A letter to a friend about fear

Written to a friend who’s contemplating a trip to Palestine/Israel when I expect to be there.
Among the problems remaining to me as I plan my next journey to Israel-Palestine for fall and winter this year is understanding how to tread that thin line between courage and foolishness, particularly thin—almost non existent—when I’m photographing in violent [...]

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Meeting Matan

Dear friends,
A few days ago I met Matan Cohen in my hometown of Cambridge MA, a young Israeli member of Anarchists Against the Wall. He’d been in the small village of Bil’in where struggle against the separation fence has been ensuing for over two years. One month before I first attended those actions in 2006, [...]

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Suggested links about Palestine & Israel

Video of Rachel Corrie speaking in Gaza, 2003. Murdered by an Israeli soldier driving a US-made Caterpillar D9 tractor as he demolished the home of a Palestinian pharmacist and she tried to block it. Her words now live on in a play entitled, My Name is Rachel Corrie.

Video about tearing down a portion of the [...]

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Kinds of light

 
By Rick Drost (one of my former students in Summer Light Photo Workshops, 2007)
 
glancing light from windows
sidelong light at afternoon
dancing light from mirrorball
glowing light from cigarette
refproachful light of morning
hopeful light of evening start
freezing light on deer from headlights of a car
frozen light in Patagonia
shattered light as glass explodes or through chandelier
scattered light through swiss dot [...]

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Summer solstice, the bright light

For Summer Light workshop, 6.23.06
Long lasting, bringing moist heat, glaring, this light penetrates my pores, seeps thru my night longings, awakens me too early, and begins to shorten just as it reaches its peak.
Jerusalem…when I mention the name, I see the white Jerusalem of summer when the brightness is blinding and the nearly cruel light [...]

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Light Above Me

For Spring Light workshop, 4.27.07
 
Light above me,
Light around me,
Light beneath me,
All light, all light.
Light within me,
Light within you,
Light primordial,
Light eternal.
In the beginning—
Darkness? Or was it light?
At the end—
Light enduring?
Or light extinguished?
The choice is mine, the choice is yours.

Ramallah, Occupied Palestine, 2004 (teeksaphoto.org)

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Light physical

For Fall Light workshop, 3.17.07
Light physical,
light metaphysical,
light internal,
light of Christ, Buddha, Mohammad,
light of wisdom,
the light of a thousands suns, bursting at once into the sky,
that is something, something like the splendor of the Mighty One, the shatterer of worlds, the coming of death,
said J Robert Oppenheimer, witnessing the world’s first atomic explosion.
And now, today, [...]

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Light

Cormorants, Eastern Point, Gloucester Massachusetts, July 2007 (teeksaphoto.org)

For Summer Light workshop, 7.13.07
Darkness to light:
The light enduring,
The light ephemeral.
Light to darkness:
The darkness occluding,
The darkness enveloping,
The darkness enlightening.
“In a dark time the eye begins to see.”
(the last line is from Theodore Roetke)

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SunHighBlazing

For Summer Light workshop, 7.20.07
Mid summer,
sun high, blazing,
shadows beneath my feet.
How long will those shadows remain on the earth?
Brings back figures engraved onto other earths,
Onto streets, walls, roofs, inside rooms,
Figures made permanent by fear, calculation, power, madness—
High noon and high summer, life continues, memory intact.

Rockport Harbor Massachusetts, July 2007 (teeksaphoto.org)
Other kinds of light
(Thanks to Rick [...]

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