or rather, doesn't) and why the country is in such a stalemate now. Very worthwhile reading.

Anyhow, I'm not a political expert of any kind, so my comments are necessarily simplistic. Read the article.

Lebanese films

Sunday night I went to see some films in the 6th edition of the "..né.à Beyrouth" festival of Lebanese film. The three I really enjoyed were Wassat Beirut (Central Beirut, 1993) by Akram Zaatari and Rachad el Jisr, L'armee des Fourmis (The Army of Ants, 2007) by Wissam Charaf, and Sheherazade's Tale (2006) by Rami Kodeih.

My favorite was Wassat Beirut, shot on black and white Super-8 film without sound. This type of film stock was introduced in the mid-'60s and its grainy look made Wassat Beirut look like it could have been the early '70s, not '93. But what makes it obviously not from an earlier era are the camera angles and visual language that to me seem photographic, at times framing views as if they were still images. Accompanying the film was an ambient sound environment produced by Charbel Haber of the band Scrambled Eggs, live in the theater. The music/noise along with the grainy poetic images made the whole experience mesmerizing.

It begins close-up on the war damaged hand of one of the figures in the Martyr's statue which at first glance appeared like a living hand to me, pulling out to reveal an abandoned Martyr's Square. Roads and sidewalks are now mostly expanses of dirt. The film explores the battle-scarred and overgrown terrain of downtown Beirut only a few years after the civil war officially ended. At that time there were people (many displaced from other parts of Lebanon) living there amongst the ruins. Even though the downtown has been remade since then into an upscale shopping area, nowadays it's a virtual ghost town. The political impasse has led the opposition to remain camped out in the area since last December alongside the massive rolls of razor wire, concrete barricades, tanks, checkpoints and army men.

Back to 1993, Wassat Beirut follows a group of boys as they play at being militia men with toy guns. But for me the subject of the film was the space itself. The camera lingers on the damaged structures, the empty interiors full of holes, views from windows and along the arched porticos of the old colonial-era architecture. The people who inhabit these spaces seem lost or forgotten, living in a strange limbo zone. Watching them now is poignant because we know what happened to them and because downtown in it's new form doesn't welcome those who can't luxury shop. Most were evicted to become displaced people elsewhere, but a few were killed in the redevelopment process during the demolition of old buildings. In the film some men sell postcard images of Beirut before the war, when the trees were planted deliberately in rows around Martyr's Square and not growing haphazardly out of the rubble of what was once apartments, shops, vibrant urban life.

This film reminded me of the French photographer/artist Sophie Ristelhueber's Beirut photographs from 1982. In black and white she focused on the scars and wounds that had already accumulated in the civil war landscape of downtown. Without drama and with a straight forward, unembellished style she documented the incredible wreckage. In one shot she takes the viewer up close to look at the corner and two sides of a building that is so badly pockmarked by bullets and shells that it appears corroded, as if by acid. In others she stands back to look at whole streets of buildings in rubble.

Unfortunately I can't find any of her Beirut photos on the web except for this one, which isn't representative of what I remember from her book.

[Sophie Ristelhueber, Beirut, 1982]

Fouad Elkoury is another great photographer who took pictures downtown. His are from 1991. Here's an example, but I recommend a visit to his website, which has many examples of his work.

[Fouad Elkoury, Rue de Damas, Beirut, 1991]

Rather than seem dated, these representations of the Lebanese civil war through its physical damage and psychological impacts are still relevant today. Although a younger generation of filmmakers and photographers are reflecting on, even directly recorded, a more recent war--that of last summer's war between Hizballah and Israel--violence, destruction and political/social paralysis are again common and meaningful  motifs in Lebanese art.

We're on video on the Washington Post

I haven't been able to download it yet (slow connection here), but it looks like Waleed and I and our two friends are at least momentarily on this video posted on the Washington Post website. You can see us standing on the roof of the al-Rawda cafe looking towards the bomb blast yesterday that killed Walid Eido.

Waleed has a white shirt on, I think that's me barely visible on his left and then on his right is Betty Anderson in blue and Melani, a graduate student from UC Berkeley, with blond hair and a black shirt. (Below is just a screen shot, you have to go to the link above to see the video.)