A human being is peaceful by nature loves life and because he does, he fights. People fight because they believe, believe in a thought, a hope, a better life and a case. In war, we fight back and forth, everyone fights with what he can do. The soldier fights with his gun, The writer fights with his pen, The presenter fights with his words, The singer fights with his song, The artist fights with his art. The scientist fights with his knowledge.
Since Egypt uprising has started on Jan25, Tahrir was and still the main battle field. The scenes are repeating with some differences according to the current situation but in the main one you can see a square divided into two sides, either Central Security Forces or Military Police/Army or both with guns, sticks and electric shocks shooting rubber bullets, live ammunition and gas bombs. On the other side you can see insulated protesters (men, women and children) with rocks and tear gas masks, dead and others injured and who lost conscious on the ground with some carrying those to the field hospitals where you can see doctors fighting as much they can do to save thousands of lives.
If you kept millions of years describing the scenes on the ground and telling people who are outside, they will never imagine how much chaotic it is. People don't believe till they see and instead of spending hours building the image in their brains, only one photo can summarize without saying a word. An image worth thousands of words,
a window that took Egypt's uprising to the world. The fact that made truth straight forward.
Please look deeply at the following photos and tell me what is missing..
Realized the missing part yet? If not so please take a look again, if not so am sorry to say that you are not the person who can appreciate the value of an image. Every body can see the image, its effect and how it can be iconic rather than a normal photo of objects but rarely and hardly you can think about the other side.. the missing story behind .. The one who stopped this moment from running away.. The one who helped you see .. The photographer!
In a battle, The photographer with his camera is no less than a soldier with his weapon, you hear the click of the camera button fires to take the shot which is the bullet headed towards the face of enemy. He always stands in the frontline monitoring the incidents and during the attack, sometimes he is the last person to run. He has a message he believes in and duty to show the truth and make facts straight forward that regime always trying to hide and that's why
photographers have long complained of authority assaults. Not only he faces authority harassment but sometimes he has to deal with people harassment in street especially if it is a girl.
I can't blame you not focusing on the behind scenes but I'll blame you if you easily used the photo before thinking thousands of times of the story of the photographer behind, where he was standing?, how he took the shot? and what happend then?.
I think you have seen this photo thousands of times in most of the media tv shows like
OnTV with Reem Maged, Yousri Fouda and Bassem Youssef and
Tahrir channel , you might have seen it
printed as well.
This photo taken by
Mostafa Sheshtawy , Do wanna hear the story behind?, According to Sheshtawy, On Dec17, Army stormed Tahrir from Qasr Aini, people were running away while he stood his ground, taking pics and avoiding clashes with people running back, He walked slowly towards the army till he was the only one in front of them. He kept shooting like he will die in the next minute then ran away like there is no tomorrow. He could have been shot, arrested, brutally beaten or having his camera broken! After all this media easily used his photo, Let alone taking it with no charge or putting credits yet not even asking his permission and that's the weakest of faith!
Another photographer suffering of media stealing his photos,
Jonathan Rashad, On May15, He got caught by military forces in front of Israel embassy, got beaten up and was about to face a military trial, Military police forced him to delete all the shots before he get released. His photos got stolen by
Al-Wafd, you can read the
story here and
Masrawy
As for me, my photos got stolen by Tahrir Newspaper,
ElBadeel, Al-Wafd and
The New Yorker
I am sure there are lots of photographers out there suffering of this like
Hossam el-Hamalawy,
Lilian Wagdy and
Mosa'ab Elshamy and millions. Shame on all media, the organizations that are supposed to appreciate visuals because that's their work, If you thought even once that you are killing the photographer whom you are stealing his photos, if you thought even once about how much this photographer pay to get his gear to take the brilliant shot you are easily using, If you thought even once about how much he carries his life on his shoulder to take the shot I think you wouldn't have done this, but unfortunately you are busy thinking how much money and viewers you will gain if you stole the photo while claiming credibility.
