much more to us

2021 - ongoing

The last four years have been my attempt to capture the nuance of the Jordanian people. I’ve travelled across the country many times during this period, becoming a wandering traveler. My only aim was to encounter people along the journey, camera in hand, and to meet them honestly, as I found them.

Being a man myself, I naturally encountered many men on this journey. Often, they’d invite me in—for tea, coffee, lunch, dinner, or simply to sit and spend time together in good company. These were never rushed moments. They were generous, human exchanges—filled with good-hearted energy.

What has emerged from this ongoing journey is a deeper appreciation for Jordan—its people, its landscapes, its animals, its plants, and everything that ties them together.

Alongside that, a growing collection of photographs of men began to form. Each image reveals something about the variety of lives and environments that shape the Jordanian experience. Even in a country as small as Jordan, the distance between one life and another can feel like a world apart.

As a man in my early thirties, a Palestinian-Jordanian, and someone who lived for years in the United States, what I see in these photographs is also a personal exploration: of manhood, of place, of what it means to belong to a land—and the quiet responsibilities that come with that. What I see, more than anything, is the quiet magic of people living in wildly different contexts, yet all deeply connected to the land in their own way.

I want to share these photos with everyone: the people of Amman’s stone neighborhoods, the farmers of the north, the Bedouins of the east and the south. I want them to see what is happening in their own country. The man who irons ties downtown may never meet the boy selling cotton candy in the middle of the forest. The camel herder in the north likely won’t cross paths with the students waiting for a bus in Al Hasa. These are all Jordanians—but their lives, their textures, couldn’t be more different.

I want to share this with the Arab world, too. To show that this small country contains far more than can be absorbed in a quick visit to the Dead Sea and Petra. And finally, I want to share it with the West—the place where I once lived and where I know how one-dimensional the image of Arabs can often be. I want to show that we are far more than what’s shown through the narrow, distorted lens of a screen.