With a direct compassionate gaze, without pathos, the photographer Raed Bawayah touches his subjects on a level deep within themselves, reflecting something of the hidden truths of their identities and telling their stories. The simple compositions and four-square format of his photographs create a kind of “windows” into the soul or, as Bawayah says: “A good portrait testifies to the moment of a meeting between two souls: the photographer and the subject.”

Bawayah was born in 1971 in Qatanna, a village near Jerusalem. His childhood and youth were occupied with surviving, and he worked in a range of different jobs, including shepherd, construction worker in Israeli settlements, and market trader in the Old City, where he was exposed to the photographic medium. At the beginning of the 21st century he studied at the Musrara photography school in Jerusalem. After completing his studies he received a residency and production grant at the artists’ residency centre “La Cité” in Paris, where he has been based since 2006, leaving the city for photography expeditions. At the heart of his work stand the residents of his birthplace, Qatanna in the Palestinian Authority, which he came back and visits from time to time, but the span of his work is much broader, including photographs from different locations in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia.

Guy Raz