“The cameraman seems to have the mission of shooting images meant to accompany a documentary text: most of the time, he films wide shots and the close-ups are either anecdotic either ‘sentimental’, as for example still shots portraits of children or elderly. In this mode of documentary production, (…), the image operator ignores the final editing his images will be submitted to. The cameraman’s role is coverage, he is not supposed to look for interactions or to shoot sequences.” [1]
What makes a photograph historical is, aside from the image itself, the date and title and/or caption which contribute to situate it and contextualize it. According to Barthes, for any picture, “the date is part of the photo: not because it conveys a style but because one cannot but notice the date, one can imagine life, death, the inexorable passing out of generations” [2]. The name of the photographer could also be an important, though not a necessary, indication.
UNRWA is confronted with an increased demand for services resulting from a growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their deepening poverty. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions and financial support has been outpaced by the growth in needs. UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and mandated to provide assistance and protection to some 5 million registered Palestine refugees. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip achieve their full human development potential, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. UNRWA services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, protection and micro finance.
UNRWA refugee images were firstly geared to document and publicize the programs of a humanitarian agency so as to increase donations and, from this perspective, to record and document the refugees’ situations and events.
At the meantime UNRWA archive contains more than 430,000 negatives, 10,000 prints, 85,000 slides, 75 films and 730 video cassettes. In 2009, it was inscribed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World Register, in recognition of its historical value.
For a complete reading: https://palmuseum.wordpress.com/tag/refugee-camps/
[1].Colleyn, J.-P., 2005, “L’analyse des images d’archives : point de vue théorique et étude d’un cas”, in Latte Abdallah, S. (ed.), op. cit., p. 31.
[2]Barthes, R., p. 148-150
What makes a photograph historical is, aside from the image itself, the date and title and/or caption which contribute to situate it and contextualize it. According to Barthes, for any picture, “the date is part of the photo: not because it conveys a style but because one cannot but notice the date, one can imagine life, death, the inexorable passing out of generations” [2]. The name of the photographer could also be an important, though not a necessary, indication.
UNRWA refugee images were firstly geared to document and publicize the programs of a humanitarian agency so as to increase donations and, from this perspective, to record and document the refugees’ situations and events.
At the meantime UNRWA archive contains more than 430,000 negatives, 10,000 prints, 85,000 slides, 75 films and 730 video cassettes. In 2009, it was inscribed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World Register, in recognition of its historical value.
For a complete reading: https://palmuseum.wordpress.com/tag/refugee-camps/
[1].Colleyn, J.-P., 2005, “L’analyse des images d’archives : point de vue théorique et étude d’un cas”, in Latte Abdallah, S. (ed.), op. cit., p. 31.
[2]Barthes, R., p. 148-150
