Mohamed Hassan: Photojournalist

Mohamed Hassan: Photojournalist

Photo © Mohamed Hassan- All Rights Reserved

Mohamed Hassan Abd El Aal (Mikko Hassan) lived and worked in Cairo, and graduated from the Akhbar El-Yom Academy with an honor degree in Journalism. He worked as a press photographer in the daily newspaper El-Shorouk El Gedid. Apart from covering political issues, protests and demonstrations, he was interested in documenting the traditional manufacturing processes in Old Cairo. One of these features gleaned him first prize in the 2009 Annual Press Photography Competition of Egypt.

I met Mohamed (aka Mikko) at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Istanbul. He wasn't in my class, but approached me, rather shyly, and expressed his pleasure in seeing that one of the instructors was of Egyptian heritage. He told me that although he had seen my name on the roster of instructors, but had taken it for Lebanese. Mohamed participated in Guy Calaf's class, and had been awarded a scholarship.

I reviewed Mohamed's portfolio which, as he wrote in his biography, had photographs of his explorations in the deepest corners of Old Cairo. He did them during his one day week-ends, on his own time, deriving nothing of it except his own pleasure and self-improvement. I sensed his enthusiasm for photography, saw his talent and his eye for composition, and predicted to him that he'd be one of Egypt's best photojournalists.

It was not to be. His trajectory was very sadly cut short because of a fatal freak accident a few days ago. He will be missed by many.

The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop family reacts: Eric Beecroft, the co-founder of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, announced that a permanent full scholarship in Mikko's name will be made available, and his work is featured on the FPW's front page.

Masr: Javier Morgade

Masr: Javier Morgade

Masr is the Arabic word for Egypt...and it's also colloquially used for Cairo. So in Arabic, Egyptians are called Masr'yeen...which is confusing for non-Arabic speakers, but that's how it is. Egypt was borrowed from the Latin Aegyptus and from the ancient Greek Aígyptos.

Javier Morgade was filming in Egypt for an airline company, and was left with surplus footage for this short movie. It's a documentary made with a Canon 5d Mark II and a Glidetrack HD. It was edited in Final Cut Pro and graded with After Effects. The song is by a contemporary Egyptian singer and is titled ah men al forak, which loosely translated means "lamenting separation".

In my view (and I should know), Javier managed to capture in this short movie the essence of the Egyptian character, the kindness, humor, hospitality and generosity...even their occasional legendary intrusiveness. It saddens me to see the poverty in the alleys of old Cairo, but as always, it's mitigated by the Egyptian talent for being able to share setbacks, poverty, sorrows, and life troubles. No Egyptian is an island...and while they find enormous solace in their extended families and friends, neighbors and even casual acquaintances...they deserve better.

David Myers: City of The Dead

David Myers: City of The Dead

The City of the Dead is produced by David Myers, a part-time photographer who lives in Maryland and works in Washington DC.

The City of the Dead is a four mile long cemetery (a necropolis would be a better word to describe it) which extends from the northern to southern part of Cairo. It's called el-arafa by Egyptians, and is an area of tombs and mausoleums where people live and works amongst the dead. Its foundation dates back to the Arab conquest of Egypt in 642 AD, and has grown with time until it reached the equivalent of a fully functioning residential suburb of Cairo.

I watched this short photo essay, and it brought back childhood memories when, once a year during the Eid festival, I had to accompany my father to pay respects to our ancestors and forebears who were interred in our family's mausoleum. I still recall it being as large as a couple of basketball courts, with two house-like structures sheltering a number of mausoleums, made of marble or alabaster, and intricately carved with verses of the Qur'an. It is under one of those that my father rests, alongside his forebears. The marble gateway to the mausoleums is carved with the name of my grandfather...which is like mine.

This brought back the smell of dust to my nostrils...the Egyptian dust that is tamped down by hosing it with water...the green-grey color of the palm tree leaves...and much more.

I've been to many Islamic countries and heard the adan in all of them...but few of them come  close to beauty and purity of the Egyptian adan. Perhaps I am biased....

WSJ Photo Journal: Sayyida Zeinab Shrine

WSJ Photo Journal: Sayyida Zeinab Shrine

Photo © Suhaib Salem/Reuters-All Rights Reserved
Readers and followers of this blog know that I am always interested in religious rituals of all sorts because it's during these rites, festivals and traditional events that devotees are devoid of day-to-day artificiality.

The WSJ Photo Journal recently posted the above photograph of devotees praying at the Sayyida Zeinab shrine in old Cairo commemorating her birthday. Zeinab was the daughter of Ali and the grand-daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. There's a disagreement as to whether she was interred in Damascus in a shrine bearing her name, or in Cairo.

Al Sayyida Zeinab is the patron saint of Cairo, and her shrine is located in mosque that bears her name. It was renovated and rebuilt many times since her death. The mosque is typical of the Mameluke style, and the cenotaph (seen in the photograph) is enclosed within a finely worked bronze grille.

This commemoration has now been added to my list of events to photograph. Hopefully next year in Cairo!

Photocrati: Cairo Report, The Real Thing?

Photocrati: Cairo Report, The Real Thing?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
Over on Photocrati, I've just uploaded a couple of photographs, along with an article, describing an authentic zeqr ceremony in a small village on the western banks of the Nile.

Here's an excerpt:

Following the sound of the rhythmic Sufi song booming out of loudspeakers, we turn into a narrow alley, crowded with people; some are standing but many more are sitting on simple straw mats, lighting the small pieces of charcoal that burns the tobacco on their water-pipes. The barely illuminated alley seems to be inhabited by ghosts, particularly as I now can see a row of elderly men slowly swaying to the rhythm of the song, as if they’re sheets hung up to dry in the wind. Curious eyes follow me as I make my way to the front; some noticing my camera and wondering what to make of me.

For the rest of the article and the photographs, go to Photocrati.

Here's my multimedia feature on Al Ziqr.

My Work: Al Ziqr Multimedia

My Work: Al Ziqr Multimedia

The ziqr is a form of ritual performed by Sufis, a sect of Islam frequently considered as too liberal and too progressive by the more orthodox theological authorities in Egypt and the Islamic world. Nonetheless, it is practiced in Egypt, particularly in the slums of Cairo and in the country's rural areas. There has been a recent revival of interest in Sufism, and many of Egypt's contemporary Sufis are young, well educated people in professional careers.

The devotions of many Sufis center on the ziqr, a ceremony at which music, body movements, and chants induce a state of ecstatic trance in the disciples.

I photographed two of these rituals; one in the Old Cairo area of Darb Al Ahmar, and the other in a small village called Manawat. (Click the small arrow to start the slideshow).

A large version of this multimedia photo essay is here.

WSJ's Photo Journal: Islam in Cairo

WSJ's Photo Journal: Islam in Cairo

©Dominic Nahr-All Rights Reserved
The WSJ's Photo Journal has featured some 21 photographs by Dominic Nahr in an interesting photo essay titled In Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood Plays Defence and starts it off with this:

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is on the defensive, its struggles reverberating throughout Islamist movements that the secretive organization has spawned world-wide.

I'm somewhat puzzled by this statement, because as far as I know the Muslim Botherhood is a recognized political party in the country and from what I sensed during my just ended short visit to Cairo, it seems to be well entrenched in Egypt's social fabric. The Islamic movement fills voids left by a government overwhelmed by the explosive growth of its population, and by state organizations paralyzed by inefficiency and rotten by corruption. Truth be said, the Egyptian people deserve a better quality of life, and religion plays an important role in making their lives a little more bearable.

Irrespective of politics, I was amazed to see that all women employees in government entities wore the Islamic veil. Some of them even wore the "niqab" which covers the whole face. I had to spend some time at a couple of these government offices, and seeing this relatively recent change in women dress habits was shocking. I haven't been to Cairo for 8 years, and this was the most jarring change.

I'm told that many of the women dress so conservatively do so to avoid criticism and sexual harassment at their workplace. I'm also told by a local wit that some are "Saudi Arabian from the outside and French from the inside", meaning that it's all a show rather than based on conviction. It may well be true, since I noticed that the veiled young woman vendor selling me a SIM card for my cell phone was heavily made-up, with traces of glitter on her eye-lids.

Having said that, I can only reiterate what I wrote in an earlier post. There are no kinder people than Egyptians, and their courtesy and genuine warmth towards foreigners and visitors are wonderful attributes.

POV: Cairo Report

POV: Cairo Report

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
I'm frequently asked to organize and lead photo~expeditions to Egypt (or more specifically to Cairo), and I've always resisted the temptation. People view this as strange and have difficulty understanding the reasons. After all, I was born in Cairo, I speak the language (almost a colloquially as its residents) and perfectly understand the culture.

My reasons for my resistance are many, but here's a few I can share on this blog.

1. I'm a travel-documentary photographer, and my primary interests for my photo expeditions revolve around photographing esoteric but authentic cultural and religious rituals and ceremonies. My trips are "event-specific" such as my recent photo~expedition to Kerala for the Theyyam rituals or my forthcoming trip to Morocco to photograph the Gnawa festival. These are highly colorful events, with powerful visual aesthetics. The visual aesthetics of authentic festivals in Egypt are not as colorful nor as "eye-candy" appealing. I don't mean to imply that these are not interesting; quite the opposite is true but they're usually monochromatic and much less flamboyant than in Asia as an example. Somewhat facetiously (and perhaps a bit unfairly) I described Cairo as being beige on beige on beige with hints of beige.

The ceremonies or rituals aimed at the touristic market in Egypt are contrived, and while these are designed to be colorful and attractive, I find their lack of authenticity to be unappealing. Yes, there are a few authentic and visually interesting religious festivals in Egypt but here's where my second point kicks in.

2. Egyptian bureaucracy (which is stifling and pervasive here) is an enormous turn-off for me. I'll be charitable and just say that fixers need fixers in Egypt to be able to fix anything. Nothing gets done in a timely fashion or efficiently unless one lubricates the system. Tipping is no longer an act of appreciation for good service, but is now an entitlement. Bait and switch in the tourist industry is frequently the norm, whether in terms of guides, transport or itineraries.

The success of my photo~expeditions is because I'm confident of the supporting infrastructure I've chosen to use...whether guides, fixers, agents, vehicular transport, hotels and so forth. In Egypt, unless I were able to use the people who are close to me (but they're not in the tourism industry) to set up my trips, I have no confidence that they would go as well as I would want and expect them to be. It's difficult to find kinder people than the Egyptians, but that characteristic is not sufficient to overlook the host of downsides.

I wish I could say otherwise, but Egypt will not appear as a destination for my photo expeditions.

Cairo Report: Zekr at Manawat

Cairo Report: Zekr at Manawat

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
It happened. Driven by Abdel Fattah ("Kojak") and accompanied by Badawi, then meeting with Haj Zakaria and Badawi's father at 11:00 pm, I was welcomed to an authentic zikr ceremony held at the village of Manawat. This is certainly not a venue for the faint-hearted or for foreigners (assuming they would even find the village). The ceremony starts after the night prayer and goes well into the dawn hours. I would go beyond describing the performance as totally authentic. It's a rural ceremony performed by villagers for villagers who follow a certain tariqah or Sufi way. The performance was held in a small alley, lit by a combination of fluorescent and dangling bulbs. The attendees, men and women, sat on straw carpets, and lined the walls of the alley smoking sheeshas or cigarettes.

As I wrote earlier, zikr is a devotional performance which includes the repetition of the names of Allah, supplications and sections of the Qur'an.

The music and chanting were mind-blowing. Very similar to the traditional rural songs called mawwal, the rhythm starts slow and progressively gets quicker while the attendees sway to its tempo, until they reach a state of trance. Not the easiest of photo shoots because of the confined space, mixed light sources and blaring loudspeakers, but I was transfixed by the authenticity of the event. Unfortunately, the monochrome of Egyptian traditional dress (browns, white and black) is not visually magnetic...but that's how it is.

Once I'm back in New York, I'll edit my photographs and review the quality of the audio recordings and determine whether a multimedia slideshow can be produced. In the meantime, here's one that caught my eye from last night.

Cairo Report: Madh in Old Cairo

Cairo Report: Madh in Old Cairo

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Here's another of my photographs of the band at Monday's Sufi madh at the shrine of Sayyidah Fatimah Al Nabawiyya. The fellow on the left in his white galabeya is called the muallem or the leader of the band, while the other is called el-madah.

I'm hoping to attend a real zikr ceremony late tonight in one of the villages surrounding Cairo. Naturally, I'll be accompanied by the indispensable Badawi and Kojak, the driver. And even more naturally, it's incha allah.

Note: I don't have Photoshop installed on my Acer netbook (one of the disadvantages of going minimalist) so I'm using Gimp, the free and lightweight image editing program which I'm not familiar with...perhaps a reason for the images being either too soft or oversharpened.

Zikr At Fatimah Al-Nabawiyah Shrine

Zikr At Fatimah Al-Nabawiyah Shrine

©Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Well, it did happen. Driven in the rickety taxi expertly navigated by Abdel-Fattah (aka Kojak) in the grimy labyrinthine alleys of Old Cairo, and accompanied by Badawi and Haj Zakaria (an Imam by choice and a government employee by necessity), I arrived in reasonable good form at the shrine (and mosque) of Sayyidah Fatimah Al Nabawiyya just before the afternoon Muslim prayers. It is here, just outside the mosque, that a small Sufi zikr was scheduled to take place.

Sayyidah Fatima was one of the daughters of Imam Hussein, the martyred son of Ali (nephew of the Prophet Mohammad and revered by Shi'a Muslims), who is said to be the first to know of her father's martyrdom when a black crow soaked in the Imam's blood landed next to her. She is considered to be a saint by many in the local Sufi community.

The definition of zikr is that it's an Islamic practice and a devotional act which includes the repetition of the names of Allah, supplications and aphorisms and sections of the Qur'an. What I witnessed was a small manifestation of this practice, where a band of devotional musicians sang (rather than recited) homage to various saints such as Al Badawi, founder of the Badawiyyah Sufi order, among others.

A number of tiny street cafes offered tea to the spectators, while a few veiled women occasionally swayed to the tempo of the music. An elderly woman had to helped after she "swooned" from the exertion. I have no idea if it was caused by the exertion of having sucked on a water pipe for the better part of an hour, or by her entering a state of trance.

More a block party than a serious religious event, there was a sense of neighborhood fraternity amongst the attendees. I was viewed with amused curiosity, and treated with the Egyptian customary kindness. I realized that the event wasn't packed because it coincided with an important soccer match being televised and shown in various tea-houses. Religion is important, but it's often trumped by soccer.

I considered this as a precursor to other more important events, which I'm working on. Hopefully, there'll be more to come. However as I expected, it was monochromatic...and hence the black & white photograph of this post. The highlight of the performance was to hear my name being sung when I made a modest contribution to the band's "pension fund". I had my audio recorder on for a while, and the little I listened to so far is quite interesting.

Note: Technically-speaking, I was advised that what I saw is called Madh rather than Zikr. Madh is the giving of praise to various saints, which is exactly what this ceremony was about.