Birth: NULL/NULL/1854 Death:NULL/NULL/1957
Born in Bhamboum village, Lebanon, ca. in 1984, to a Christian Protestant family; moved with his family in the early 1860s to Jerusalem after his father’s death; attended school in Jerusalem then received photographic training in the Garabed Krikorian Studio in Jaffa Rd., Jerusalem; established his own studio in 1890, focusing on the coverage of daily life and events; in 1914, he left for Basil, Switzerland, to learn about the latest techniques and developments in photography; returned to Jerusalem and worked as a photographer until 1948; many of his pictures covered political events, archeological excavations, and rural life; sold photographic supplies; made postcards for tourists and dressed clients in all sorts of traditional folklore costume and props; during the 1948 Nakba events, he briefly moved first to Hebron, then to Bhamboum, and eventually returned to Jerusalem, where he was invited to live within the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate compound (until his death); died in 1957 in Jerusalem; his archive was donated to the IPS, which published some of his photographs in its publication, Before Their Diaspora (1984).
