Teenage and adult dogs at CLAW got their day in the limelight after photographer Emma O’Brien spent the day capturing their good looks.

South Africa (22 February 2024) – Emma O’Brien and CLAW have teamed up once again to help pups find their furever homes. The talented photographer often donates her skill and time to help shelter animals look their best to help boost chances of adoption.

Emma O’Brien is a portrait photographer specialising in human and animal photography. She is a champion for animal rescue and decided to use her talent to promote some underrated shelter animals.

Emma loves photographing black shelter animals. After doing some research, she found that black shelter animals have the slowest rate of adoption and the highest rate of euthanasia. The last time we featured Emma, she had asked rescue pet owners who had adopted black shelter animals if she could photograph their happy faces. The hope was to try to help boost their adoption rates in South Africa.

The most recent photoshoot was for CLAW (Community Led Animal Welfare) to promote their February dogs up for adoption. Emma takes incredible images and we adore the adoptees for this month.

It is safe to say each of these pups have shone in the limelight and may very well find their furever homes because of Emma’s efforts to capture their shine.

Take a look at all the beauties along with their information here.

Sources: CLAW

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Several survivors of the October 7 attacks on Israel have sued the Associated Press (AP) for hiring freelance photojournalists who are allegedly “embedded with Hamas.”

In a new lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the plaintiffs — which include Israeli-Americans and Americans who attended the Nova music festival raided by Hamas as well as the loved ones of victims — have claimed that AP has aided and abetted the terrorist organization by using these freelance photographers.

According to a report by The New York Post, the plaintiffs accuse AP of “materially supporting terrorism” by paying alleged Hamas-associated photojournalists for images captured during and immediately after the October 7 invasion.

“There is no doubt that AP’s photographers participated in the October 7 massacre, and that AP knew, or at the very least should have known, through simple due diligence, that the people they were paying were longstanding Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack that they were also documenting,” the complaint alleges.

According to The New York Post, the lawsuit mentions the names of four freelance photographers whose work was purchased and published by AP and claims that the four are “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attacks.”

But the publication reports that the majority of the lawsuit focuses on one photojournalist, Hassan Eslaiah — who has been repeatedly accused of having links to Hamas .

Eslaiah had contributed some of the earliest photos of the October 7 attacks to news outlets. Later, investigative report by the website Honest Reporting turned up a 2020 photo of Eslaiah posing with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

The New York Post reports that the plaintiffs claim that AP was made aware of Eslaiah’s alleged links to Hamas but continued to pay for his freelance images.

“AP willfully chose to turn a blind eye to these facts, and instead profited from its terrorist photographer’s participation in the massacre through its publication of the ‘exclusive’ images, for which it certainly paid a premium, effectively funding a terrorist organization,” the suit alleges.

The plaintiffs are suing for damages from the AP under the Antiterrorism Act, according to the federal complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida.

Last year, when allegations first surfaced about photographers knowing about the Hamas-led invasion, an AP spokesperson stressed that the news wire had “no knowledge of the October 7 attacks before they happened.” They said that the news wire uses freelancers from around the world, including in Gaza.

“Hassan Eslaiah has been an occasional freelancer for AP and other news organizations,” the AP said in a statement to The Washington Times.

“The role of The Associated Press is to gather information on breaking news events around the world wherever they happen, even when those events are horrific and cause mass casualties.”

Brian Griffin, who has died aged 75, was one of the most original and influential British photographers of his generation. His images of Kate Bush, Donald Sutherland, Iggy Pop and Damien Hirst, and his album covers for Echo and the Bunnymen and Depeche Mode, are some of the most famous pictures of the 1980s.

For the cover of Depeche Mode’s 1982 LP, A Broken Frame, Griffin transposed Soviet social realism to a cornfield off the M11 in East Anglia, and the result was named by Life magazine as one of the greatest images of the decade. His virtuosity saw him declared photographer of the decade by the Guardian in 1989.

His work, which has been exhibited globally, is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A, the Arts Council and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Griffin’s success capturing the glossy worlds of money and hairspray was rooted in something darker. He was forged in the Black Country, the industrial heartland of the West Midlands, and the influence of the factories, and the harsh light from the furnaces, suffused his early photography. He had a relentless work ethic and would do anything to succeed in a world far removed from that of his upbringing.

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He was born in Birmingham, the only child of Edith (nee Moore) and James Griffin, who were both factory workers. The family lived in a two-up, two-down in Lye, where every street had a factory. Young Brian felt that “the whole world appeared to be partly made of metal. Everything you touched seemed to be iron and steel.” After passing the 11-plus exam he went to Halesowen technical school, then went to work at the age of 16.

In 1965 he was making conveyors for readymix concrete plants when the factory foreman suggested he join Hagley camera club, where he picked up a camera for the first time. He then got a job at British Steel and was working as a nuclear pipework engineering estimator in 1969 when everything changed. Devastated by the end of a love affair, he decided to leave his old life behind.

Griffin’s only means of escape was photography, so he put some of his camera club images into a Boots photo album and applied to art colleges. He was accepted into Manchester Art School at the age of 21, where he studied with Martin Parr and Daniel Meadows.

In the college library he devoured books on art, and after graduating and moving to London, he spent weeks at the National Film theatre immersing himself in German and French cinema. Inspired, he began to look for work.

In 1972 he went to see the art director of Management Today magazine. Griffin’s talent was plain to see, and he was immediately put to work. He shot a shadowy monochromatic image of rush hour on London Bridge from the back of a cab, calling it his Metropolis image, after Fritz Lang’s expressionist masterpiece. Prior to this, Griffin had doubted his ability, but now he knew that he could make it as a photographer, he unleashed his artistry.

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Through his images for the magazine, Griffin introduced surrealism to the boardroom. His industrial background meant that he clicked with the businessmen who were his subjects, and the captains of industry played ball. He wittily subverted the corporate power of the men he photographed by introducing discordant juxtapositions, building tension. He wound intrigue throughout his work, stopping the viewer in their tracks, making them take time over his images, and his work began to be recognised.

Ambitious, he wanted to expand his repertoire and earn more money. He understood that the style he had honed in the business world would translate into the pop sphere, where post-punk bands were eschewing bondage trousers in favour of being suited and booted. He went to Stiff Records and photographed Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Ian Dury and the Blockheads.

Recognition followed and commissions flooded in. He worked for Esquire, Rolling Stone, the Face, Time Out, the Sunday Times and the Observer, in advertising for British Airways, BMW and Levi Jeans, and photographed Brian May in a series for Sony Walkman in 1980.

That year he moved to Rotherhithe, a working-class area of south London on the banks of the Thames. He loved the place, recognised its people and was to stay there all his life. He set up a studio from where he continued to push the boundaries of the conventional. Using his background in engineering, allied to his innate creativity, he built lighting machines and used knicker elastic and ping-pong balls to create startling special effects in an analogue age.

Some experiments led to happy accidents: his highly regarded 1984 image of Siouxsie Sioux, intended as a double exposure, was in fact a triple: “It was wrong, but so right,” he said.

In the days before social media, aside from magazines, the main showcase for a photographer’s work was on walls, be they in galleries or town centres. Griffin’s first solo London exhibition was at Contrast Gallery in 1981, and the posters of his work for bands such as Spandau Ballet and Ultravox were plastered across the land. His family finally saw his work and were proud: they had always wanted more for Brian than factory life.

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As well as portraiture, he produced numerous documentary projects. In 1986 he photographed construction workers at the Broadgate development in the City of London. At the time he was still reeling from the death of his father from lung cancer, due to a life inhaling cast-iron dust. The project allowed Griffin to pay homage to his father and to all working people: he monumentalised the men “like knights lying in state in a cathedral with their swords”.

In 1989 he left still photography to make television commercials, music videos and short films, but returned a decade later. In 2003 he produced a project to aid Birmingham’s bid to become the European City of Culture. He worked promoting the 2012 London Olympics and in 2015 his photo-essay, Himmelstrasse, movingly documented the railway tracks in Poland that transported people to Nazi death camps. He continued to work up until the end of his life, with new projects still in the pipeline.

He had more than 20 monographs published in his lifetime and won numerous awards. In 2013 the Royal Photographic Society awarded him their Centenary Medal, and the following year he received an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University for his lifetime contribution to his home city.

Griffin’s 1980 marriage to the photographer Frances Newman ended in divorce. Their daughter, Layla, died in 2020; he is survived by their son, Danz, and three grandchildren.

By Delon Shurtz – Lethbridge Herald on February 22, 2024.

Herald photo by Delon Shurtz
Guest curator at the Galt Museum, Tess McNaughton, shows some of the photographs on display in the upcoming exhibit, Extra! Extra! The Eras of Photojournalism in Lethbridge

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

On a wall in the Galt Museum hangs a photo of former Lethbridge mayor A. W. Shackleford. He’s holding two microphones and appears to be falling backward while two men try to help.

Shackleford was about to introduce Teen Queen Donna Glock and runner-up Shirley Parkinson at a Valentine Dance in 1953, but when he grabbed both microphones he was instantly shocked because the wires were improperly grounded. The current flowed into his body and froze his hands to the microphones until the power was turned off.

The photograph, taken by F. Orville Brunelle of the Lethbridge Herald, appeared in 1,300 magazines and newspapers all over the world, and Brunelle won the 1953 Canadian Press Picture Service award for Best Picture of the Year.

On another wall of the museum is a photograph of a Canadian Airforce F18 jet plummeting to the ground during the 2010 airshow at the Lethbridge Airport, for which Herald photographer Ian Martens won a National Newspaper Award. Just a few feet further along the wall is a photo of an industrial fire at Willow Creek Sand and Gravel that shows a firefighter amidst the intense flames of a burning tractor tire. Herald photographer at the time, David Rossiter, was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for that photo.

The pictures are part of the Galt Museum’s newest exhibit, Extra! Extra! The Eras of Photojournalism in Lethbridge.

“This is an exhibit on the history of photojournalism in Lethbridge, and there’s a focus on the Lethbridge Herald, as the four earliest photographers were from the Lethbridge Herald,” Tess McNaughton, guest curator at the museum, said Wednesday during a preview of the exhibit.

“Originally this was an online exhibit curated by Bobbie Fox, and it covered four different photographers: Lloyd Knight, Orville Brunelle, Ian Martens and David Rossiter.”

When McNaughton turned the online exhibit into a physical one, she split it up into four eras: the analog era (film and photography); the transitional era (from film to digital photography); photographers and photojournalism; and the digital era, focusing mainly on digital photography and photojournalism.

“I think newspapers are definitely changing right now, the news is changing, and a lot of it is online and a lot of it is moving quickly, so putting a highlight on the past of photojournalism is really important.”

Fox developed the online exhibit during COVID-19 to keep people engaged with the museum and archives, and with some 100,000 photos from the Lethbridge Herald in the archives, an exhibit of the history of photojournalism seemed a natural fit.

“The Lethbridge Herald, of course, is very prolific in our journalism and media landscape…so it just made sense to kind of go through and look at the evolution of how those pictures were being taken,” Fox said.

Because of the immensity of trying to create an exhibit from thousands of photographs, Fox decided to focus on the four most prolific Herald photographers.

“They are all award-winning photographers in their own right, and they have come up with some amazing, amazing photographs that we’re lucky enough to have a lot of in our collection.”

Fox said McNaughton turned the online exhibit, which can still be viewed on the Galt’s website, into an amazing physical exhibit, which, she said, emphasizes the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

In addition to the four photographers and their photographs on display, the exhibit also includes two other journalists: Alejandra Pulido-Guzman, a reporter/photographer with the Lethbridge Herald, and Ose Irete, a video journalist with CBCs Lethbridge bureau.

“I really wanted to emphasize their stories because I love their photography and their photojournalism, and also they are voices that are under-represented in newspapers and photojournalism,” McNaughton said.

“I wanted to give a well-rounded view of what photojournalism looks like today. I think they both have an eye for photos which varies from the other four photographers.”

She said she chose Irete because he is the only photojournalist for CBC Lethbridge, and she chose Pulido-Guzman because “she has such an important journey and really shows the present photojournalist experience.”

The exhibit opens Saturday and runs until Aug. 4.

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Once told she was “too much,” Leta Harrison reclaimed her voice as a Black woman through her photography. In an exhibit that opened last week at Austin’s Central Public Library, she challenges stereotypical beauty standards.

“In my own experience, I’ve been told I can’t do something because it’s too loud, it’s too bright, it’s too bold,” she said. “And that’s how this idea was born.”

Her exhibit, “Black Girls Don’t Wear Red Lipstick,” shows empowered women in diverse spaces, clothing and colors.

Harrison said she was inspired by Texas musician Kam Franklin, whom she saw give a talk at the Carver Museum.

Franklin was “always being told to be very modest,” she said. “In her artist’s talk, she mentioned ‘Black girls don’t wear red lipstick’ and immediately I was very drawn to that.”

The nonprofit OF COLOR co-curated the exhibit. Whitney Hamilton, its director of small events and artist engagement, said it’s important that shows like Harrison’s are featured in high-foot-traffic areas for visitors who would not otherwise know about an artist.

“Seeing this in this space continues with the work we’re doing with OF COLOR — amplifying voices … specifically BIPOC artists in the Austin community,” Hamilton said. “In the Austin Public Library, you have all walks of life coming in; they get a chance to witnesses it.”

She said she was proud that she was able to help Harrison tell her story and amplify Black women in bold colors. She hopes other women see the exhibit — full of “different women from different walks of life, different shades, different tones” — and feel empowered.

Nicole Parker, the library’s exhibit coordinator, became enamored with the concept and Harrison’s photographs. She said the library is a great spot for the artwork because people who don’t typically go to galleries or museums can stumble across it.

“I think having an exhibit like this in the space … exposes people to different types of art,” she said. “It’s sort of a democratic space, a welcoming space because everybody comes to the library and it’s free and open to the public.”

Rising London-based photographer Ollie Trenchard has officially announced the launch of his latest project, which dissects the roaring car scenes of Caribbean islands. Trenchard heads to Barbados’ sun-filled beaches to fill the pages of Drifting In Paradise while paying tribute to his Bajan and UK roots.

The growing rally culture in Barbados vibrates through Trenchard’s striking photographs, capturing the nation’s love for car racing and automotive history. Trenchard recalls his early childhood, where he forged a deep connection to motorsports and traveled to Barbados to reignite his love for street racing.

Drifting In Paradise honors Barbados’ beloved car enthusiasts, sitting down with them at local car clubs and group events. He exhibits a diverse range of vintage and modern cars and tells the story of cherished models, including the Japanese Nissan Skyline and Subaru Impreza. The hardcover book is designed in orange and blue tones, while compelling spreads are submerged in racing chronicles.

Take a look inside Ollie Trenchard’s Drifting In Paradise photography book above, and purchase your copy at select bookstores and online retailers worldwide. Trenchard will hold an exclusive exhibition in London on February 23 at 4 Garden Walk, EC2A 3EQ.

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Two Haverhill women with an eye for capturing evocative images excelled in this year’s Essex Heritage Commission’s photo contest.

The contest encourages photographers of all levels to capture the living landscapes, unique places and vibrant communities of Essex County.

In 2021, Kathy Diamontopoulos took the grand prize for her photo of a plover chick in a clam shell. She entitled her image “Beach Baby” and captured it at Sandy Point State Reservation in Ipswich.

She won the grand prize again this year for her photograph of a parent plover with chicks under its wings. She titled it “Precious Plovers” and also shot it at Sandy Point. The grand prize includes $300 in cash plus a $75 gift card to Hunt’s Photo.

“I was stunned when I was informed that I’d won a second grand prize, and again with an image of plovers,” Diamontopoulos said, adding piping plovers winter in the Gulf Coast and other southern areas and spend their summers in this part of New England and other northern areas.

A customer service representative for Middleton Electric Light, Diamontopoulos considers photography a “fierce hobby” and one that is very therapeutic.

To capture her 2021 winning Beach Baby image she used a Nikon Coolpix 1000 with a telephoto lens, but for this year’s winning photo she used a Nikon D7500 with a 500mm lens.

“The zoom lens allows me to get a close up photo without disturbing the birds, which is my number one priority,” she said. “Last summer I laid flat on the sand and waited for the plovers to pass by and hoped for the best. I kept a safe distance, as they are a threatened bird.”

She said oftentimes people who are walking the beach will ask her what she’s doing, and a conversation about the plovers will often ensue.

“Education is a good way to help us coexist with nature,” she said.

People’s Choice Award

This year’s People’s Choice Award winner, Alison Colby-Campbell, has been entering the contest on and off for the last 10 years with great success.

Her winning photo for this year’s contest, titled “All is Calm,” shows a rabbi checking the operation of an electric menorah in downtown Washington Square during the past Christmas season.

“I liked the image as it represented what I think is one of the best parts of Haverhill, and that is multiple cultures being able to share space peacefully,” said Colby-Campbell, a marketing and advertising professional who founded the Heartbeat of Haverhill on Facebook. “Haverhill is an underestimated city that has a lot to brag about.”

Her first entry in 2014, a first prize winner in the downtown category, showed ice flows on the Merrimack River with a backdrop of the former Woolworth Building. Also in 2014, she was honored with a People’s Choice Award for an autumn photo of Winnekenni Castle.

She won a People’s Choice Award in 2023 for an image of the Basiliere Bridge at night and taken during a riverboat sunset cruise.

“This year there were more than 30 images up for the award,” Colby-Campbell said. “I put the word out and people in Haverhill were very responsive and supportive of my images.” Her prize, to be awarded March 6, includes a $50 gift card to Rockafellas in Salem, Mass, and a one-day pass for admission and half day canoe rental ($30) at the Ipswich River Wildlife Photos courtesy of Essex Heritage

Sanctuary.

“I would not have won this contest for a second time if it had not been for friends and family,” Colby-Campbell said.

Her 2014 images were captured with Canon and Nikon digital cameras, while last year’s and this year’s images were taken with a Samsung smartphone.

From rocky coasts and rural farms to historic downtowns and parks, photographers vividly captured a variety of special places in Essex County for this year’s contest. All photographs were taken within the Essex National Heritage Area in 2023 and fell into the categories of “Buildings, Blocks, and Neighborhoods,” “Celebrating Our Communities,” “Four Season,” and a themed youth category which asked young people to show us why they love where they live.

2People’s Choice Award Winner

“All is Calm,” by Alison Colby-Campbell of Haverhill, taken in Haverhill

Photo Contest Reception and Exhibit:

The public is invited to attend an in-person Essex Heritage Photo Contest Reception on Wednesday, March 6, at 6 p.m. at the Salem Armory Visitor Center, 2 New Liberty St. The reception is free, open to the public and light refreshments will be available. The 14 winning images are on display at the Center through the end of March.

See winning photographs on the Essex Heritage Facebook page or at essexheritage.org/programs/photo-contest/.

Support for the Photo Contest was generously contributed by North Shore Bank, DeIulis Brothers Construction, Geller MicroAnalytical Labs, Groom Construction, and the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission. Other prize sponsorships were donated by Hunt’s Photo & Video, Ipswich River Watershed Association, REI, SEE Shore Photography, The Trustees, Mass Audubon, Harbor Sweets, Rockafellas Restaurant, and Atomic Café.

023 Essex Heritage Photo Contest Winners:

Grand Prize Winner

“Precious Plovers,” by Kathy Diamontopoulos of Haverhill, taken in Ipswich

Category: Buildings, Blocks, and Neighborhoods

1st Place – “Man at the Wheel,” by Jason Kennedy of Nashua, N.H., taken in Gloucester

2nd Place – “Pink House, Half Moon,” by Catherine Grassello of Wakefield, taken in Newbury

3rd Place – “Lollipop Trees,” by Karen Hosking of Salem, Mass., taken in Manchester-by-the-Sea

Category: Celebrating Our Communities

1st Place – “Ice Breaker,” by Francisco Urena of Marblehead, taken in Boxford

2nd Place – “Jackson Cup,” by Mark Katz of Marblehead, taken in Marblehead

3rd Place – “Enjoying the Show,” by Rick Matthias of Salem, Mass., taken in Salem

Category: Four Seasons

1st Place – “Springtime Eaglet — It’s Your Turn to Feed,” by Carin Macnamara of Wakefield

2nd Place – “Cygnets Amidst Fall Hues,” by Deric LePard of Salem, Mass., taken in Andover

3rd Place – “River Snowfall,” by Brian Searles of Topsfield, taken in Topsfield

Youth Category

1st Place – Merrimack River in Lawrence,” by Dante Cutietta of Tewksbury, taken in Lawrence

2nd Place – “Grasshopper,” by Georgana Cauthers of Gloucester, taken in Gloucester

3rd Place – “Mushroom Meadow,” by Jameson Dick of Ipswich, taken in Topsfield

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Chen Man, a renowned Chinese photographer, filmmaker, digital visual artist, and painter, is credited with contributing to the evolution of China’s beauty aesthetic. Prominent celebrities from Asia and beyond have graced her highly stylized, otherworldly shoots, which often fuse traditional Chinese aesthetics with contemporary elements.

Her solo exhibition, “Dynamic Balance,” is at the Bund Financial Center until March 9.

“The exhibition, featuring a motif of water running through it, presents my multidimensional artistic expressions ranging from painting to photography, sculpture, and installations, offering a unique and immersive experience,” Chen said. “This marks my second solo exhibition in Shanghai in the past 12 years.”

In her exploration of “water as object, subject, and noumenon,” Chen constructs a dialectical landscape that not only captures the essence of the contemporary environment but also conveys the emotions and creative impulses that have defined her career.

Ti Gong

The first installation, “Playground,” positioned at the entrance, symbolizes the experiential introduction to the exhibition with the “Memory Brick” series. Memories, akin to water, freeze, melt, and fade.

“Each ice brick conceals a vibrant mind stone. These stones, representing the seven colors of the visible spectrum, symbolize the innate ability bestowed upon us by nature to perceive the world,” said Chen. “This piece encourages us to embrace a childlike curiosity, daring us to experiment and engage with the world like water.”

Ti Gong

On crossing a narrow path and stepping over an exit, visitors are greeted by a vast square wheat field. Two white pillows rest within the field, enveloped in mist against a rainbow backdrop.

Stepping into the wheat field feels like entering a sanctuary of memories and imagination, where human nature is nurtured, and aspirations are safeguarded. Visitors will experience a sense of relaxation and tranquility, according to Chen.

Ti Gong

Ti Gong

The second part of the exhibition features portraits captured by Chen of pop icons such as basketball legend LeBron James, acclaimed singer Rihanna, actress Zhang Ziyi, and heartthrobs Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. Many of these portraits revolve around the theme of the dragon.

After inputting a six-digit password, visitors are led into a dimly lit room where vivid depictions of two dragons that Chen created for an 800-year-old temple in Japan adorn the wall.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is “Memory Brick.” On one side of the wall, portraits of nine international celebrities are displayed, while on the opposite side, their corresponding memory bricks are depicted in paintings. Positioned beneath each portrait is a headset through which visitors can listen to the stars’ personal reflections and life perceptions.

Ti Gong

Ti Gong

One of the portraits captures martial arts icon Jackie Chan making a heart gesture. In his memory snippet, Chan reflects: “I was wild and bold; my worth was gold, 60 cars at hand, everyone at my command … It took me far and wide. And I checked the arrogant stride. I am thrifty now; I can use a tissue many times.”

Actress Shu Qi candidly shared her apprehensions and anxieties while confined in an elevator, yet on stepping out, she found release, emphasizing that no obstacle is insurmountable.

“Through these pieces, I aim to encourage young people to embrace life fearlessly, much like water does. Water is open to experiencing all facets of existence,” Chen said.

Exhibition info:

Date: February 23-March 9

Venue: Bund Financial Center

Address: 600 Zhongshan Rd E2

中山东二路600号

Twenty members of the al-Farra family are gathered for the photo, but no one is smiling for the camera.

The scene is deceptively tranquil as they sit around a bare wooden table under the trees of the Stella Maris monastery on Mount Carmel, high above the port of Haifa. But it is April 1948, and below them the city is under siege and bombardment by the Haganah, the main Zionist paramilitary organisation that later became the core of the Israeli army.

Much of Haifa’s Arab population fled, but the al-Farras stayed put at the monastery. After the city fell and became part of the newly established state of Israel the following month, they returned to their home to find it had been taken over by a Jewish family.

We learn no more of the fate of the al-Farras after 1948 in a new book Against Erasure: a Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba. But we do see glimpses of the family’s life in the years leading up to the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe, in which about 750,000 Arabs were forever forced from their homes during the war that followed the partition of Palestine and led to the birth of modern Israel.

Against Erasure is not the first collection of photos from the era of Turkish and then British rule. But in the midst of the bloodiest Israeli attack on Palestinians since the Nakba, with civilians accounting for the majority of the 28,000 dead in Gaza, 2 million people forced from their homes and entire neighbourhoods destroyed alongside schools, hospitals and factories, the book stands as proof of life of a Palestine many in Israel want to pretend never existed.

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Against Erasure was first published in Madrid by two Spanish women with experience of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – Sandra Barrilaro, a photographer, and Teresa Aranguren, a journalist – to push back against an Israeli version of history that not only erased Palestinian society but also works to wipe out its memory. The original title in Spanish translates as Against Forgetting but that was already taken by a poetry book. The English-language publishers settled instead on Against Erasure.

It’s a title that feels more pointed not only because of the present war in Gaza but after years of what Israeli human rights groups describe as the regime of Jewish supremacy in the West Bank intended to erase any possibility of a viable Palestinian state. A system that has worked hard to make Palestinians living under occupation, confined behind the vast and winding West Bank barrier or caged in Gaza, largely unseen by ordinary Israelis except when called up to do their periodic military service enforcing the occupation.

The version of the book in English and Arabic was commissioned for Haymarket by Róisín Davis. “Most people don’t learn about the Nakba in school. They don’t learn about the history of this land, of these people. And they certainly don’t encounter a sense of what Palestine looked like,” she said.

“The book is a visual testament to Palestinian society, to what existed. The power of this book is in the images representing the breadth and richness of Palestinian society before the Nakba, pre-1948. They show a full society, a rich society and an abundant land. They also show the diversity of society which goes a long way to counter the Zionist narrative that it was a land without a people, for people without the land.”

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The pages introduce us to the boys of Hebron’s school for the blind in the early 1940s and the staff of the local hospital toward the end of the war. Arab, Jewish and British employees of the Haifa customs department pose on its steps.

There are the kinds of photos that once filled local newspapers. Of football teams, school plays and Boy Scout troops in various kinds of headdress from wide brimmed hats to keffiyehs.

Members of Haifa municipal council – Jews, Arabs and British nationals – line up for an official portrait. A group of women pose for a class photo with their diplomas from teacher training college. In an altogether different picture from 1930, a woman lounges the length of a couch in her evening dress.

We see the work of Karima Abbud, the first female Palestinian professional photographer who ran studios in Jerusalem and Haifa. Two girls from Nazareth pose for her in 1928 with stares that suggest a wariness of the camera.

Many of the pictures were dug out of family archives by the historian Johnny Mansour who lives in Haifa and has spent years collecting oral histories and photographs of the Palestinian experience.

Mansour describes his Palestinian parents fleeing the 1948 war and his childhood in “one of the poorest and most marginalized neighborhoods in Haifa”. He has since spent his life gathering the evidence of what once existed.

“I firmly believe that while the people of Palestine lost their land, they refuse to lose their history. As one of the children, the survivors, of this people, I know how sincere our relationship is with the land, its past, its history, its images, its documents. Taken together, they return to us what we need the most: our homeland,” Mansour writes in the book.

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Alongside that, Against Erasure reminds us that Palestine was never free. It was occupied two empires, the Ottoman and then the British, before the Nakba.

One picture captures two men in front of a sign for Imperial Airways at Gaza airport in 1935. Others show the darker side of imperial rule and that the Israeli military was not the first to indulge in collective punishment. We see British army engineers standing amid the rubble of houses in Jaffa destroyed to punish the families of those who took part in the Arab revolt in 1936.

Amid the routines of daily life is the Palestinian realisation that a storm is gathering and the first inklings of the Nakba. Black flags inscribed with “Long Live Palestine” are pictured hanging in the Jerusalem bazaar on the day of the Balfour declaration in 1917 – the British government’s commitment to “a national home for the Jewish people” in the territory just seized from the Ottomans.

Pictures from two decades later capture the Great Revolt over sharply rising Jewish immigration and land ownership, and fears that the British would deliver on the promise of the Balfour declaration.

Against Erasure lists 418 Palestinian villages depopulated during the Nakba and either destroyed or taken over by Jewish residents and given Hebrew names in an act of what the book calls “sociocide” but which might well be described as ethnic cleansing.

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In places, the Palestinian population was murdered, perhaps most notoriously in Deir Yassin. The book quotes Jacques de Reynier, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation, after a visit to Deir Yassin as describing the massacre of Arabs “without any military reason or provocation of any kind; old men, women, children, newly born were savagely murdered with grenades and knives by Jewish troops of the Irgun, entirely under the control of their chiefs”.

The al-Farras were spared that fate but the life they lived before the Nakba, glimpsed on the pages of Against Erasure, was over.

The family clearly liked travelling. Two men are pictured in suits sitting stiffly under stalactites on a trip to Lebanon’s Qadisha caves in 1935 when trains still ran from Palestine to Beirut.

Alongside their picture is a copy of a passport belonging to a member of the family, the pages dotted with visas and border post stamps. It stands as its own testament against erasure. In English, Arabic and Hebrew, the document states that it is a Palestine passport, and that the holder is a Palestinian citizen.

• Against Erasure: A photographic memory of Palestine before the Nakba, edited by Teresa Aranguren and Sandra Barrilaro, is out now

A picture is worth a thousand words, but for one local photographer, it could soon be worth a lot more than that, as Tyler Smiley has had two photos selected to advance to the final round of the prestigious Bird Photographer of the Year competition.

“I saw an email come through from them requesting high-resolution files for one or more images I entered in the contest, and it didn’t register what that meant at first, to be honest,” Smiley said, adding that he had to re-read the email a few times before realizing he had advanced to the final round of judging.

Smiley entered a variety of bird images into the competition, including an osprey, pelican and screech owl. The two selected for the final round, however, were both of a smaller species – sanderlings. One of the images was captured at Fowler Beach in Milford, and the other at Cape Henlopen State Park, Lewes.

Since it is a global competition, Smiley said even if he doesn’t place or advance further, he can take pride in the fact he made it this far. “It is no small feat to reach this round of the competition, that’s for sure. When I entered, I don’t think I could have ever expected it, but I am extremely proud that it happened,” he said.

The Bird Photographer of the Year is an annual competition that was conceived to celebrate the amazing array of bird species found around the world. It features several categories, including black-and-white, best bird portrait, bird behavior and more.

For more information on the competition, go to birdpoty.com. To view more of Smiley’s work or purchase his prints, go to tylersmileyphotography.com.