FirstLook: Poetic Fusion
Prior to our modern practice of image manipulation with editing software, photographers worked more with planned intention and craft.
Prior to our modern practice of image manipulation with editing software, photographers worked more with planned intention and craft. We made premeditated and physical creations either through in-camera techniques, trick shots during the photo shoot, post-manipulation of negatives/slides or during the darkroom processing itself.
In this image taken in 1993, I sandwiched two original slides together, one a high-contrast silhouette image of a boat on the Senegal River separating Senegal and Mauritania, the other a photo of wind-carved sand dunes taken in the same vicinity. The result is more than an illusion—the visual poetry and fusion of these two realities is a metaphor for Mauritania itself, where the Sahara Desert meets the Atlantic Ocean, and where nomads and fishermen live side by side.
I created this while living in Mauritania, working with humanitarian agencies, before founding a local NGO focused on collective social and behavior change.
—JONATHAN SHADID
@JonathanShadid
www.jonathanshadid.com
You may also be interested in...
Ramadan Picnic Photograph by Zoshia Minto
Arts
On a warm June evening, people gathered at a park in Bethesda, Maryland, for a community potluck dinner welcoming the start of Ramadan.
The Lost World Of Southern Iraq's Marsh Arabs
History
Arts
In late 1967, photographer Tor Eigoland traveled for more than: a month, mostly by canoe, among the countless villages of southern Iraq's vast marshes. Now, 45 years later, writer Anthony Sattin calls his photographs a "rare and ethnographic record of a lost world. They bring us back to a time and place where people lived in harmony with their environment and respected the balance the natural world needs to thrive.'
Saudi Camel Festival by Norah AlAmri
Arts
This photo series began unexpectedly when I found that photographing people behind windows and maintaining a distance made me, and the people I photographed, feel more comfortable. I purposefully frame myself in the reflection of the window to see into the space I’m photographing. I feel every window tells a different story.