In | Humanity
The Photographs of Moises Saman
The power of photography lies in its ability to connect the viewer to human experience and emotion regardless of distance—whether of geography, class, race, circumstances, or gender. In this way, photography is truly a universal language.
The dangerous nature of photography lies in our inherent biases. Knowingly, or unknowingly, we read images through the lenses of our cultural perspectives. And yet, photographs also have the potential to catapult us out of our visual status quo, to literally, make us see (and feel) differently.
As naturally curious creatures we feel an insatiable craving to make sense of and find personal meaning in the frame of an image and its unknown actors. Whether as windows or mirrors, photographs can estrange us from what is familiar and comfortable or… offer a glimpse of the familiar in circumstances that may initially read as foreign, tumultuous and, even, terrifying. Danger lies in the objectification of suffering, and yet these photos' achievement is not simply in their depiction of human upheaval, but in their capacity to convey human resilience alongside desperation, tragedy alongside dignity—and, ultimately, our universal human connection—through this medium of beauty, light, composition, and form.
Dan Duarte
Belmont Hill Chair of Visual Arts
Moises Saman
Belmont Hill School Kageyama-Hunt Global Speaker
February 14, 2025
The Kageyama-Hunt Lecture Series, established in 2012 by Belmont Hill parents Bill and Yuko Hunt, brings speakers to campus who model global citizenship and can inspire generations of Belmont Hill boys to embrace the challenges and opportunities of an interconnected world.
Click here to learn more about his visit.
About Moises Saman
A Peruvian-born photographer currently based in Jordan, Moises Saman studied communications and sociology at California State University, where he studied photography and was deeply influenced by the photojournalism covering the 1990s wars in the Balkans. After interning at several small and medium-size newspapers, Mr. Saman joined Newsday in 2000 as a staff photographer. During his seven years at Newsday, he covered city crime as well as the fallout of the 9/11 attacks, spending most of his time traveling between Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries. After Newsday, Mr. Saman turned to freelance photography, becoming a regular contributor to The New York Times, Human Rights Watch, Newsweek, and TIME Magazine, among other international publications. In 2010, he was invited to join Magnum Photos as a Nominee and became a full member in 2014. In 2015, he was a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography recipient for his work on the Arab Spring, culminating in the publication of "Discordia," a multi-layered visual representation of the Arab Spring. Mr. Saman was a 2022-23 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and in 2023 published his second monograph, "Glad Tidings of Benevolence," a reflection on his 20 years working in Iraq. In August 2024 the New York Times published an interactive photo essay featuring Mr. Saman's photos of the Sudanese war, taken while embedded with a rebel group fighting for democracy.