I thank a friend for sending along these images of Aden, taken in 1939 while the Yemeni port was under British colonial control.
Steamer Point harbour & landing stage
Category Archives: Photography
Aden in 1906
I thank a friend for sending along these images of Aden, taken in 1906 while the Yemeni port was under British colonial control.
Jopp Gardens and Jopp Promenade
Manakha to Machu Pichu
The blog Shadjar Al Noor has a lovely combination of photographs showing the similarities between the highlands of Yemen and of Peru. Check out the photographs here.
Picturing Palestine
Escape from Gaza by Karim Ben Khelifa
On Tuesday, April 13, photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa will be speaking at Hofstra University on “Picturing Palestine: Gaza and the West Bank.” This will be held in 201 Barnard Hall from 9:35-11 am. The event is sponsored by the Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies Program at Hofstra.
For more information, contact Professor Varisco at daniel.m.varisco@hofstra.edu.
Alger Postcard
While looking over the postcards my grandmother saved from the start of the last century, I came across a beautiful street scene in Algiers, reproduced above. The card was sent from Italy in July, 1914 so it was obviously printed before then. It was addressed to my grandmother’s aunt, whose papers my grandmother inherited. The message itself is interesting in large part because it is so ordinary. The message reads:
Rome, 7/19/14
Dear Ida,
We have had a safe and happy journey so far, enjoying the beautiful stars en route. Went thro’ an Arab St. like this. I have bought some statuary which is being sent home to your address, and of necessity the duty, 75 cents about, must be paid at that end of the line. Am sorry to ask you to do it, but see no other way. We have seen some of the wonders of the “Eternal City.” Move on to Pisa and Florence tomorrow. A. K. Joy
The Guardian pictures Yemen
Women carry empty gas cylinders in Sana’a. The country is suffering from a gas shortage
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Several photographers have recently arrived in Yemen, given its newsworthiness. The Guardian has a gallery of 14 images. To see any earlier post on the photographs of Karim Ben Khelifa, click here.
Why does this land make me quiver?
[Webshaykh’s note: Carol Spencer Miller (1954-2004) worked as a photojournalist in the Middle East, covering the crises there for some of the major American and european journals and newspapers. She had access to the elites, including King Hussein and Yassir Arafat, as well as ordinary people. Although she died before publishing her reflections on this experience, her book has been edited by her sister as Danger Pay: Memoir of a Photojournalist in the Middle East, 1984-1994 and is now available as an intriguing first-person memoir of events that seem to recycle more than disappear from the news cycle. I provide here an excerpt about her feeling of disorientation reporting on the Israeli/Palestinian issue.]
It grows increasingly unclear to me why people call this a “Westernized†country. the phones don’t work, the press is censored, there are guns everywhere. I am perpetually uneasy. How, I wonder, can anyone relax when wherever you look, there is someone toting or pointing a machine gun? they casually rest across shoulders, carried by anybody who wants to. Will I get used to the sight of civilians wearing sandals, shorts, T-shirts, and Uzis. in movie theaters, at the supermarket, at shopping malls, and at bars? They aren’t frightening as much as disconcerting.
This is a difficult country to get accustomed to. There are bomb shelters in homes and children’s playgrounds, security at every store, the ever-present notion of “security reasons,†the way people dress, as if they don’t give two hoots about appearance (they don’t). Restaurants and movies open on Fridays are stoned by the ultra-Orthodox Haredim. Continue reading Why does this land make me quiver?
Pyramid Air
