Camels at dawn
It’s a mild 40 degrees Celsius as the golden orb casts its first rays over the snaking dunes of the Arabian Desert. The shadows begin to recede as the fiery rays flick over crimson sand. On the horizon, against a lightening sky, is the herd -each animal plodding rhythmically through the powdery sand. For now, the sand is still relatively cool. This will change quickly as the sun’s flames continue to lick at the sands relentlessly. A maximum temperature of well above 50 degrees Celsius is not at all unusual in these parts. This herd of strangely elegant morning walkers is what locals often refer to as “ships of the desert.” As westerners, we will tend to refer to them first as camels.
Ships of the Desert
This is a series of cyanotype prints made over the period of about a year. The photographs were taken on film with 2 notable exceptions: The opening image camels at dawn was taken on my Canon 1Ds Mkii and Bad Hair Day was taken on my Nikon D2H.
Bad hair day
I had been out in the red sands near Al Ain in the UAE in the Jeep when I chanced upon this motley crew of camels. I hadn’t planned to take any film shots on that day as I was showing a visitor to the country some of the local sights. The only equipment with me was my battered old D2H with an even more ancient Nikkor 100mm f2.8 E-series lens. As we passed a farm, a small group of about 5 camels peered over the fence to view these strange creatures in a noisy green 4 wheeled contraption. I stopped for my passenger to get some cell phone pics and picked up my faithful old Nikon to take some snaps of my own. Whilst I don’t normally like to use digital for my fine art work, I never did get another image that captured this particular side of these quirky creatures. Originally titled “WTF are you looking at?” I changed the title to “Bad Hair Day” before the exhibition as Dubai, despite its bling and party reputation, is still conservative. My feeling is that the original title still works best…
Camel and calf
“Many Englishmen have written about camels. When I open a book and see the familiar disparagement, the well-worn humour, I realize that the author's knowledge of them is slight, that he has never lived among the Bedu, who know the camel's worth: 'Ata Allah', or 'God's gift', they call her, and it is her patience that wins the Arab's heart. I have never seen a Bedu strike or ill-treat a camel. Always the camel's needs come first. It is not only that the Bedu's existence depends upon the welfare of his animals, but that he has a real affection for them.”
― Wilfred Thesiger
Nomads
This photograph was taken as a pure experiment and was my first attempt at cross processing slide film (colour positive) in black and white chemistry. Whilst the resultant negative was way too dense for successful darkroom printing, it scanned well and the resultant inter-negative worked perfectly for this contrasty cyanotype.
An interesting note here too is that the original 35mm negative was too dense for a traditional film scanner to penetrate. My “scanner” was a home-made light box that used a speedlight to light “through” the film so that I could photograph the negative using a DSLR with a macro lens.
Morning training run
Another cross-processed film shot, this was taken early one morning near the Dubai Camel Race track. The old sport of camel racing has evolved in the Middle East as technology has been introduced in seemingly every aspect of life in the sand. Real jockeys are now seldom used for actual races. The camels are spurred on to the end of the long track by remote controlled figurines brandishing a short whip. Obviously, with the long distance covered in a camel race, keeping sight of the creature in order to control the “jockey” could be somewhat of a challenge. This is solved by the “electronic puppeteer” being driven alongside the rack in any available 4 wheel drive vehicle in order to retain visual contact with his charge. The driving is almost as entertaining as the race itself with a vehicle for each camel…
In the wild
Travelling into the deep desert, far away from the main roads is a special experience. This is where you will find camels wandering in small groups. Whether they are truly “wild” is a question that remains unanswered to me. This pair was wandering in the desert near Nahel, Abu Dhabi Emirate. As I approached on foot, the youngster in front let me know with the deep growling-bellow-whine-grunt that only a camel can make that I was close enough. An angry camel is not a creature to be trifled with, particularly in the deep desert and without the protection of a vehicle, so I acquiesced, politely took the shot and let the couple meander away. What is special about this shot is that it was taken on a pretty banged up Zorki C camera that I picked up at the Vernissage Market in Yerevan, Armenia a few years ago. It was the first roll from that camera that actually went through all 15 hand rolled exposures without jamming. Despite the slight fogging on the left of this shot, it is one of my favourites in this series.
The inquisitive youngster
Sometimes, a photographer is in the happy position of being on the receiving end of the “this-has-been-sitting-in-the-cupboard-gathering-dust-and-I-don’t-know-if-it-still-works-maybe-you-can-do-something-with-it” statement. My possession of a Kodak Brownie was the result of one of these happy moments. My 1908 Brownie No.2 was gifted to me by a friendly old lady that used to pop into my photolab every now and then. She never spent a single unit of currency in my shop but her late husband had enjoyed taking pictures and she had found someone who didn’t mind listening to her stories of her younger days. One day she walked into the shop with a package containing the Brownie and said the phrase that as photographers we love to hear. The story continues from there and perhaps, one day I will share more of it with you but…. The Inquisitive Youngster is one of the many photographs that I have made on this camera. Printed using the cyanotype process which predates the camera by more than half a century and with the subject of a young camel whose heritage and cultural connection to these desert sands is nothing short of remarkable, this is a fitting end to this series. I hope that you enjoyed it.
I hope that you are enjoying this online exhibition. If you have only started following recently, be sure to check out parts 1 and 2 of the exhibition too. Thanks for stopping by J