Indoor snapshots and portraits

Item Overview

Title

Indoor snapshots and portraits

Photographer

Photo Jack

Date Created

ca.1953

Date

1950/1960

Collection

The Photo Surprise Archive of Photo Jack 
Modern Endangered Archives Program

Notes

Description

This digital contact sheet reflects a half a roll of photographs taken by Studio Photo Jack (1945-1997) in Tripoli, Lebanon. The photographers worked on reportage photography, a form of commercial photography practiced outside the Studio and covering various social, cultural and religious occasions. Their main photography style was called “Photo Surprise", which is a practice that was common in the Middle East between the 1940s and 1960s. They walked the public square of Tal in Tripoli photographing pedestrians - some posing and others caught candidly in their stride. They then invited their subjects to return to the studio to purchase and collect their photographs. A film roll with intimate snapshots of a family seen in sequence gives the impression of constant movement around the Tal. Images of officials and public figures are intercepted by images of baptisms, funerals, birthdays, and parties; adding a strange familiarity to the Tal and the faces of the people walking around.

Physical Description

Extent

9 photographs

Dimensions

3.6 cm x 2.4 cm

Medium

Gelatin silver negative roll on cellulose acetate film base

Keywords

Genre

black-and-white photographs

Subject Geographic

Tripoli (Lebanon)
Lebanon

Resource type

still image

Subjects

student
class
actor
acting
modern fashion
theatre
piano
attitudes and poses
actress
stage