We all know that photography is cool, but just because it now goes hand-in-hand with a perfectly preened beard and an expensive cup of coffee, it doesn’t make it any less interesting or revealing.
In fact Akkasah, the centre for photography at NYU Abu Dhabi, is celebrating the art of photography through its new online exhibition the Samir Farid Collection.
Featuring 600 never-seen-before photographs from Egyptian cinema that were all taken between 1940 and 1990, it looks absolutely brilliant.
The negatives were sourced from a donated collection by the late Samir Farid, who was an important Egyptian writer, scholar, and critic.
The collection features images that were taken on Egyptian film sets and during publicity shoots, plus candid pictures of cast and crew and behind-the-scenes insights.
You can view all these amazing photos on the Akkasah website, and as you flick through you’ll see how they perfectly demonstrate the social and historical changes that took place over the fifty-year period.
Given the fragile nature of these negatives, Akkasah used the latest techniques in photography to preserve and digitalise them.
This involved scanning and processing the images in order to identify the films, actors and directors who appear in them.
Through this careful process, the digital archive has managed to preserve photographs that otherwise could easily be lost, and make it easy for everyone to view them online.
Including the Samir Farid Collection, Akkasah has so far published over 10,000 photographs for the public to view.
Visiting www.akkasah.org and you can view historical and contemporary collections from the UAE, the Middle East and the wider Arab world, including North Africa.
Dedicated to supporting the developing photographic culture in the UAE, the Akkasah website is filled with thought-provoking and amazing images.
If you’re into photography or you’re looking for inspiration for some of your own arty still images then you need to check it out. It’s just one of the great inititives from NYUAD.
For more information visit www.akkasah.org.
