My summer vacation was spoken for before it could even start.
Aimed at journalists working in several regions in Europe, including Belgium, it was an ideal funding call that emphasised innovation and local reporting.
As a Belgian media outlet that publishes a mix of short and long-form politics and culture journalism, I jumped at the chance. I proposed doing a book of my Brussels photography.
Arriving in the Belgian capital in 2014, hired as the English language news editor of an EU news service, I found myself overwhelmed by the city’s complexity.
Renting apartments in immigrant neighbourhoods, commuting to an office next to the European Commission, I wanted to index everything.
The only way I could make sense of it was to photograph my way through it all.
My late father, who had lived in Brussels for a decade before I was born, working for the Israeli government, said, “Buy a Leica and get it all down.”
While affording such a camera was beyond my means, I invested in the street photography tool of our era, the far less expensive Ricoh GR. I carried it in my pocket wherever I went.
Though I am no longer new to Brussels, and am less and less surprised by what I see, I find myself shooting as much as I did when I first arrived.
Whether it’s a Gaza protest at the European Commission or an immigrant market on Rue de Brabant, I always throw myself into the city to see what I can find.
Commuting from Torino helps keep everything fresh, and my senses piqued. I plan my visits more carefully now, albeit within reason. Discovery remains key.
This newsletter is named after the book. Brussels is a Country: The Street View is the full title. If we receive the funding we’re hoping for, we’ll produce eBook and print-on-demand editions.
We hope to solicit Arabic, Dutch and French translation licenses, for obvious reasons, as well. This isn’t just a commercial endeavour. It’s a political one, too.
The photos in this edition of Aperture Priorities are a distillation of the 250-page collection.
