In 2009, I attended the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Program at the International Center of Photography in New York which I completed in 2010.
I began interning at the beginning of January 2009 until June 2009 at AM New York where I photograph for different sections of the newspaper each week.
I decided then to transfer myself in Beirut in January 2010 to work on a personal project.
When the protest in Cairo Began, then I decided to cover the story, and my story was published by Time.
Rutland, love and destruction
One Day, bored and alone, I was in my apartment in Brooklyn, and I decided to check out the website Chatroulette.com, where you meet strangers from all over the world.
After a while, I met Kathleen, she’s from Rutland, Vermont.
We spoke for a little, and then I showed her my website.
After she saw my work about Naomi, she told me: “ You should come to Rutland, there is a lot for you to photograph”.
Because I have trust in pictures, I went.
I went back and forward from NYC to Rutland for the past year and half.
My project is an exploration into this dichotomous town and emotions that arise when you live and die in Rutland.
In the present, two worlds have managed to coexist against the backdrop of Vermont’s famously beautiful countryside.
A coexistence between damnation and happiness, peace and anguish. To be able to handle the complexity of these emotions, people are forced to live them all, most often on the edge, abusing drugs and alcohol along the way.
Throughout my journey, I was able to see both worlds from the inside out. The quietness and beauty of the surface mixed with that unsettling feeling of delusion and anxiety that brewed underneath.
Unfortunately, some were not able to break free, but there were also those who had the unbelievable strength to rise again from their own ashes like Kathleen. Once an alcohol and drug abuser living on the streets, Kathleen is now reborn into a wonderful woman who appreciates the simple things in life, like a swim in the river, a sunset or even the beauty of a violent storm.
