Before the discovery of oil in Oman, it was a desolate, poor country. People lived in small villages and there was one hospital and 2 schools.
If you got sick you died.
Now there is great prosperity.
Every tiny village has running water, electricity a hospital and a school or two. There are universities and colleges. There are roads and airports and local people even get special deals on cars in which they get extended time to pay and almost no interest.
The Sultan pays every family in the villages an allowance.
The people here embrace change.
There is a photograph or even several in every household you go into here. So they already are starting to feel ok about hanging them. Now they need to feel ok about being photographed.
The reason I want to eradicate the fear
of
photography is because I BELIEVE...( that is to say it is not a profound truth but an opinion) That photography can be very good for community.
As people leave villages and go and work in towns, families become fragmented. Photographs are valuable reminders of people we love.
Oman has no forrests to plunder but it has clear cloudless skies for 9 months of the year and some of the most spectacular desert landscapes you'll find anywhere. It's an incredible location to shoot cars, fashion... whatever. and there's a big industry waiting to happen here.
When the oil runs out they'll need all the industry they can get to keep living the way they do.
herschel
Peeter Vissak <pv@xxxxxx> wrote:
Peeter Vissak <pv@xxxxxx> wrote:
>What yo u are doing is wonderful, Herschel. We have to convince all
>people that photographs are not evil. The Quran doesn't say that
>and neither does the Bible. Graven images in both refer to idols
>for worship, not depictions of ordinary people. I've photographed
>women in Iraq, Iran, and am now working on a project photographing
>Muslims in America. Good luck with your work in Oman.
>
>Tina
I have friends, who've been to Siberia to gather material of visual
anthropology - traditional music, stories, fairy-tales and such stuff.
These native people very easily distrust everyone, because every
merchant has come back with gunmen. After ethnographers and
geographers geologists come and start drilling. And then the forestry
people come. And by that time their dignity has by long been
exchanged for vodka and sneakers.
If there is a slightest sign of distrust they won't sing or dance to
you at all or if th ey do sing or tell stories, that will be absolute
bullshit. They invent fake stories and fake fairytales not to open up
their lives. Later they may laugh how silly people from big cities
buy everything they hear and also try to fish on salmon in the high pike time.
They have told, that opening yourself up means tearing off protective
masking and then everyone can come and find your soul as a bare stone
at the river - a suitable place to wash their feet.
The same with photography. Giving away your picture is giving away
the key, the password.
Although it is not forbidden by sacred texts, there have been
extrasensitives who warn us about giving away your pictures or images
of your home or family; also about hanging up pictures with important
meaning to your living-room or bedroom. Even if you have good
intentions or do these people who get your picture, the world is full
of rude vibes that may harm you - so they say.
Once caught onto a photograph you will be vulnerable from that moment on.
Again - please don't get me wrong, but such suspicions belong to some
cultures or to some ways of thinking and every next day proves that
the world does not care.
Peeter
Herschel Mair
Head of the Department of Photography,
Head of the Department of Photography,
Higher College of Technology
Muscat
Sultanate of Oman
Muscat
Sultanate of Oman
Adobe Certified instructor
+ (986) 99899 673
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