Hi Subscriber First Name,

I’d started writing about META this week—but I’m leaving that subject for a longer blog post. Besides, examining a socially awkward billionaire’s musings on the future of our shared reality is likely to be a downer. Enough of that.

This issue is about photography’s power to bend the real real-world through choice, through light or chemicals, and a camera’s eye. The first link in the series is an interview with Lebanese photographer Fouad Elkoury. He talks about his work, but also about the deep physical and psychological impacts of the August 2020 explosion that destroyed the heart of his city, and his home. IRL, not virtual.

The lead image in the article is from 1984: it depicts sunbathers by a fountain, at a holiday resort north of Beirut, as war rages just a few miles away. It’s a beautiful picture whose meaning intensifies as we peel away its layers and place it in the historical context. It becomes a statement on co-existing realities and on resilience; but it also reeks of privilege—this is a resort, after all, not a public space. Escape is often only available to those who can afford it. 

Boy… I could easily circle back to META here, but I’ll resist. Let’s instead choose to focus on work that elevates the world we currently live in.