By Sameer al-Doumy and Abd Doumany
Douma, Syria—Photographing daily life is an escape. It takes me away from the reality of war. My favorite is taking pictures of children playing and laughing. It helps me forget the horrors of war.
My favorite picture is of children playing on swings on Feb. 27, 2016. It was the first day of the ceasefire in Syria. It was the first day that we didn’t hear the sounds of bullets and airplanes, the first day we didn’t see images of bombings and blood.
I wish I didn’t have to take pictures of massacres. I wish no massacres were taking place, so that we wouldn’t have to even consider photographing such horrific things.
Seeing people suffer is a huge burden for me. It’s not something that you see once and then forget, it’s something that stays with you for the rest of your life and weighs heavily on your heart.
Photographing people when they are enduring the worst suffering of their lives is not a pleasure for me or for them. They are scared, panicked, and worried about their loved ones. All they want to know is whether their relatives are dead or alive. Having someone photograph their fear and misery isn’t exactly a pleasure.
After months of continued bombardments and massacres, and days of dead and wounded children, I never would have imagined that I would see children’s faces with smiles on them. I was so happy when I saw them having fun and playing without a care.
Of course there is a big difference in the way people react to you, depending on the situation. In daily life situations, people react positively to me, they show their happiness. When I am covering destruction and bombing, they react differently, as they are living through a rough moment. I understand and respect their feelings. Daily life photography gets me closer to people and helps me share their happiness and pain.
To me, photographing “ordinary” things is a remedy for my wounded soul. War has shattered my country. These small “normal” images help me piece together that shattered image of a “normal” life, a life that we no longer know.
I carry my camera with me wherever I go so that I can capture these rare moments. There’s so much beauty in my country, despite the war.
I think that daily life pictures have more of an effect on people living inside Syria, than pictures of war. Syrians are tired of this war. They live it daily and they are in dire need to take their minds off the hard times they are living through.
When the war ends, I would like to finish my studies, but I will continue to work in photography, which has become my passion. I think I will focus on people’s lives after the war, how the war affected them psychologically and physically and how they are living with that. I’d like to photograph rebuilding Syria from scratch.