published in brownbook magazine

I think it's my first experience being published, and it's such a great first experience. I mean, getting 5 page spread is really cool! And in quite a really cool magazine: Brownbook Magazine.

My dear friend Diana called me from Dubai today, excited to tell me that my work got published in the magazine. And I got equally excited, jumped on the bed! haha. It's really great, and I'm quite happy. The work are the photographs from the session of A Palestinian Girl with my friend Lana El Deeb. One of the portraits was on Flickr and probably my most popular one, and the rest are uploaded on my website.

Here are some snaps from her iSight, good enough to illustrate how they were published:

YAY! Although her name is actually "Lana" or in Arabic "لنا" which comes from القدس لنا but she says it's a variant of her name and sometimes written this way.

Very special Thanks to Brownbook Magazine, and Rashid Shabib in particular for approaching me =) and also to Diana who took the effort of snapping these shots and sending them to me.

Leba-Oui!

It's really hard not to be inspired by a city that is considered one of the main inspiration sources of the Levantine culture. So much of artists, poets and actors did - and since I'm a sucker for whatever's related to Arabic art and so on, I did get inspired greatly.

You walk down the street, with the humidity giving you a 'warm' embrace, you get this beautiful views that really entertain you. The interesting buildings of Beirut, the ones that are build in a seriously beautiful manner, the haunted ones, the colourful ones and the a-la-europe built ones make a great combination. Down to the old places and their extremely traditional signs, signs which lasted from the 70's or even way before that, the red calligraphy against the dusty grey, the brushed white arabic words against dark blue painted wood, the emboss non functional luminescent orange classic typography. Very facinating

Another element would be the amount of sparkling stuff you see, probably most wouldn't notice but as you walk by the stores you get blinded by the reflective huge golden women bags and their little twinkling details with medallions and god knows what in the background. The women who are very well dressed, the old people who talk a funny accent of Beirut and more and more.

And oh, just in case you wonder. I'm still there and I'm writing from Costa coffee in Hamra.
I am jealous of the following:

1. There are no fat people here
2. Kids my age and younger work their butts off to get money!
   
3. They speak French fluently
4. They have a sea
5. People here live in Beirut (ha, makes any sense?)
6. Nadine Labaki is Lebanese.

My fortune on walls of a cup

It's such an amusing thing to observe, and see how eyes of participants twinkle with eagerness to know. What could the residues of my finely grind coffee in my beige or white cup be drawing? What paths they will take and form for me? Will they form a husband? A shape of a baby? An enemy in the shape of a snake?

I, for myself hardly believe it. But I don't see harm in practising it. Plus it makes people talk. What's funny is that my friend Amino mentioned it in one of her latest posts. But of course, she did it in a hell more poetic way.

Barazek are....

Syrian cookies! :D

1st circle old goods, and documentaries

I took this shot as I was walking to first circle, a shot of the Rubicon building from the back. I thought the building was pretty vintage. Before that I had the privilege of visiting a photography studio that's been in Amman since early '60s, had a very long chat with the photographer there, George Lepedjian. I took a stroll around first circle and crossed the modified Rainbow street. But before I went out to the circle itself, I took

portrait of George

Afterwards, I went ahead to attend the public screening for the documentary shorts produced at the Univeristy of South California's workshop alongside the Royal Film Commission. Met Hiba and Ibrahim there and got the chance to watch both Nada Jaffal's short of a hilarious story-telling oracle taxi driver called David as well as Lina Ejeilat's short concerning her questioning of how the old place of Al Jam'a Al Arabeyya cafe in Balad gets part of it knocked down in favour of building a new commercial centre.

Nada's short was absolutely hilarious, and it carries that comic spirit to it that you'd expect to hear her joking about it. I really loved it. Lina's was really good, especially how she showed different insights on "El Balad".

I didn't like "Letter from Guantanamo", "The City of Art & Music", "What is Recycling" and "An Ammani Spirit". I'm sorry but they didn't impress me as much as the two mentioned above and the great "Minister of Peanuts" - gave me goosebumps! A Day in the lives of two Brothers was REALLY impressive, unique and interesting!

c'est tout!

God created Cameras...

for these people to make masterpieces


you can't take my bag II by ~Muratkivrak on deviantART
I Have an affiction to this guy's work, Murat's a fashion photographer from Turkey and he blows me away with every single frame he has!


In the music room by *lmajali on deviantART
Our own Laith Majali plays visual music with his photographs. I see a really huge photojornalist in him, aside from the current stunning photographer he is now.



doll shoot 05 by ~fauxtography-ninja on deviantART
Ring flash can't go wrong, neither a model a la Devon Aoki. Becky sets it right with this amazingly surreal series of photography.


hearted by =muted-pain on deviantART
Drench the Arab in you, no one truly captured the essence of Arabia like Hend. I'd say Bidwiya is a competition, but with the person Hend makes it definitely makes her on the top.


Vinyle by ~kMoOg on deviantART
I'd with no doubt call it the mother of Beauty shots. Why hate on plastic aesthetic representation? I mean, look at the candy lips.


Jungle Olivia by ~Myqua on deviantART
I wanna go to the jungle, if all inhabitants looked as good! Now can't you just stare at this for ages?


YOLDA by ~tolgaozgal on deviantART
This photograph tells me a whole lot of stories, is it a Turkish mafia? What are they planning to do? Where are they going? The Daily Deviation feature on this one is really Well deserved.

I know this is an extremely brief showcase, I just wanted to share these with you for the moment