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Photography in Palestine

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Photography has been used as an important medium to document the lives and culture of the Palestinian people. In the early history of photography, Palestine was one of the first places outside Europe to be photographed extensively.[1]

History

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A photograph of a farm worker in Palestine, 1890
Karimeh Abbud

Around 1860, a school for teaching photography was established in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. The founder was an Armenian amateur photographer named Yessai Garabedian, a priest who had moved to the city from Anatolia to become the archivist at St. James Armenian Church.[citation needed]

Karimeh Abbud, thought to be the first Arab woman photographer working in the region and the first woman professional photographer to offer services to the public. Her advertisement published in al-Karmel sometime in 1932 states that she is the "only national female photographer".[citation needed]

Portrait of Wasif Jawhariyyeh with his father

Early twentieth century Palestinian life is richly documented by photographers in this period. A key figure is Wasif Jawhariyyeh (1904–1972), who collated nine hundred images to create the seven volume work, The Illustrated History of Palestine.[2]

As time went on, the availability of photography led to a vibrant market for photographic portraits. Many of these portraits were of individuals or were taken to record weddings and similar important events.[3]

Edward Said, the Palestinian American academic, writes of the process of collating photographs for the book After the Last Sky,[4] published in 1983 "I felt that I was actually doing it in a kind of abstract way...I was really working according to principles...within the nonrepresentational art of the Islamic world...There were certain kinds of patterns that you could see that were not representational in the sense...that they had a subject, but they had some motif and rather a musical motif".[5] Said selected photographs from the huge archive created by Jean Mohr who had been commissioned by the UN to produce a photographic series of Palestine in 1983.[6][7]

The International Red Cross also commissioned Jean Mohr to document refugee camps and living conditions in the occupied territories, and includes many of his images in their online photo archive.[8]

Ariella Azoulay's 2011 book 'From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950'[9] analyses photographs from Israeli state archives in relation to key moments of the violent dispossession of the Palestinian people.[10]

Photography continues to play an important role in preserving documentation of Palestinian life and thought, especially through photojournalism.

Photojournalism

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Younger photographers have used the medium of photography to communicate with the world and in recent histories of the occupation photography has been used to bear witness to Israeli state violence.[11] This includes the work of photojournalists, activists, and ordinary citizens whose use of social media seeks to gain the world’s attention of the Palestinian situation. Azza El-Hassan, a Palestinian film-maker has said that this belief, that showing the reality of the occupation to international audiences will enable political change, is a “national illusion”.[12] The 'Photographers without Borders' project recorded the names of photojournalists killed by Israeli Occupation Forces. [13]

Notable Palestinian photojournalists include:

  • Yousef Dawas, killed by Israeli air strikes on Gaza in 2023[14]
  • Mohammed Zaanoun, who received the award for Cultures of Resistance in 2017. Zaanoun worked for Le Monde to document the impact of Israeli bombing of Gaza in 2023.[15]
  • Hind Khoudary, a journalist based in Gaza who reports for outlets including Al Jazeera English and Anadolu Agency.
  • Motaz Azaiza, a photojournalist from Gaza was included in the Time magazine list of the 100 most influential people of 2024.[16]
Children making peace symbol in a car, celebrating a ceasefire in November 2012, Gaza
Photograph taken by Samar Abu Elouf, November 2012 of celebrations after ceasefire, Gaza Strip 2012
  • Samar Abu Elouf, a freelance photographer based in Gaza City. She has worked for the New York Times since 2021.[17]

Photography exhibitions

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https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/62609/1/adam-rouhana-before-freedom-gaza-palestine-photography-exhibition

Anchor in the Landscape.[18]

Humans of Palestine.[19]

References

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  1. ^ "Palestinian Photographers before 1948". Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question – palquest. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  2. ^ "Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine". Aurdip. 2022-09-28. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  3. ^ Nassar (2006). "Familial Snapshots: Representing Palestine in the Work of the First Local Photographers". History and Memory. 18 (2): 139. doi:10.2979/his.2006.18.2.139.
  4. ^ Said, Edward W. (1999). After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11449-3.
  5. ^ Mitchell, W. J. T.; Said, Edward W. (1998). "The Panic of the Visual: A Conversation with Edward W. Said". Boundary 2. 25 (2): 11–33. doi:10.2307/303612. ISSN 0190-3659. JSTOR 303612.
  6. ^ "SPACE & GAZE: Conversations with Jean Mohr & Edward Said in Palestine". Goldsmiths, University of London. Retrieved 2025-04-10.
  7. ^ Bhandar, Brenna; and Toscano, Alberto (2017-01-02). "Representing Palestinian dispossession: land, property, and photography in the settler colony". Settler Colonial Studies. 7 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2016.1139863. ISSN 2201-473X.
  8. ^ "Home". ICRC Audiovisual archives. Retrieved 2025-04-10.
  9. ^ Azoulay, Ariella; Kamen, Charles S. (2011). From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-3169-0.
  10. ^ Nassar, Issam (2015-08-01). "Review: From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947–1950 by Ariella Azoulay". Journal of Palestine Studies. 44 (4): 93–95. doi:10.1525/jps.2015.44.4.93. ISSN 0377-919X.
  11. ^ Schankweiler, Kerstin; Straub, Verena; Wendl, Tobias, eds. (2018-12-11). Image Testimonies: Witnessing in Times of Social Media (1st ed.). London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-34306-1.
  12. ^ "Katalog". webarchive.ars.electronica.art. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  13. ^ "Honoring the Real Photographers Without Borders of Palestine". Photographers Without Borders. 2024-01-30. Retrieved 2025-04-09.
  14. ^ "Yousef Maher Dawas". Committee to Protect Journalists. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  15. ^ "In devastated Gaza, a photographer recounts the stories of the dead and displaced". Le Monde.fr. 2023-10-22. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  16. ^ "Motaz Azaiza: The 100 Most Influential People of 2024". TIME. 2024-04-17. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  17. ^ "Samar Abu Elouf". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  18. ^ Article, Jo Lawson-Tancred ShareShare This (2024-02-06). "A New Show in London Gives Palestinian Artists an Opportunity to 'Tell Our Own Story'". Artnet News. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
  19. ^ "Humans of Palestine". Leeds Palestinian Film Festival. Retrieved 2024-05-23.
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