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Intimidation...
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
.....yes, even when sitting and smiling. This is one of the Jambiya sellers with his shop along the main street running through the souq in Old Sana'a. Coming from the US and this being my first day in Sana'a it was a little intimidating to walk through a place like this with nothing to go on except what the media tells you.....what I saw was something totally different. Friendly people, not terrorists, just trying to get by like everyone else in the world. I felt the people were actually nicer to me knowing I was american because they wanted to know my views on certain subjects, how it was living in the US, why there are no tourists coming, etc, etc.
It turned out Yemen is one of my favorite countries that I have visited because of the people and not just all the great places to see there.
Concerning the photo - I left the overexposed top center section in to show more of the shop and all the Jambiyas (curved knives) around the seller. I would have liked it a little sharper but didn't really want to bother this guy too much for another picture....and oh yes, I've been asked a few times on this site....always ask before taking the photo, especially in a country such as Yemen...
...unless you are comfortable just snapping photos of a guy with a 10 inch knife on his belt and AK under the counter. In that case just snap away... |
ViktorVaughn has marked this note useful
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Hello John,
This is an excellent portrait of the the merchent in his shop, looking very proud and perhaps a little haughty. You have either consciously or intuitively exercised a principle that the great portrait artists over the centuries invoked: placing one eye of the subject on the vertical centerline. This is a principle that the English-born San Francisco neurophysiologist, Christopher Tyler, discovered in 1928 (I wrote about it in Ch. 8 of 'Math and the Mona Lisa.') It was significant enough that it was featured on the front page of the New York Times, and I subsequently invited Dr. Tyler to a conference on symmetry that I was chairing in Seoul, Korea. The defining portraits by Leonardo, Rembrandt, even Picasso have this intuitive principle helping to organize their composition. (Whereas it is most likely not a conscious appliction by most great artists, it may be otherwise with Leonardo.)
Excellent portrait, where you've captured the sould of the man!
Bulent
Hello John,
I didn't notice earlier you had been to Yemen as well. What a fantastic country that is. This is a really good portrait, with the man's proud look, the way he rests his arm on the jambiya (and maybe his left hand ready to grab his Kalashnikov) and all the goods he's selling.
Regards,
Gert
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These knives and swords are jewelry of the men.
I love the oriental jewelry, in our flea market I always look for the Yemenian or Iranian things, not swords but rings and necklaces.