Omar Khadr disrespecting a normal reality

“Suddenly, lately, very lately, I realized that I love yellow”.

Omar Khadr, a 19-year-old Egyptian photographer, writer, law student at Alexandria University and a jazz enthusiast.

Editor’s Note: It seemed to me (going through his facebook albums) that he’s obsessed with yellow. When I asked him, he said: “it’s a bit confusing. Yellow is associated with depression and sickness, but it could also be vulgar should you, for example, paint your wall yellow. I find it very expressive of any state. Most of the photos I use yellow filters on have different subject matters; I see yellow in everything: in the face of a laughing little girl or a bustling cityscape. Some find this annoying, while others see it as an Omar Khadr trademark. But in recent photos I’ve distanced myself a little from yellow to avoid being limited by a certain approach and vision that will eventually grow tedious to people.”

Evidently, Omar has no respect for “normal”. None of his photographs pretend to depict “real” colors of “real” life in Alexandria or Cairo. Long time, in a yellow history (1st photo) and old yellow sculpture (10th) have the same subject of Orientalist paintings and photographs; yet, while Orientalist art claims to recreate an exotic reality in paintings and photographs, Omar just puts them through a yellow filter that strips them of every “realistic” quality. There’s nothing fascinating or exotic about an alley in Cairo, it’s as vulgar as any other alley on any given day.

Some photographs were shot in Alexandria, others in Cairo.

Omar Khadr on Flickr.

Omar Khadr, by Youssif Mohi.