 7:
Ordinary Life: Occupation
By Skip Schiel
All we [the Palestinian people] want is to be ordinary.
--Mohmoud Darwish
Photos: People in Ramallah, October 2004
Years ago I began a series of portraits of people using my camera in a secretive way: held down at my hip, prefocussed, anticipating the light, predicting where people might be at a given moment, with what background. Another term for this--Wild Mind Photography.
Why do this here in Ramallah, during Occupation?
To try to give a sense of ordinary street life, people out shopping, going to or coming from work or school, or simply strolling, walking with a friend, looking for new friends. Ordinary life, Palestinian style.
That’s one reason. Another is to show people before they notice the camera, before they pose, before they interact with me. Not that this current method is more natural or powerful, it is just a different view of people. I’m reminded of (and inspired by) a series Walker Evans did on New York subways in the 1930s, with a camera whose lens was mounted 90 degree off frontal, tricking people into thinking he wasn’t photographing them.
And a third reason: the Wild Mind part. To break my old photo habits, surprise myself with new compositions, uses of light, timing, what’s in frame, what’s out.
I continue with the traditional portraits, both posed and candid, and expect to for the rest of my working life. But here’s a small sampling of what I see every day as I trudge home from the university, or into Al-Hisba, the main produce market.
{I’m well aware of the excitement in Boston (with the World Series) and elsewhere in the States (with another World Series). May the best win (and they or it might not even be the most visible candidate.)
Another form of sneak photography, from the air (“ Israel caught snapping Pakistan Nuclear-centres”)--
http://www.newsinsight.net/nati2.asp?recno=2937
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, in part about Palestine-Israel, Oct 21, 2004--
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/21/1441204
Next delegations of Palestine & Israel by the Fellowship of Reconciliation--
http://www.forusa.org/programs/ipb/upcoming.html
THE WALKING MAN....KEEP HIM WALKING FOR OUR TROOPS!—
http:/www.sondrak.com/archive/002727.html
Palestinian Media Center (good news source)--
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/
Walker Evans--
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/E/evans/evans_subway_portrait.html
Book idea: “Sacred Landscape” by Meron Benvenisti, an inspired account of how the occupiers of the Palestinian landscape have systematically erased the Arabic and Palestinian components. The author is the son of the main Israeli mapmaker who helped accomplish this feat of sinister magic.
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