Tag Archives: Middle East

Arabia, Beauty in Nature, Blue, Central Arabia, Clouds, Landscape, Middle East, Najd, Nejd, Saudi Arabia, Sunrise, ancient land, desert, escarpment, highland region, iris in April, peaceful, plateau, solitary

Sunrise in the Najd

Sunrise in the Najd, or “highland,” the central region of the Arabian Peninsula. 

The dromedary camel walks moving both legs on one side then the other while its body rolls side to side.  This seesaw movement can cause a storage bag to rub against the camels body developing  a hole.  As best I can tell this is what most likely took place on one of the caravans crossing the Arabian desert.

Numerous caravan routes criss crossed Arabia.  This image is of one traversing the  Najd in central Saudi Arabia.  Along this ancient trade route a hole wore into a bag carrying iris bulbs.  The seesaw movement of the camel deposited bulbs along the desert floor.  Wind blew sand over the bulbs and they lay dormant until in the spring the winter rains enable the iris to bloom.

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Art, Culture, Design, Interior Design, Nature, Recent Personal Images, Saudi Arabia, Travel

Gift of the Caravans

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Art, Culture, Saudi Arabia, Travel

Color Beyond Description

Mada'in Saleh, the historical site of a Nabataen trading center, northern Saudi Arabia

Mada’in Saleh, the historical site of a Nabatean trading center, northern Saudi Arabia

Photography has reached a strange place when I have to explain that “yes, that was the true color” and NO I did not create this in Photoshop, yikes!

The place I made this picture is Mada’in Saleh the historical site of a Nabatean trading center in north-west Saudi Arabia.  These folks were part of a group whose capital was Petra in modern-day Jordan.  It is also the place the Ottomans had a railroad depot which T.E. Lawrence destroyed.  It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I made this image as part of a  feature story of archeology  for Smithsonian magazine. There are two reasons the color is other worldly.  The first is the light in Arabia gets this way sometimes, that’s all I know.  The second reason is I used a rare film Kodachrome Photomicrography which had insane saturation and detail.  The ASA is 16.  I did not add any color, the film simply  recorded everything that was there.

To see more images from this story visit Eastep Image Archive @ www.EastepPhotography.com 

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Nomads,Nomadic,Bedouin,Bedu,Saudi Arabia,Al Murrah,Portrait, people,

Murie bin Mohammed Al Murrah brought us a bag of truffles from the Empty Quarter. Dahana Sands, Saudi Arabia.

The Bedouin of Saudi Arabia are one of the world’s most unique nomadic people.  They survive in the Arabian deserts under some of the harshest conditions in nature.

The Al Murrah Bedouin tribe attracted my attention because they have lived as nomads in Arabia with an unbroken bloodline for 5,000 years +.  I figured such unique people would have important insights into human relationships.  I was right.

Leading Saudi families in government, business, judicial and academic communities have sent their young children to live among the Bedouin for similar reasons.  King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Sa’ud, the monarch who unified the Arabian tribes and created the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, spent time with the Al-Murrah in the southern deserts of Saudi Arabia.

When I began my documentary photography career I decided to study the Bedouin in Arabia, specifically the Al Murrah tribe.  This modest collection of images is from a library of over 25,000 images.  They are the subject of the book BEDOUIN which won the Pershke Price “Best Book” award and Gold Prize for the “Best of All Things in Print”.

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Culture, People who have influenced me, Portraits, Saudi Arabia, Travel

BEDOUIN of Saudi Arabia

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