جيزيلا هوبشلی مصورة من المانيا تعشق البقاع اللبناني .. مجلة فن التصوير اللبنانية _ع٢٠

Gisela Hobschli is a photographer from Germany who loves the Lebanese Bekaa

In an interview with the German photographer Gisela Hubchli. Residing in Lebanon, it was very easy to obtain an objective view of the failure of our photographers to cover the beauty of their country with photographs.
We also felt the extent of others' love for this homeland, which we have worked and are working to distort

Gisela Hibehle
The German woman adored Lebanon and its people, and derived from this land the feeling and passion despite everything that went through it, so she embodied her feelings towards this country through photographic paintings full of sense and giving, and within an ordinary photographic and technical style.
Her pictures were more than ordinary, because she moved away from fabricating and pretending. Her scenes are coherent at a time when everyone is living in a state of disintegration, and her vision is clear to the limits of reading the scene and showing its wonderful lines.
Gisela lived our tragedies and painted them on expressive portraits. Then she tells the story and suffering of a people and reflects the tragedies of a homeland perfectly and with the utmost simplicity. It is simplicity mixed with passion and love for this country.

the White and the black

For the impression of the strongest word of truth, it is said that this German photographer produced what many of our photographers failed to achieve. Unfortunately, Gisela Hoechli remained behind the lights, far from being honored or even merely praised for her photographic work in Lebanon.
Gisela is a photographer who loves to work in black and white and considers it the strongest method of expression for nature pictures or facial pictures, where expression blends well with the power of feeling.
With regard to working with color photography, Gisela admits that colors give the image beauty and distinction, but the black and white image remains with a deeper flavor, the impression that suggests more strength and higher capabilities for the photographer. Perhaps the subjects are the same, and perhaps the subjects that she followed in Lebanon devoted this love to black and white in her photos.

Before talking about her work in Beirut, we must first go back to the reason for her presence here, Lebanon in general, and when it started.
- From southern Germany to the Lebanese Bekaa



Gisela was living in her city, Sings, in the south of West Germany until before 1978, until she read an advertisement for the German School in Beirut asking for a German school for children, and because she specialized in this field, she carried her belongings and came to Lebanon, this country that she rushed to with all curiosity, considering it home. the miracle . Gisela herself continues:

0 I received my job and I am still a German teacher, and I used to carry my camera from time to time and record shots and Lebanese scenes, because I am mainly an amateur of photography, and I studied for three years in a photography institute in Germany, and I worked in the field of fashion photography in Munich, I returned after that and studied children’s education, but Photography is my favorite hobby. And in Lebanon - continues Gisela, I was attracted by the beautiful scenes and their diversity, from mountains, plains and rivers, so I used to divert my free time to wandering in these areas and photographing them, especially the Bekaa region and the Chouf region. And if the field was allowed, I would have wandered all over Lebanon and could win many paintings and photographic shots.

- Exhibitions between Beirut, Tripoli and Germany.

As a result of her wanderings, Gisela obtained eighty color and black and white photographs representing customs
The ancient traditions and monuments of Lebanon, such as antiquities, houses, and so on. These works were presented in the summer of 1983 in Germany, at the request of a group of German friends who have been striving for six years to provide aid and support to the children of Lebanon and relieve them, in addition to teaching them the German language. They receive the majority of children who fled with their families. To Germany as a result of the Lebanese war.
As for the goal of the exhibition, Gisela says - the goal was to show the German people the beauty of Lebanon by nature and its people, and to present them with a true picture, instead of the distorted pictures that were painted for the Lebanese in the world...
The Lebanese people are good people. It is necessary to confirm this fact to people.

At the level of exhibitions as well. Gisela held an exhibition in Beirut - the Goethe Institute - and in Tripoli
It included 54 black and white photographs, and it was an exhibition that was limited to portrait works only to convey the true and human expression of people.

Politics, art and nature stars
And about photographing the faces of ordinary people, Gisela says: - The people here only see pictures of the faces of ministers, deputies, artists, and other stars of politics and art. Especially since I am a foreigner and a woman at the same time, and with the pictures of faces, I confirm here that I feel attached to the Lebanese environment, and I try to reflect it through these pictures so that it is not understood in this field that

Gisela prefers portraiture in photography over other fields. She says:
- I dealt with nature and faces, and if it was left to me, I would prefer photographing nature, provided that it was left to freedom of movement and photography without objection. And you can publish many books about her beauty, instead of books on war. The Bekaa region, with its distinctive red land, with greenery and a mixture of colors between the sky and the mountain peaks. These things are full of many colors for beautiful and important pictures, and these colors are not available anywhere.

And Gisela turns to other photographers more broadly to say
There are good photographers. I like Manouk from Lebanon, and I think he is one of the best photographers in the region. He has a sense of the scene with a power of expression. From the world, I like Ansel Adams, who has a wide imagination and the ability to translate his feelings... He is the best nature photographer in the world.
I also like the photographer of Stern magazine, the German Moses.
An illustrated book about the Bekaa
About the future, Gisela Huechli says:
- I will prepare an illustrated book about the Bekaa, the Chouf and the mountains. In view of what these areas contain of scenes that none of the photographers have recorded so far.. If I have not seen a single illustrated book in this direction. Frankly, I do not aim for any commercial return from behind this book. Rather, I will devote a quarter of it to the German women who lost their Lebanese husbands in this war.

Saleh Al-Rifai