Back in 1997, while I was still in college, I took a class on the history of the Palestinians and I was part of a subset of the class that went on a 2 week study tour to the Palestinian territories in Israel. Most of us stayed near Jerusalem and during our stay, we traveled to Ramallah, Bethlehem, the Gaza strip, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. Organized by student Allison Fine, the trip included private meetings between our group and key Palestinian leaders and intellectuals like Sari Nuseibeh and Haider Abdul Shafi.
I shot about 30 rolls of 36-exposure black and white film on the trip, probably the most significant photography project that I have ever undertaken. I got back to school and processed all of the film myself and put together quite an exhibit of phtoographs. I’ve always meant to put the photographs online because I’m really proud of the photographs I took on that trip but never got around to it until now. I hope to put up more of my photographs here along with captions and more information, but for now, I’ve uploaded a selection of photographs from the Palestinian Study Tour. All of the B&W’s were taken by me. Color photographs were taken by Adam Reiser. Adam, where are you these days?