Oded Balilty: The Stone Throwers of Palestine

Photo © Oded Balilty-Courtesy TIME Lightbox

“On the weekend, they are in those protests, but other than that, they are totally normal people..."

"But other than that...? Is the implication in this qualifiying sentence that these Palestinians are not normal because they protest against the Israeli illegal occupation? I hope not.

But let's stray from politics for a while, and just focus on Oded Balilty's excellent photographs of seven Palestinian protestors as featured by TIME Lightbox a couple of weeks ago.

I featured Balilty's work on other occasions on this blog, and admire his work, especially his photographs of Jewish ultra orthodox communities, traditional Hasidic Jewish weddings, and preparations for Passover.  He is based in Tel Aviv as an Associated Press photographer and frequently photographs the ongoing "friction" between Israelis and Palestinians.
For these posed portraits, Balilty enlisted the help of his colleague, Nasser Shiyoukhi, the AP’s Palestinian photographer from the West Bank.

Perhaps it would've been even better had both Balilty and Shiyoukhi collaborated on this project...we may have seen a difference perspective in the setting up of the photographs.