Anonymous. Studio Shehrazade, Saida, Lebanon, late 1960s. Standard profile portrait, mandatory for candidates to military service. Hashem el Madani 2007

Curator: This photograph, taken in the late 1960s at Studio Shehrazade in Saida, Lebanon, and now part of the Tate collection, depicts a young man in profile. Akram Zaatari presents it as a standard portrait, mandatory for military service candidates. Editor: There's a kind of melancholic stillness to it, isn't there? That side profile, the way the light catches his jaw... it feels like a captured moment before something inevitable. Curator: The production context is key. Studio Shehrazade, like many others, provided a service—documenting citizens for state bureaucracy. This image isn't about individual artistry but the apparatus of state control. Editor: But the anonymous young man transcends that. I mean, look at the texture of his hair, the soft curve of his neck. It makes you wonder about his dreams, fears, all those unseen things before he entered the military. Curator: Precisely! The materiality of the photographic print itself, aged and slightly faded, speaks to the passage of time and the shift in social dynamics. Editor: It is funny to see these, I always find myself projecting narratives onto these kinds of images, feeling a strange connection to someone I'll never know. Curator: It's a powerful reminder of how seemingly mundane objects can reveal complex social and personal narratives. Editor: Indeed, turning the anonymous into a face we might just recognise.