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It’s been a long time since I last “freezed and shot” a place! The photos below were taken back in December 2009, but for some reason they sit for a long time in my hard drive before getting published!

Anyway, this episode of “Freeze I will shoot you” is brought to you from one of Tripoli’s old souks (Souk El-Attarin?). I was surprised to encounter such place in Tripoli, it somehow resembled to some souks I’ve been to in Syria.

This souk is relatively small and crowded, but it is unique and definitely worth a visit next time you go to Tripoli!

Two days ago I went to the newly opened Beirut Souks, Beirut’s new largest shopping area, which was rebuilt by Solidere according to the original grid plan and location of the old souks that were destructed during the civil war while maintaining the landmarks and street names.

To my disappointment, the new Beirut Souks look nothing similar to the image I have in my mind for the old Beirut, and I’m pretty sure the new image defies the memories that old people who knew the old souks have in their mind.

Souk El Tawileh (via yabeyrouth.com)

In my opinion Solidere did a horrible job at preserving our heritage there as the new souks no longer reflect the real identity of Beirut, in fact the new souks have no identity at all! Nothing inside that big mall makes you feel like you’re in Beirut except for the “decorative” street plates of course. Be the judge yourself by looking at the photos I took below, it can be Dubai, Paris, or whatever other city!

Add to that the fact that the old souks were a destination to almost all society classes prior to the civil, while right now Beirut Souks is another destination for the snobbish people in Lebanon, I really cannot imagine a low income individual being able to spend a day there. Once again, Solidere probably had the Arab tourists in mind when they designed this place! Just like what they did when they were rebuilding the other parts of the central district.

To me, the Hamra street is a much more authentic Beiruti street than the new Souks of Beirut, though it is full of new restaurants and outlet stores but it has at least maintained its spirit throughout the years.

At the end, I will leave you with this comparative video between the old souks of Beirut and the new ones.

It’s time for another episode of “Freeze I will shoot you”, and this time it’s coming from Jounieh.

Sorry to disappoint you if your expecting some street photography but I actually preferred to take a panoramic photo of Jounieh bay from the road leading to Harissa. So far this is my best attempt in making a panoramic photo, and I am quite satisfied with the result, although I know there is room for improvement. (I’m relying on Antoine’s comments!)

(Click to enlarge)

For those of your who are interested in more details about the photo, it’s actually made up of 3 photos each exposed for 6 seconds, and merged using autostitch.

Stay tuned for the next episode, it’ll be featuring Batroun at the end of the summer season.

I thought of a fun idea today which is to start a new series of posts called “Freeze, I will shoot you!”. Breathe, the thing has nothing to do with the shooting we’re used to in Lebanon, the idea is to go to some area in Lebanon (where else?!) for the purpose of taking some nice photos of the place  and then publish them in a blog post here. I’ll be also open to suggestions if you have some nice place in mind.

I will start today with Sodeco, one of my favorite streets in Beirut. The reason why I originally went there was to shoot the old buildings that still have marks from the civil war on the. I leave you with the photos.

Facing Sodeco square, this building is currently being renovated by the municipality of Beirut.

Showing contrast between two buildings, one has witnessed the civil war and the other eventually didn’t!

Another building currently being renovated.

Same building from the inside.

Same building from the inside.

The street leading to Monot.

P.S: For some reason, the lightbox plugin on my blog (the image overlay thing) seems to be broken, so whenever you click on an image you will be taken to a new webpage instead of displaying it on a grey background. I promise I’ll be working on it today!

Here are three of the last photos I took in the summer.

As you may know, summer is the weddings season in Lebanon, and so the two first photos are from a wedding a week ago.

This one was taken early in July from a building in the Sayfi area.

Here are 3 new photos I’ve taken lately in Beirut, the first one was taken in the Saint Georges at night, the second is obviosly at Manara during sunset, and the last one was taken at a place called “Graffiti” in Makdissi street (Hamra). (Click on the thumbnails to enlarge)