Jonathan Sa'adah

Tag: How Many Roads?

  • Un moment commun

    Marie visited a few days ago with her photos place-marked into How Many Roads? Not so many minutes after we started going over them we were laughing so hard we were almost crying. Our parents must have been so proud of us! Here she writes:

    Nice corn, Marie.
    Marie in her Québec garden, circa 1971

    Pourquoi ai-je été aussi touchée en voyant les photos de Jonathan?
    Elles m’ont ramenées directement vers les miennes de la même époque . J’ai eu un irrepressible besoin de fouiller dans mes vielles boîtes pour les retrouver, les comparer, les jumeler…
    C’est un moment commun… même si c’est de part et d’autre de la frontière.
    Avoir 20 ans dans les années 70, membre d’une cohorte très importante de jeunes en rupture avec un système politique et économique…la contre-culture!
    Nous nous distinguions dramatiquement de nos parents qui avaient vécu la crise et la guerre, nous étions plus insouciants, plus libres, plus créatifs, prêts à prendre plus de risques…
    Que sont nos amis devenus…que nous avions de si près tenus…et tant aimés… comme dans la complainte de Ruteboeuf
    Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait de nos rêves… comme le chantait si justement Sylvain Lelièvre…
    How many roads…
    On se retrouve aujourd’hui…peut-être moins nombreux…plusieurs ont déserté vers un confort trop douillet…
    Mais le désir d’un monde plus juste ne s’éteint pas

     

  • Where there’s a crowd there’s a photo

    Detail of street crowd, Mexico City, 2014 (click through for full photo)
    Detail of street crowd, Mexico City, 2014 (click through for full photo)
    I’ve always liked photographs of crowds. Cameras are great at recording a lot of detail quickly and for me they give a way of studying the people, and seeing how I do (or don’t) fit in. I remember when I first came to Quebec I took so many pictures of people on the street, just trying to understand about my new home. Unfortunately, one of the things I came to understand is that you don’t generally do that here! But it did help me to feel a connection and start to find my place.

    New Haven Green looking south towards Federal Courthouse, March 1968
    New Haven Green looking south towards Federal Courthouse, March 1968

    Photos age well too. A picture taken now looks like, well, now. But a picture taken more than four decades ago records something that’s gone. That can be precious if it’s of one person. When the photo is of a lot of people it gives a feeling of the time, the place, and customs.

    These are (mostly) Yale students, on the New Haven Green. It was one of the early large East Coast demonstrations against the Vietnam War and as such was covered by the international media and watched closely – by both friend and foe.