The fate of a nation

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"The Tate has just sent me its magnificent book of orientalist paintings to coincide with its latest exhibition (The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting) and I am struck by the awesome beauty of this work. In the 19th century, our great painters wondered at the glories of the Orient.

No more painters today. Instead, we send our photographers and they return with pictures of car bombs and body parts and blood and destroyed homes and Palestinians pleading for food and fuel and hooded gunmen on the streets of Beirut, yes, and dead Israelis too. The orientalists looked at the majesty of this place and today we look at the wasteland which we have helped to create."


Via [The traveler Photographer]

What is shocking is the main difference between paintings and photojournalism, painting is meant to show beauty, will nowadays all the images send from the Arab world are all just about conflicts, death and chaos in a bitter black and white, our image is being work out in the bad way, the media are just spotted on bloody lands leaving since 9/11 and no more is really curious about finding a desert rose as much as seeming more storms.

Here come the role of photographers to counter back the stereotype of war and disaster, more lovely spots, smiling faces would bring back some harmony to our world. Unfortunately Arab photography is very limited and unknown, but we can still try...

 
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