Hashem El Madani : Studio Practices

El Madani, Hashem and Stephen Wright, Akram Zaatari

ISBN 10: 9953003238 / ISBN 13: 9789953003238

Published by Arab Image Foundation, Mind the Gap, and The Photographers' Gallery, 2004

About this Item

Hardcover without dustjacket as issued, 128 pages; very good condition; clean and crisp; no internal marks. Foreign shipping may be extra.

Seller Inventory # HaElAr200

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Hashem El Madani : Studio Practices
• Publisher: Arab Image Foundation, Mind the Gap, and The Photographers' Gallery
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9953003238
• ISBN 13: 9789953003238
• Binding: Hardcover
• Seller catalogs:
  • Photography

About this title

Synopsis

Long stored in files or dumped in dusty basements, the spontaneous, seemingly ephemeral portraits taken by working studio photographers have been getting a second look over the past 20 years. Such rediscovered work revealed modern American masters of the vernacular in figures like Mike Disfarmer and E.J. Bellocq. Now the photographs of Lebanese photographer Hashem El Madani are set to be discovered. Over a career of more than 50 years (and counting) of work in Saida, Lebanon, El Madani has documented a people who have suffered great social upheaval but who, when posing for his camera, felt free and safe to be who they wanted. The subjects of his photographs exude dignity, strength, good humor and individuality. The conventions of studio photography remain static, but over time, the parade of faces who passed in front of El Madani's lens would change with the times, forming a shifting collective portrait of a Middle Eastern town in the last half of the twentieth century. “I would have liked to have photographed all the people of Saida,” he said, “because that is where I live.”