Mina, the city

still close to the sea, but a little deeper in the city, a charming old place,
not at all the same feeling than old Tripoli.
more colorful, and, important detail, people more friendly.

starting with doors and walls, like usual.
this time i tried to post in chronological order to recreate,
mostly in my mind, a nice afternoon with friends.





i hesitated before posting this image.
i keep talking about our electricity problem. what you see here, is one
of the reasons, as well as the direct result of this.
that's how poor people deal with it. steeling electricity, mostly.
not only the poor...




real old traditional house. under a big tree. charming.




a small church. or so it looked from the outside. the inside, i think,
is quite impressive.








the most direct way to the sky, isn't it?




and Micho is the nickname for Michel. you find it weird? i find it all natural! :)











love those walls, the plants, loved those streets.






these models volunteered to take the pose.
in fact they did not even talk to me, they came as i was shooting the wall,
and they just posed, like if it was the most natural thing to do.



those men also almost asked for it. they thought i was wasting my time taking an empty wall, and they said it to me.
when i asked the boy if i could take his photo, he smiled (as you can see)
and said : why ask, you already took it!
and he kept eating his ice-cream, as if i was not there with my camera.





a genuine old barber shop (as the owner explained) he also said that they
shot once a scene of a movie at his shop. he was so proud ! :D








the same street, (weird one, interesting one) where people hang their clothes
to dry in the middle of the street, beautiful red haired girls appear at the window,
and a boy takes the pose, around him, all his friend laughing and teasing him.



then we arrived to a place, a little square space between houses. people were
sitting there on chairs, neighbors, some in their pyjamas, all in their house clothings,
they smiled to us, asked to be taken in photo, called each other, come, there are
photographers here!
they would not let us go in the end, literally.

that's one angry baby boy. and his lovely sister.







suddenly, the night was falling
what could i do but take double exposures






like i said, it was a great afternoon.

Tripoli old souks - day two

these old souks are very close to where i work. 15 years ago, i used to go walk in there a lot. i lost this habit, got bored or got too much work. or it's just time. with years, the interest of discovery faded and i was only left with dirt, smell and ugliness.
it's good i have the double exposure to hide the surface of things, and go search beyond.

can you see how people look at me when i take photos? admit it's not easy to ignore!





this church ( it's name "the church of the Italians" and not the Italian church)
it's just facing my clinic. i took this image from the street but i could have taken it at eye level from our balcony.
I'm not really missing it, there... but i will soon be back. anyway.



this coffee boy walks in the city with his metallic carafes full of boiling coffee! not your "tasteless" western coffee :P , only the best Lebanese mixtures (in fact Brazilian brands)








streets and men. walls are not enough, i have to see people.
it was a Sunday.
in the old town, Sundays doesn't count, or barely. it only ends earlier, at work.
there are no day off. not totally, just two half days, Friday and Sunday.
that's hard!





this red rocking chair must belong to this girl. these are two images but literally could have been one.



birds and kids, on the roofs.