HX Report
Irishman in the Middle East
Weekly Photo Challenge – Life Imitates Art
Posted on February 12, 2016
“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” – Oscar Wilde
There are not so many good places to wander about with your camera in Qatar. But the Souq Waqif is one of them and is one of MB’s favourite spots in the locality. Lots of interesting subject matter floating around down there, and being a bit of a tourist haunt, nobody takes much notice of camera geeks doing camera stuff.
Just before Christmas, MB was wandering around the Souq and one of the Souq artists caught his eye. Or rather, 2 of his sketches caught MB’s eye. Interesting that both are of young girls and both come from different fields of ‘Art’, namely Photography & Painting. MB notes that many in the ‘Art’ world do not consider ‘Photography’ part of the world of ‘Art’. But that’s a discussion and debate for another day.
The sketch top right is a representation of one of the most famous photographs in the history of photography, called – Afghan Girl. It appeared as a cover photo of National Geographic magazine in June 1985. The photo was shot in a Pakistani refugee camp one year earlier, and the photographer never took note of the girl’s name at the time. Her green eyes and the intensity of her stare were striking, and the sketch, with respect, does not do justice to the original. The photo, by Nat Geo photographer Steve McCurry, was shot with a Nikon film camera, and is often compared to De Vinci’s painting ‘Mona Lisa’.
McCurry tracked his subject down in 2002, in a remote village in Afghanistan. The subject of the shot (Sharbat Gula, of Pashtun ethnicity) was unaware of the fame of the photo, albeit she remembered the photo being taken, as it was one of only three times in her life that anyone had taken a photo of her. The search for her became a TV documentary and also featured in Nat Geo magazine in April 2002.
The sketch to the left of ‘Afghan Girl’ is a sketch of one of the most famous paintings in the world, called – ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’, by famous 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It sits in a museum in the Hague since 1902.
Another deadly shot by MB!
HX. 08 November 1920.
Posted on February 12, 2016
The Grange Ambush
MB grew up in the village of Grange in an old farmhouse next to the Camogue River. A stone bridge spans the river some 100 yards south of the farmhouse, and a similar distance on the other side, sits Bulfin’s farmhouse (now in different ownership). In 1920, MB’s family home was in the ownership of the O’Neill family, and Bulfin’s house was a pub in the ownership of the Clancy family.
On 08 November 1920 an ambush of British Crown forces took place approximately between Clancy’s & O’Neill’s. A number of witness statements are available from ambush participants. MB’s favourite version is that of one Edmund Tobin, who was lucky to escape with his life. There is some conflict, it must be stated, between the version of Tobin and that of another volunteer, one Morgan Portley. MB considers Tobin’s version to be very accurate in every respect of which MB has knowledge, such as the layout of the ditches around the farmhouse as they were in MB’s younger days and as they similarly were many years previously at the time of the ambush. They are now much changed, following the demolition of an old hay barn and the construction of a new one by MB’s dad many years ago, and the demolition of various ditches around the new larger barn. So for the reason of Tobin’s accuracy in the telling, in as much as MB can deduce, MB goes with Tobin’s version.
Another participant, one James Moloney from the nearby village of Bruff, claims to have come up with the idea of the ambush, along with a number of others. Moloney featured in MB’s posts of recent weeks and MB starts this week’s post with an extract from Moloney’s statement.
MB can remember meeting Moloney as a young kid hitching lifts home to Grange after football matches in Bruff. Moloney liked to tell tales from his fighting days to anyone who would stop and listen. MB and pals liked to stop and listen. MB remembers one particular line from the descriptive Moloney – “we hid in bushes to attack the Brits, bushes the birds had to get out of, such was the amount of lead flying in both directions”. Read More
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