Another Kind of Christmas: Close to the Earth

Woman and Child - Refugee Camp, Gaza City © Zoriah/www.zoriah.com
Note from the Photographer: A woman holds a child in Gaza City's Beach Camp, one of the world's longest-standing refugee camps. The poverty in such areas often makes you feel as if you have taken a step back in time.

And so it was that while they were there, 
the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him
in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger;
because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2: 6-7 KJV

May the God of your Soul give you peace in this Season of Brotherhood and May Angels walk with you into the New Year.

Father's Day: The Gift ~ Li-Young Lee

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm,

a silver tear, a tiny flame.

Had you followed that boy

you would have arrived here,

where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.

Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father

took my hand like this,

and I did not hold that shard

between my fingers and think,

Metal that will bury me,

christen it Little Assassin,

Ore Going Deep for My Heart.

And I did not lift up my wound and cry,

Death visited here!

© 2012 Istvan Kerekes 

I did what a child does

when he’s given something to keep.

I kissed my father.

Li-Young Lee, “The Gift” from Rose. Copyright ©1986 by Li-Young Lee.

About Istvan Kerekes

Photographer

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

“The Back of the Hand to Everything”

 

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~ Residents of Breezy Point comfort each other amidst the rubble of what was once their homes.

Hurricane

It didn't behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~The devastation of hundreds of homes in the wake of a fire caused by Hurricane Sandy in Breezy Point New York

This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~ Residents of Breezy Point Queens haul salvaged belongings from their homes.

But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn't stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn't
care.

©zoriah/www.zoriah.com ~A young girl stands inside of a wet store that was destroyed by the water that breached New York City’s East Village.

And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.

MARY OLIVER

A Thousand Mornings
The Penguin Press

 

About the Photographer

Zoriah is an award-winning photojournalist whose work has been featured in some of the world’s most prestigious galleries, museums and publications. Zoriah's clients have included The BBC, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, ABC News, NPR, Focus and many others. With a background in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Aid, Zoriah specializes in documenting human crises in developing countries. His vitae not only lists photographic achievements and study, but also the in-depth training and experience necessary for working under extreme conditions in some of the world's harshest environments.

Birdwings

"At Highgate Cemetary” ©2012 Louise Fryer

Birdwings

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror

up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small

contracting and expanding.

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as bird wings.

  ~Rumi

 

 ©2013 Louise Fryer

Photographer Profile: Louise Fryer

I first got into photography in May 2009, after spending some time experimenting in various different areas I found the subject that interested me the most was street photography. It is since January 2011 that I have been seriously concentrating on this area. I focus mainly on street portraiture, I try to capture sensitivity and feeling in my photographs. My inspiration comes from the people I see, my own empathy and feelings towards them. I feel a connection with some of the people I photograph due to my work and my life experiences.

“I see in black & white, colours just complicate things.” ~ Louise Fryer

Louise Hails from London and is a contributor to Shoot the Streets established to promote the art of street photography and increase the exposure of the many talented, and often unknown street photographers who live, breath and shoot the streets.

All photos are copyrighted and permission to use them was generously granted by Louise Fryer. All Rights Reserved.

Note: You may find Louise Fryer’s phenomenal Street Photography Here; Here and Shoot the Streets.

The Last Supper

Portrait ©2012 Istvan Kerekes with kind permission

Here they are gathered, wondering and deranged,
Round Him, who wisely doth Himself inclose,
And who now takes Himself away, estranged,
From those who owned Him once, and past them
flows.

He feels the ancient loneliness to-day
That taught Him all His deepest acts of love;
Now in the olive groves He soon will rove,
And these who love Him all will flee away.
To the last supper table He hath led.

As birds are frightened from a garden-bed
By shots, so He their hands forth from the bread
Doth frighten by His word: to Him they flee;
Then flutter round the table in their fright
And seek a passage from the hall. But He
Is everywhere, like dusk at fall of night.

                     ~Rainer Maria Rilke

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “The good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at Recuerda mi Corazon

Has Anyone Seen the Boy?

Best Friends ©2012 Istvan Kerekes

Have you seen the boy?
"I had been looking for him for years...  I
remember him, full of love, generous heart, a
fiery passion." 
Some boys have a story to tell:
They get lost to us....

Has anyone seen the boy
who used to come here?
Round-faced trouble-maker,
quick to find a joke,
slow to be serious, red shirt,
perfect coordination, sly,
strong muscled,
with things always in his pocket:
reed flute, worn pick,
polished and ready for his Talent--
you know that one.
Have you heard stories about him?
Pharaoh and the whole Egyptian world
collapsed for such a Joseph.
I'd gladly spend years getting word
of him, even third or fourth hand.

There is a wonderful, magical energy in a
boy.  And the tragedy is that it can be so
easily lost.  It is a peculiar wildness of
heart. 
Have you ever met that wild heart?
He is so longed for and dearly missed.  Oh,
how we miss our boys.

~(Blue portion is from Rumi’s (Red Shirt))

Preface and Closing in gold taken from Here

Story of Red Shirt may be found here .

linked to Postcards from Paradise at Rebecca’s for Memorial Day

About the Photographer 

Istvan Kerekes

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “The good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.
~Istvan Kerekes
Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/
Best Friends can be found on 1x.com
*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Supple Cord ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

rugonfalva ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

My brother, in his small white bed,
held one end,
I tugged the other
to signal I was still awake.
We could have spoken,
could have sung
to one another,

rugonfalva ©2011 Isvan Kerekes

we were in the same room
for five years,
but the soft cord
with its little frayed ends
connected us
in the dark,

ujkepek ©2011 Istvan kerekes

gave comfort
even if we had been bickering
all day.

Rugonfalva ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

When he fell asleep first
and his end of the cord
dropped to the floor,
I missed him terribly,
though I could hear his even breath

After dinner © 2011 Istvan Kerkes.

and we had such long and separate lives
ahead.

~Naomi Shihab Nye

(for rebecca with love)

 

~~

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

In Times of Peace ~Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip

© zoriah/www.zoriah.com The owner holds all original copyright and licenses. Republishing rights for bloggers only, companies, organizations, NGO's and similar must first obtain permission before republishing. Contact www.zoriah.com/contact for more information or email info at zoriah dot com.

Damage from attacks on a Palestinian neighborhood in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip in March, 2006

At the moment, with journalists trapped in Israel and not able to enter the Gaza Strip to report, I will focus my attention on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. If people have contrary views to mine and believe different sides of these issues need to be covered, I encourage you to get out there and do it. My assumptions were affirmed by friends living in Gaza that the situation there is quite desperate. My focus continues to be the human side of conflict and not the political side and I hope the images I am posting from Gaza will show how bad the situation is there even during "times of peace." I also encourage comments and will pay special attention to those posted by people who have lived both in Gaza and in Israel and understand both sides of this situation in reality and not just in theory. ~Zoriah

Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
~Excerpt Naomi Shihab Nye.

Marred, Lovely and Flawed

©2011 Istvan Kerekes

Autumn Quince

How sad they are,
the promises we never return to.
They stay in our mouths,
roughen the tongue, lead lives of their own.
Houses built and unwittingly lived in;
a succession of milk bottles brought to the door
every morning and taken inside.

And which one is real?
The music in the composer's ear
or the lapsed piece the orchestra plays?
The world is a blurred version of itself --
marred, lovely, and flawed.
It is enough.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

(Of Gravity & Angels)

Linked to A Virgin A Day on Recuerda mi Corazon

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Prayer in My Boot ~ Robert Larson Images

Prayer in my Boot
By Naomi Shihab Nye

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth

how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids

and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows

and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given,
and every future rough edge

and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep

~Naomi Shihab Nye

About The Photographer:

Robert Larson

A Journey To Haiti

“When I walk, I walk”~Jeanmary Michel

In January of 2010, I met a 27-year-old man in Port-au-Prince named Jeanmary Michel. We were strangers walking down the street together. It had been a difficult trip, and up to that point the reaction that most strangers had to my presence was hostile. This man simply looked at me, smiled and said “Whatsup?” He then continued on his way as if he had no desire to receive a greeting in return. I said hello, and asked where he was going. He said, “When I walk, I walk”.

I had traveled to Haiti in the days after the earthquake to photograph a historic moment for the world. I was in over my head. This stranger sensed my frustration and offered to show me whatever I’d like to see and to make sure I was safe. I agreed, and we spent the next 5 hours walking through the city on foot or riding in the back of taxis. I experienced more with him in 5 hours than I had in the last three days. We agreed to meet up the next morning and do it all over again.

We stayed in touch after I returned home to Los Angeles. In February of 2011, I received a grant from the Gilhousen Family Foundation to travel back to Haiti for two weeks and continue my photography project. This project had now been named Waiting for Haiti. I called Jeanmary, and we made arrangements for me to stay with him at his house so that I could experience the day-to-day life of a Haitian family. We emailed back and forth; composing a list of places that I would like to photograph, and he made a list of things he wanted me to see to better understand his country. Over the course of that last trip, Jeanmary and I became best friends. We had opposite backgrounds and perspectives, and we saw Haiti through each other’s eyes.

The more I learned about Haiti and the stronger our friendship grew, the more clear it became that these pictures meant a lot to both of us. One place that we repeatedly visited was the morgue at the General Hospital, in Port-au-Prince. Seeing the same decomposing bodies in the same place year after year and how they are carelessly stacked and slowly putrefying in the inefficient freezers; we felt deeply compelled to understand why the country functions the way it does. Jeanmary bought a notebook and began asking questions of his fellow Haitians, starting with the staff at the morgue. There were many places I could not go without him as a guide and translator. At the same time, having a foreigner by his side and a new sense of confidence opened doors for him that have always remained shut to the general Haitian population. We collected as many images and notes as we could in the short amount of time that we had.

In 2012 I will return to Port-au-Prince with the resources to help Jeanmary and myself share our story, his story, and Haiti’s story. Together with a talented and passionate production team, we will film Haiti in the way that it is. We will show the reality of a beautiful and mysterious country that has been left by the wayside. Through Jeanmary’s eyes, the film will show what a large natural disaster and subsequent flooding of foreign aid money really mean to an undeveloped and highly corrupt country. Haiti has a complicated story; its history is full of mistakes that many promise to never repeat. This project is an ongoing study of the country's future through the life of a man who calls it home.

Robert’s Website for this Project: Waiting for Haiti

Robert’s Other website:  robertlarsonphotography

All Photographs in this post are ©2011 Robert Larson All Rights Reserved. They were posted here with the permission of the Photographer. Thank you.

Yet They Behold The World

Simenfalva © 2011 Istvan Kerekes

My heart is so small
it's almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?

"Look," He answered,
"your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world."

~ Rumi ~

 

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*Copyrighted images are posted with kind permission of the photographer.

Narcissus

 St. Louis, Mo. Series ©2011 Thomas Hawk

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else."—Georgia O'Keeffe

Narcissus – Poem by Jane Hirschfield

NARCISSUS:  Tel Aviv, Baghdad, San Francisco; February 1991
by Jane Hirschfield

And then the precise
opening everywhere of the flowers,
which live after all in their own time.
It seemed they were oblivious but they were not,
they included it all, the nameless explosions
and the oil fires in every cell, the white petals
like mirrors opening in a slow-motion coming-apart
and the stems, the stems rising like green-flaring missiles
like smoke, like the small sounds shaken
from those who were beaten—like dust from a carpet—
into the wind and the spring-scented rain.

They opened because it was time and they had no choice,
as the children were born in that time and that place
and became what they would without choice, or  with only
a little choice, perhaps, for the lucky, the foolish or brave.
But precise and in fact wholly peaceful the flowers opened,
and precise and peaceful the earth: opened because it was asked.
Again and again it was asked and earth opened—
flowered and fell—because what was falling had asked
and could not be refused, as the seabirds that ask the green surface
to open are not refused but are instantly welcomed,
that they may enter and eat—
As soon refuse, battered and soaking , the dark mahogany rain.

—Jane Hirschfield From  THE OCTOBER PALACE

Historical Context of Poem:  BBC On This Day

About the Photographer

Photo by Karen Hutton

Thomas Hawk

Introduction

Sometimes I like to think of myself as a photography factory. I see my photographs mostly as raw material for projects that might be worked on at some point later on in life.
When I'm not taking or processing the pictures I'm mostly thinking about the pictures. I'm trying to publish a library of 1,000,000 finished, processed photographs before I die.
The absurdity of my obsessive compulsive view on photography is not lost on me. But it is the absurdity of life that I find most beautiful of all. Where Sisyphus had his stone I have my camera and a bag full of lenses.
Document, explore, lather, rinse, repeat. Photography for me then becomes a kind of hyperactivity, loosely arranged and presented. My work is less about individual images and instead more about the power of a massive amount of excessive and disjointed images where stories, characters and places sometimes stay and other times reappear or disappear entirely for no good reason at all.
Most of my images are Creative Commons licensed, non commercial with attribution.  If you'd like to use any CC licensed images for non commercial or personal purposes feel free.  If you'd like to use any of my images commercially, please contact me.
"Don't think about making art. Just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they're deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol

The Way In ~ (Prayer For Amy)

Nyari Husito 1 © 2011 Istvan Kerekes

The Way In

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.
Sometimes the way in is a song.
But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,
and beauty.
To enter stone, be water.
To rise through hard earth, be plant
desiring sunlight, believing in water.
To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food.
~ Linda Hogan ~
(Rounding the Human Corners)

Linked to Postcards from Paradise at Rebecca’s Blog 

About the Photographer

Istvan Kerekes

In His Own Words

I have been a photographer since 2007. My favourite subject is The Man. I would like to show the souls behind the faces. Everyone has feelings, everybody loves and breathes. My subjects are usually ordinary people. My main aim is to show their personalities through my images. One of William Albert Allard’s thoughts on photos and photography is just like mine, I truly believe in it: “the good portrait is about the eye, the look, since the human soul is reflected in it the most purely.”When taking photos it is my heart that leads me. After I have tuned to the subject I act instinctively.

~Istvan Kerekes

Istvan’s website: http://www.kerekesistvan.hu/

*image posted with kind permission of Istvan Kerekes

Hands of Love

 

Osszetartozunk 2 ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

Hands are Here

to Reach Out in Love

Osszetartozunk 1 ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Take Hold ,

in Constant Friendship,

When Support is Needed

Kep ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Faithfully Stand By and Wait,

Cherishing Each Moment,

Quietly Listening

Vigyazok Rad ©2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Remember

The Many Times

When They were Held

in Love and Protection

Ima © 2011 Istvan Kerekes

To Pray

to the One Who is Love and Compassion

Who Knows How Deeply All Our Hearts Need Healing

We Offer All that We Have

and All that We Are in Peace

for Our Friend Joe Spado (Spadoman).

©2011 Istvan Kerekes

And Carry Our Love To Him

On the Bright Wings of Hope

and Faithful Friendship.

 

~~

Linked to Recuerda Mi Corazon Circle of Love for Spadoman.