The national training project "Our Jordan in Our Eyes: From Hobby to Profession" is continuing its tour of the Kingdom's governorates, aiming to discover photography talent, develop participants' skills, and turn photography from a pastime into a tool for documenting Jordan's places, people and heritage.
اضافة اعلان
The project launched its second stop in Madaba governorate with support from the Ministry of Culture and under the supervision of photographer Sami al-Zoubi, who oversees the training. Sessions are being held at the Zaha Cultural Center in Madaba as part of a program combining theoretical instruction with hands-on practice.
Mohammad Salman Al-Rawahneh, director of Madaba's Culture Directorate, opened the course on behalf of Dr. Nidal al-Ayasrah, secretary general of the Ministry of Culture. Al-Zoubi attended alongside a number of people interested in cultural and artistic affairs, along with the course participants.
Trainee Shahd Abu Riash hosted the opening ceremony, presenting its program and welcoming attendees and participants. She praised the project's role in developing young people's photography skills.
Al-Zoubi outlined the course's main themes and structure, explaining the nature of the training program and the skills participants would learn over nine days, along with the importance of hands-on practice in building their photography abilities.
Al-Rawahneh said the "Our Jordan in Our Eyes" project plays an important role in discovering young photography talent and developing it, while strengthening the role of photography in documenting Madaba's historical, heritage and natural sites. He pointed to the importance of supporting initiatives that give young people room to learn, train and showcase their talents.
The Madaba stop follows the success and strong turnout the project saw at its first stop in Ajloun governorate, which helped uncover a number of young people interested in photography and eager to develop their abilities.
Forty-five trainees from Madaba governorate are taking part in the course, receiving theoretical and practical training over nine days, totaling 45 training hours, in a format that combines lectures with hands-on exercises.
The Madaba course drew notable turnout and engagement from local residents, particularly young men and women who saw the project as a chance to develop their skills and learn from the instructors' expertise, as well as to use photography to showcase Madaba's historical, heritage and natural sites.
Madaba stands out for the range of sites suited to photography, from its mosaics, churches, mosques and archaeological sites to its old markets, heritage houses, and rural and natural areas, giving participants the chance to practice on a variety of subjects.
Participants receive theoretical and practical training in photography fundamentals, including exposure, shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity, composition, choosing suitable angles, working with light, and how to select the right moment to take a shot.
The training goes beyond technical skills, also building participants' ability to read a scene and pick out details worth documenting. A good photograph doesn't depend on camera skill alone, the course teaches, but requires an idea, the right angle, good lighting and the ability to present a scene in a fresh way.
Madaba offers ample opportunity for practical application, with participants moving from the training hall to various sites to put what they've learned into practice, working with natural light and a range of colors, shadows and scenes, while photographing details of daily life, markets, neighborhoods, old buildings and heritage sites.
The project also aims to help each participant build a personal photography portfolio, producing a body of work that combines artistic quality with documentary value. This is meant to help them develop their own style and apply the skill across fields such as media, tourism and cultural documentation.
One of the project's central outcomes is a national photography exhibition at the end of its tour, for which the best photo from each participant will be selected for display, bringing together roughly 240 works from across the Kingdom's governorates. The exhibition will showcase the diversity of Jordan's regions and ways of life through the participants' own lenses.
Al-Zoubi said the project isn't meant to be a conventional photography course. Instead, it aims to develop photographers capable of understanding a place and engaging with it before ever raising the camera.
Photography begins with an idea, Al-Zoubi said, followed by choosing the right place, angle, light and moment, arriving finally at an image that carries clear meaning. A successful photographer, he said, is one who can uncover the story within a place and translate it into a picture. He added that the project gives participants the tools they need to build that ability.
Madaba's history, heritage and varied sites make it a suitable environment for learning and experimentation, Al-Zoubi added, offering participants a wide range of subjects to photograph. That, he said, can help produce work that becomes part of the visual memory of both the governorate and Jordan as a whole.
Photography carries growing significance as a means of documenting places, people and events, particularly given the rapid growth of social media and other communication platforms. With that in mind, "Our Jordan in Our Eyes" seeks to strengthen the role of the image in documenting Jordan's cultural, social and geographic diversity.
