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The Morning News

Saturday, July 4, 2009

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More People We Like

Associate Editor,
People We Like,
Heather Rasley

Are you a photographer? Do you like people? If you’d like to shoot photos for our People We Like column, let us know.

People We Like

Lucien Samaha

Photographed by Devin Elijah

Lucien, yo
—Published April 9, 2008
Birthplace: Beirut, Lebanon

You were instrumental in the launch of the first-ever digital camera while you were at Kodak. What’s the most significant effect? More people are taking more pictures than ever before.

Which emerging photo technologies excite you now? Photography is on a roll, no pun intended. I get excited by it all. But as much as I love new equipment, I am constantly experimenting with combining older technologies with newer ones to form hybrid imagery that straddles both worlds while creating a whole new one.

Your current exhibit, “Lucien Samaha is Uneasy About Beirut” has a graininess that recalls TV or internet images. I did not create the prints in “Uneasy about Beirut” as a reflection of media or technology, but rather as an investigation of a city under constant threat. The very evident pixels in the images are but an analogy to the innumerable fragments that make up the fabric of a city and its culture.

What other projects are you working on? I am involved in two upcoming exhibits. The Biennial of the Image, in Nancy, France, with “the street” as the theme. The other is a group show in Portland about the self. I am very excited about the latter because I get to experiment with rather unconventional techniques. I am also constantly working on my personal archive of over 400,000 photographs.

Three words on the state of photography in ‘08: Keeps. Getting. Better.

Devin Elijah is a 24-year-old photographer of Jewish and African-American decent. He moved to New York City roughly a year ago to pursue a career in photography. In the last year, he’s exhibited in two group shows, and is working on a handful of extensive portrait studies.

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