PROJECT SERIES: THE HUMAN & THE ELEMENTS OF LIFE

Following several series till date, this time we collaborated with a yoga instructor and a fire juggler, an exceptional professional, Samir Khairallah, aka Sam.
This series of photographs like the previous ones had more than one objective, and to portray it, we needed water and fire.
The first objective consists of drawing the attention on the danger we are facing due to the fact that “the coast is being privatized”; in other words, the nature of the coasts is being destroyed to make place for resorts and private businesses. This is why Kfar Aabida was chosen for the “water” series taking Sam in photographs (the yoga posture series). This series is published during the month of June, in coincidence with the International Yoga Day, which is celebrated annually on 21 June since its inception in 2015: Here’s to all yoga enthusiasts and professional!
The second objective consists of emphasizing on seasonal forest fires: By 21 June we welcome the summer season, that time of the year where intentional fire occurs.
Some intentional causes are as following: (but not limited to)
Individuals cause the fire in order to benefit from the wood for commercial use and charcoal;
Destroying an area in order to take a permission to build residential buildings or homes, which was not possible because of the forest (legally protected);
The lack of education of campers and families gathered for picnics in nature: The trash left in the forest and some flammable material can cause a fire.
In order to raise the awareness about this specific topic, another series of photographs were taken of Sam, this time as a fire juggler, in Hammat: This series included the fire where the juggler was surrounded by trees in the middle of the road, in order to point up this specific topic.
Now let’s tell you about the shooting process: Both series were executed on the same day, it was a full moon night.
At Kar Aabida, the area was exposed to many sources of lights which made the shooting quite hard: The full moon lights, the street lights behind the location, and the city lights on our right (generated by buildings in Batroun city). All these lights made it even harder for Sam, because any movement or shake during a posture, will be captured by the camera; hence I had to setup some additional lighting in order to decrease the possibility of blurred photographs.
Even though it was lovely night, by 11’ pm the wind started blowing: One of the speedlights, mounted on a light stand, hit the wet rocky ground. One of the triggers gave me a hard time to work properly! Sometimes it did fire some light and some other times it just didn’t! I will take a moment here, to appreciate the endurance of Sam: Shooting at night requires a lot of patience, and he showed a great amount of it, when he had to pose over and over again until the lights fired correctly.

In Hammat, the shooting was totally different: Let’s start by saluting the army who stopped by when Sam was performing, thinking we were there to cause some troubles. After taking a look at what we were doing, and ensuring that it was safe, they left us in peace.
At Hammat, we stopped in the middle of the road, a dark area, quite dangerous as well (since cars were passing by, yes even at that time of the night!).
The shooting in this dark area required some adjustments of the exposure: A compromise between shadows and highlights was necessary. Additional lighting was used to keep the artist as sharp as possible in the photographs while recording the movement and showing the intensity of the fire. Sam was very cooperative with the instructions, ensuring the perfection of the outcome.

This project couldn’t be done without the efforts of all the team:
Yoga Instructor & Fire Juggler, Samir Khairallah (Flow with Sam).
Videographers, Rita Mikhael, Sary Asmar.
Project coordinator, Jessica Rahhal.