ilibya - reportage by getty images · ilibya: photos by benjamin lowy zintan, libya: omar, 26, sits...
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iLibya:Photos by Benjamin Lowy
ZINTAN, LIBYA: Omar, 26, sits in the car that he drove to the front lines during last year’s Libyan uprising. He refuses to fix his windshield. “The sniper’s round went past my head… This car took care of me, so I can’t change it.” But more than anything the windshield is a constant reminder to Omar of the life he took and the friends he lost. “The first time I killed … It was him or me. For three days after I cried and mumbled and thought I went crazy. ”
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Growing Pains
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Photographer Benjamin Lowy, on a grant from the Magnum Foundation’s Emergency Fund, spent several weeks in July
shooting in Libya on a photojournalism-inspired Hipstamatic lens — and posting exclusively to Tumblr.
In an interview with Storyboard he detailed his reasons for shooting in this way:
What can you capture on an iPhone that you can’t on a regular camera?
The tool itself is a lot smaller and inconspicuous and can be a bit more subtle. I think it engenders a greater sense of intimacy with subjects because you’re not putting a big camera in their face.
TOP LEFT: Young Libyans swim on a rubble strewn stone cornish during a hot summer day in Tripoli, Libya.
TOP RIGHT: A Libyan mechanic naps outside his shop along a wall spray painted with a message that reads “Thanks, NATO,” in Misrata, Libya.
BOTTOM LEFT: Libyan residents of the city of Sirte walk through the ravaged remains of mortared and bullet riddled buildings. The city is home to a large population of Gaddafi’s tribe and still support the dead dictator. They feel that no national reconciliation is possible while they are policed by the Misrata militia and Islamist brigades.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Libyan Federalists scream “Long Live Cyrenica,” the ancient name of the state where Benghazi is based, as they flee an election polling station with voting cards and ballots to burn in Benghazi, Libya.
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Is there a reason you’ve decided to use your iPhone in Libya specifically?
The reason is twofold: One, I want to show images that will grab the audience, because they look like the kind of images that anybody can shoot. Everybody takes pictures of their dogs with an iPhone these days; that just speaks to the democratization of the tools. But I think there’s something more intimate about an iPhone picture because of that, so maybe people will look more closely at it. I also think that using the iPhone is apropos for the Arab Spring because so much of the content that began the Arab Spring was from mobile technology.
BENGHAZI, LIBYA: Libyan Federalists and police supported by various government militias, clash outside an election polling station in Benghazi, Libya. Benghazi federalists believe their city, where the uprising against Gaddafi began, will be under represented in the new Libyan government.
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Do you think you get better access with an iPhone?
I think in the past maybe, but I think now people are very aware that the iPhone is a camera. But it is easier in certain places, like on the subway, where you have to make eye contact. Photographing in a warzone is not hard, because people want you there to document what’s happening. But when I teach students, I tell them to stay on a subway for a day in one car, to take pictures of people with a camera, then put the camera down and make eye contact with the person you just photographed. That’s scary as hell.
TOP LEFT: Gawher, 24 was shot twice during the war, and recently returned from months away in Malta, where he worked in a restaurant and received therapy for PTSD. “I didn’t feel after I killed my first man…I was angry. Simple things began to make me angry… and my memory became blurry. I [spent] two months [self] medicating with [drugs], and was always getting into fights. [I had] to leave.
TOP RIGHT: Zakaria Muhammad, 28 was gravely wounded in April 2011. A howitzer round fired by the infamous Khamis Brigade took his leg, arm, part of his hand, and left him with a brain injury. The same attack killed his mother, his sister, and his niece. “I will always feel the pain… My whole family is dead, but when I entered the war it was for all of Libya… So that [my family’s] death is not in vain, I hope for reconciliation. [I] want it, [I] need it.”
BOTTOM LEFT: Libyans set off confetti filled fireworks at a house party a day after the historic Libyan elections.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Libyans rejoice with song and dance along the boardwalk of Benghazi after the voting for the first time in more than 40 years.
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LEFT: The caretaker of a Libyan art installation and museum by Libyan artist Ali al-Wakwak poses in front on a caged effigy of Gaddafi in Benghazi, Libya.
ABOVE: A dead brush sits in the back of a rebel truck, along with a heavy weapon used by soldiers from Zlintan and members of the Libyan Shield, a military umbrella group of various rebel militias, as they patrol the volatile desert region bordering the Gaddafi loyalist enclave of Bani Walid.
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TOP LEFT: Libyan women wait in line to vote in the first free Libyan elections in decades on July 7, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya.
TOP RIGHT: In a dusty detention center, Illegal migrants from Niger wait to be processed and receive travel papers, enabling them to be repatriated via a UN chartered plane in Gharyan, Libya. Libyan authorities have been increasing hostile to African migrants and the threat of deportation includes transportation via a truck through the blisteringly hot Sahara.
BOTTOM LEFT: A Tawarghan IDP builds a new home from scavenged PVC piping in a secluded desert displaced persons camp near Benghazi, Libya. After defeating Gaddafi government forces, rebels from Misrata destroyed the city of Tawargha, accusing residents of supporting Gaddafi and committing atrocities alongside pro-government forces in Misrata. Many Tawarghan men are still targets of revenge killings by Misratan Militias and sympathizers.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Ali, 83, a Tawarghan IDP stands outside his tent in a secluded desert displaced persons camp near Benghazi, Libya.
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Reportage by Getty Images
New YorkChristina [email protected]+1 646 613 4187 LondonPatrick Di [email protected]+44203 227 2455
All images copyright:Benjamin Lowy/Reportage By Getty Images
The full set of 89 images is available via your local Getty Images office.