A delayed update

Many things have happened, and in the chaos I've been remiss in updating this blog- my apologies! Despite some turbulence in the region- if you can use that word to describe the devastating attacks on Gaza that occurred in the past month- there is good news for the photography project.

The photography class that is pictured in this blog came to an end in the end of October, after two months of shooting and looking at photographs. As a group we began to talk about the book and what we wanted to include. We split the book up into sections about places and events in Nablus; the Old City, Sama Nablus, the village of Asira, etc. Together we discussed the layout and design that I put together in inDesign. And in the end, we created an 80 page book full of photographs created only by the participants in the class, that I believe paints an exceptionally beautiful portrait of the amazing city.

I originally planned on having the book listed and printed from blurb.com, but after some consultation with Project Hope, we decided to have it printed in Nablus. This will support the local economy and allow for a large quantity of books to be printed for a relatively low cost. Project Hope can keep the majority of the copies to be sold as a fundraising tool, and copies will be sent to the respective donors from the Kickstarter page.

I can't stress enough how amazing the participants of the course were. I will continue posting their photographs on this blog, so that those who are set to receive a print can choose which one they'd like. Please email me with that information at dcmeador (at) gmail (dot) com. In closing, here is the text from the introduction to the book, which is entitled Sama Nablus:

The park Sama Nablus (Sky of Nablus) sits high on the side of the northwest hill of the city, Mount Ebal. Looking east from its many picnic benches and outlook perches, you can see almost the entire city of Nablus, comprised of white box houses spilling down from Mount Ebal and crawling up the side of Mount Gerizim on the other side. Nestled in between the hills is Jamal Abdul Nasser Park, and east of that the City Center. Directly below the park is the Ein Bet Alma refugee camp, located inside the city, a pocket of buildings noticeably more crowded than the rest Looking to the west you can see Tel Aviv, and on a clear day the Mediterranean Ocean.

This was all explained to me one September day as my photography class and I sat at a table at Sama Nablus. We had spent a few hours roaming the park, climbing up the rock cliffs above it and taking photographs.

When I began the class in the beginning of September, I expected to teach a group of young people a few things about photography. I found a group of students already exceptional at taking photographs who taught me more than I taught them. Their photographs taught me about Nablus, its history and it’ contemporary stories. And their photographs taught me about the way that this group of university students experienced the beautiful city. These students grew up in some of the city’s roughest periods of history; the intifada and the invasion. They witnessed its silence under imposed curfew, sometimes for months at a time. They witnessed its destruction by air and land, and witnessed deaths in its streets. Then they witnessed its journey back to functionality, its regeneration. And today, they found its most grand and subtle beauties of the destroyed and reborn city to photograph.

I hope this book is not just a celebration of the city, but of the young people who live in it. This generation’s energy ideas are what give Palestine hope for the future.