The sky fell. The rusty fragments of metal rent air thick with the reek of bodies burnt by artillery fire and napalm. The buildings, warring with the thickets of lance-like rifles, groaned in the pitch-black night, alive with the endless screams of people who could find no way to live save tearing one another to pieces.   The sky dropped earthwards with the falling barrel, the distance between it and the machine guns and the gore-drenched bodies beneath less than the distance that divides the 50mm lens in the bag from the 55mm lens on the camera. The barrel takes seven seconds... more

    That day, just after noon, as I was on my way to the cigarette stall (a small table, chairs, a few packs of cigarette of two or three brands, all of them open because they are sold singly) the heavens rang. It was the whistling again, the sound that had begun to play on my nerves, the huge hit of adrenalin freezing everything, even time. The sound of an aircraft, which  you hear when you step outside, or more precisely, when you step outside and realize, instinctively, that you are directly inside the target zone.   In films, time stops at such... more

Faubourg de Damas, Jobar a connu, lors des premiers mois de la révolution syrienne, en 2011, des dizaines de manifestations pacifiques, réprimées dans la sang. Passée aux mains de l'opposition en novembre 2012 cette ville de la Ghouta orientale est bombardée depuis lors par le régime. Depuis avril 2014, le régime d'Assad, soutenu par des combattants du Hezbollah libanais, multiplie les offensives pour la reprendre, sans succès pour le moment.     J'étais à deux doigts de tomber de la remorque! Nous étions trois, à l'arrière d'un petit pick-up transportant deux énormes marmites de riz cuisiné. A mesure qu'on approchait du panneau annonçant l'unique " Entrée... more

I still remember—way back in the mists of the distant past—that warm feeling when I first picked up a camera. As though I was experiencing a prophecy that one day I would use this instrument until I wore it away to nothing. Back then I carried it like a sceptre; today I bear the camera like a shield. Today, I remember the first time I literally did this—bore it like a shield. I’ve forgotten many dates and events, but that day—June 26, 2012—stays engraved in my memory. At the end of a long and tiring day my feet led me,... more