The timeless beauty of Lehnert & Landrock's 1925 image of the Dome of the Rock, left, stands in dramatic contrast to the hatred and despair captured by Osama Silwadi in the 2000 photograph at right.

Sony Exhibitions Capture Dramatic Moments in Region's History

Memorable, if not iconic, images of the Middle East in this century were captured in the work displayed this year at the Adham Center's Sony Gallery for Photography. Two exhibitions-Van-Leo and Aramco World-each span several decades of work, and through them one sees change over time. Another, Lehnert & Landrock in Palestine, is at the same time rooted in a particular time and place and also imparts a feeling of timeless beauty. The remaining three portray some of the most dramatic events of recent memory and of the present day: the Gulf War and the Intifada al-Aqsa.

"Van-Leo: The Chronology," was a joint exhibition held in conjunction with AUC's Rare Books and Special Collections Library. The opening night, with Van-Leo as guest of honor, began at the Rare Books Library for the photographer's 1950s-1960s portraits of movie stars and personalities-including his famous images of Taha Hussein and Omar Sherif-as well as antiquities and monuments. The Sony Gallery portion of the exhibition displayed Van-Leo's portraits from the 1970s to the 1990s, among them Egyptian stars such as Sherihan and Mervat Amin. The opening night celebration culminated in a showing of a film by Fatma Bassiouni on Van-Leo's life and career. A selection of Van-Leo's portraits and essays about his work can be viewed online in the Sony Virtual Gallery.

"50 Years of Aramco World Photography" displayed some of the best work published by the magazine over its five decades and, as noted in the catalogue essay for the show, traces the history not just of events in the Middle East but also of Saudi Aramco and of the magazine itself. As is to be expected from a topic of such broad scope, the people, places, and events depicted are varied: oil rigs in Saudi Arabia, a wedding in Egypt, the architecture of Istanbul, portraits from Kazakhstan.

"Lehnert & Landrock in Palestine, 1924-1930" marks the second time the Sony Gallery has featured the works of Lehnert and Landrock, who traveled and photographed throughout the Middle East and North Africa in the 1920s and 1930s. Their original glass plates were rediscovered and preserved by Dr. Edouard Lambelet, Landrock's grandson and present director of the Lehnert & Landrock Bookstore in Cairo. The images on display at the Sony Gallery are the result of Canadian master printer Chris Langtvet's work with these plates.

Two other shows this year were also shot in Palestine, although in a later time and unhappier circumstances. "Peace That Kills: Gaza, October 2000" was a joint show of Intifada photographs taken by Thomas Hartwell for Newsweek/SABA and Enric Marti for the Associated Press. The two photojournalists worked together in Gaza for over three weeks, shooting events and images of daily life. The forty photos in this exhibition are familiar scenes in Gaza: mourners and funerals, clashes with Israeli soldiers, injuries, demonstrations.

Palestinian photojournalist Osama Silwadi also captured such dramatic, yet unfortunately common, scenes. "To be a photojournalist in Palestine means to be a war photographer," Silwadi said. "You have to be ready at all times with your camera for any situation or unpredictable event. You are also in danger, for you can be shot, arrested, or prevented from going to the site of the action just because you are a Palestinian photographer." Silwadi, who has worked for Reuters in Jerusalem since 1997, has been twice wounded by Israeli gunfire and once beaten by Israeli settlers.

Norbert Schiller's "Gulf War Snapshots" likewise captured scenes of war and appeals for peace. Schiller, who has covered the Middle East for Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, and now for Der Spiegel magazine, traveled through Cairo, Jordan, and Iraq to document the Gulf War. His images include Kuwaiti refugees in Cairo just after the August 1990 invasion, protests and a peace festival in Baghdad, the bombing of the Iraqi capital, and finally, signs of life returning to normal after the war's end.

From the glamorous, star-studded side of Cairo in the 1940s to the devastation wrought in Palestine in the 1990s, from digging for oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1950s to the bombing of in Baghdad in 1991, the images on display captured some dramatic and historic moments in the Middle East's recent history. While inclusive not just of photojournalism but also of other genres of photography, such as portraiture, this year's Sony Gallery exhibitions, individually and collectively, achieved the purpose and the hope of photojournalism: to tell a story with an image, to capture a moment, to define an era.