Barbershop

Project description

"Barbershop" is an ongoing project that started unexpectedly, without a previous plan and formed in time, during my various trips throughout the world. I took the first photos in Cojimar, Cuba in 2006, but my idea of seeking and documenting barbers has turned to life in 2008 in Sharjah where I have found a "barber boulevard". Wherever I went, I diligently followed this subject ever since. I even asked people and researched for as much as I could.

The barbershops mean much more than a place where people come to fix or trim their beards. It is a part of the community culture's quintessence; they say a lot about the people's lives: the nature of human spirit.

I specifically looked for small old barbershops - those you can find mostly in further and poorer countries. There is where I felt the community's pulse and I discover the true “spiritus loci”. I also looked for historical barbershops that were elegant and you can still find similar ones in Europe. The scent of these cosmopolitan barbershops transcends time and their ravishing atmosphere still holds the remains of the characters that have passed by there.

You will see images from barbershops from my travels: Cuba, Morocco, India, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Nepal, Greece, Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Jordan, Turkey, Mexico, Ireland, Sweden, Vietnam and Laos.

I never intend to end this project for as long as I will continue traveling.

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I feel like a little boy in a toy store when I’m sitting in front of a barber shop. I’ve been in many barbershops on many streets around the world and each time I had the same strange feeling of stepping into another dimension. It’s a kind of ritual.

Being a barber was never a second hand job. For hundreds of years, the barbers’ guild continues to remain in this world where the moustache or the beard are symbols of the masculine couture and fashion is one of the terms that point to virility and potency. It isn’t even a surprise since the hair on a man’s face has had and still has a special significance in the human ideal of beauty and this ideal belongs to both the aesthetic of a nation in a certain time as well as to a feeling of belonging to a religion, a cultural tradition or a social class.

The barbershop is a unique place for men to socialize. It’s a great place to hang out for a bit and find out what’s going on in the area. The barbershop is a masculine place. The barbershop is the man’s home away from home. Barbers have a sense of human solidarity that goes beyond daily matters and into the essence of life. Barbers are true artisans. Among family photos, diplomas, and all sorts of collections, the barber greets you with his scissors and combs ready, but if needed, he becomes a lawyer, an accountant or a personal advisor, and even a psychologist..

Any day is as good as any other to go to the barber. However, there are a few moments when everyone goes to the barber: before Christmas, Easter, Ramadan or Hanukah, before getting married, before graduation or even before burial.

A barber does not need too many special effects to set up his tiny universe. In Varanasi, on the bank of the holy Ganges River, a chair and a fabric canopy were everything a barber needed to create his magic place. In Katmandu I saw barbers fulfilling their “mission” in the little crossroad markets, between temples and stalls. Nor in Hanoi isn't too much place - along the walls at the base of bridges, ad hoc barbershop opens next to the mopeds parked nearby. In Morocco, near the cemetery from the Fez medina, I saw clients waiting in front of an improvised tent. In Portugal, the barbershop is where soccer fans gather. In Turkey or Palestine it’s a place where one can have a cup of tea and a relaxed chat with a perfect stranger. In Castellammare di Stabia - a small town on the Neapolitan coast, a nonagenarian that seemed to have come straight out of a classic movie suddenly restored my lust for life. On a side street in Stockholm I found "Barber & Books" an extraordinary combination of a classic barbershop and bookstore. In Dublin I visited "The Waldorf Barbers' a historical barbershop founded in 1929 and inherited from father to son.

Anywhere the roads have taken me, between the walls of Jerusalem or in the crowded markets of Bangkok, in small stalls or just at the edge of the road, the barbershop is there like a genuine establishment that is never missing and cannot be absent. Whether it is rich or poor, the man has had the same unquenchable need to be proud and groomed - this is part of human nature itself. Going to the barbershop is a ritual that fulfill billion people on the planet and the idea of cutting, clipping and trimming of hair or beard as adornment of own appearance over time is universal and transcends time.

Wherewer you are, the bell that rings when you enter the barbershop has the same universal sffect: you leave your worries and burdens at the doorstep and suddenly the wide-smiling man in the white qown becomes the best friend you've ever had. And then the ritual begins.