Each one of us has a special story of passion in their lives
or at least has lived a special experience.
Like a friend of mine.
She has this strong passion, for many years now, to lose weight.
Of course until now she hasn’t lost any.
Like a professor I had in university, spending his life in research and teaching
And the passion of finding knowledge wherever it could be.
Like a mother passionate, in all meanings of the word,
about dedicating her life to instilling principles and values that will never leave her children
This is passion.
A feeling that truly takes over your heart and drains you till obsession.
It doesn’t only inspire you—the madness of an idea
But on the contrary, it inspires you into enthusiasm of achieving it.
To a degree with which you feel some kind of glory and relief
Passion could be the one emotion that will never die in an individual.
It can dim, it can become atrophied, but it will never die.
It’s something linked to the details of your daily life
You could abandon it but it will cling back to you again soon,
because it would be simply impossible for you to live without passion.
In the past, I had a passion for many things. A plentiful fortune of passions.
For writing, for reading, for drawing, for poetry.
A passion for certain lifestyles, for memories, for details
But I knew that whenever the level of my passion decreased
It meant that my passion for it was decreasing or was affected by staleness.
Except for one thing only,
and that is what I consider my own, special story of passion.
The Street.
Yes, the street.
The street of my homeland, and yours, too.
An environment full of life. A whole entity.
A whole entity in which you learn things about yourself, your world, your environment,
will suffice more than any book you can read.
A world you see in it all the people. All the people in the street—
the rich, the poor, the simple, the hardworking.
A world in which you see of stories and details that beckon you to interact with them in any way possible.
A being that challenges you to delve into its depths, to vocalize it and to express it.
And my way of expressing this being was, of course, the camera.
So I entered the world of Street Photography.
Street Photography is a very big world.
Just one of the types of photography; has its rules, its principles, its world.
Its idea is built on documenting Street Life and its people
without imposing on them any pose or image, capturing the moment the way it is.
So I sought to become its student.
To delve into it.
And more importantly, to delve into the experience of Street Life.
The experience of Street Photography is truly fun and exciting, especially here in Yemen,
in spite of all the challenges any Street Photographer can face.
But the idea that you could take photos of individuals you’ve never met or seen before in your life
it’s like you actually steal a little part of their soul
and transform it into something that has a special meaning for you.
It’s an adventure, and I live it every day as a Street Photographer.
You know what’s even better?
What’s even better is that people in Yemen have truly beautiful souls.
Yemen is about the only country where you could take someone’s photo and they’d thank you for it.
Even if you’re a Street Photographer,
you’re obviously an intruder into their life, their privacy, which is a right of theirs.
Obtrusive, but in spite of that, you feel some kind of gratitude in photographing people on the street.
Not just that— you feel as though you’ve given them a favour of a lifetime.
You know like who?
Like Uncle Nagi.
I’ve never met Uncle Nagi in my life. Never seen him before.
Uncle Nagi, the first he saw me on the street, the camera in my hands,
He came to me saying: “Look, my child, in my whole life (imagine!) I’ve only had two photos.”
“One on the identity card, and I’m not even sure if I was the same person or not”
“And a photo with the wife, long time ago, when we got married, and she was frowning in that one.”
The situation: simple and passing, and can happen to anyone,
but Uncle Nagi told me something: “Can you make me happy, and take a third photo?”
The words “make me happy” call for a moment of reflection with yourself.
Some little details we do in our lives, And they can be silly or completely insignificant,
but they have an impact, and the power to add some kind of joy into the lives of those around us.
Similar situations to that of Uncle Nagi, in their casualness and spontaneity,
made me take another look at the prevalent idea that our streets are orphans, that there’s no soul in them.
That things like poverty and harsh living conditions killed the pulse of the street, which is the pulse of life.
And that all we see now are face like these:
filled with worry and misery, never-ending sorrow and unhappiness
But our streets are not like that.
It made me think:
What value is there to my passion, doing something I love, if I don’t give life to my environment?
What’s the value of my passion if it doesn’t let me embrace this environment that is called “The Street,”
and try reflecting it in its true form, with all its details, and to add that little bit of splendor?
That it’s not all sorrow and misery. No.
There are numerous details and stories we can be inspired by.
So I took a different stance in Street Photography and started documenting it in this manner.
So they were laughing at me because we played football
and it was my first time playing it, and apparently I’m not cut out for football at all.
My aim in documenting Street Life in this manner was to reconsider it,
to re-highlight its features for myself, for you;
to try and prove that our streets are not all sorrow and misery, to try and photograph it with photos that live up to its humanity
that it's not all sorrow that we see, but on the contrary,
it has stories and details that really prove that we are a nation
able to live and survive the many hardships that a country goes through;
that we’re a nation that is inspiring in every meaning of the word.
The street is a nation rich with its people, that every day enrich it with their diverse stories.
Their stories and details and that lend so much to the cohesion of this community/society.
They’re little details, yes, but in them there is great inner peace.
You have come here to see 17 speakers, hoping that by the end of the day,
you will leave with an inspirational idea or a start to your own idea.
But be sure that there is a TEDx moment happening in the street every day.
There is, every day, a speaker that can inspire you, and each in their own language.
The vegetable man who lays out his lettuce with care;
The love story of the chickpea vendor and his trolley
The frustration of the gas station worker from all those people asking him a thousand times if there’s gas and him telling them: “No.”
These are all stories showing that there is a life to be lived. That there is a life to be lived, and not only that—
It’s a window through which we can see ourselves and get to know our personalities.
The street is truly a school. The street was my school.
Shaima’a that works with the scale and studies at the same time,
with seriousness and energy.
Every person coming and going in the street is an example of a true lesson in passion.
Passion that, without it, everything we do wouldn’t have a soul, any splendor, wouldn’t have a meaning.
In the end, remember, and I turn to quoting [Mahmoud] Darwish,
“On this earth, there is that which deserves living for.” And on our streets, there is that which deserves being inspired by.
Thank you.