Judges
Courtesy of
Mouneb Taim
BaseCamp Photojournalist of the Year
Mouneb Taim
University of The People
University in Pasadena, California
United States
Highly Commended
Mouneb Taim, born 2001, is a photojournalist, and Student at the University of The People who covers news stories with a focus on social issues.
He works as a freelance photographer for international agencies. He began his career in photojournalism as a photographer and freelance reporter in 2013, when he was a young child after the murder of his journalist brother.
He covered life under siege in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Idlib and the countryside of Aleppo until early 2021, and was arrested by Islamic organizations in his city for being gay. He also documented the massacres and destruction throughout the regions of Syria during the ten years he lived under siege in his native Syria. He received a number of international awards.
War Notes
SYRIA-Damascus-Douma-Idlib-Aleppo
2019-2021
Life in war has a different meaning - everything that is normal disappears. The daily routine is certainly not normal, even if it seems normal to people who live in their respective places.
Bombs fall, people die and buildings are destroyed every day. The reality of war cannot be denied, and yet there are people who are persistently trying to confront the bitterness of this terrible war: with their determination, their hope, their desire to live. This project illustrates the efforts of the civilian population to make the war in the occupied territories of Eastern Ghouta of Syria forgotten after the place was besieged for more than nine years by the armed forces of the Syrian government. The occupation ended when the Syrian regime, with the support of Russian forces, forcibly resettled residents after months of bombing the area. Thousands were killed, and the area was completely destroyed.