Post-industrial America

Since 2003 I’ve been photo editor of Middle East Report, a quarterly magazine published by the non-profit organization MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project) in Washington, DC. Established in 1971,the magazine provides in-depth reporting and independent analysis of the politics, society and economy of the region. We are also committed to presenting excellent photography that reveals the complexity of the region and goes beyond the mainstream cliches.

I am also an occasional photographer, these days mainly working on personal projects documenting industrial ruins in the US and the texture of city life in the Middle East. I was a stringer for AFP in Amman for about a year in the late 1990s, which was interesting but confirmed my feeling that the conventions of that kind of photojournalism are not right for me. I have done other journalistic work in the West Bank and Jerusalem when I lived there in the early ‘90s and have traveled quite a bit in the region since 1989, later selling the use of my photos to travel guidebooks and various others.

I also have an intellectual interest in historical photography of the Middle East and the practice of photojournalism, both of which I write about for academic publications and conferences.