If you can imagine the world covered in sandpaper – slightly abrasive but ensuring that everything else is beautifully smooth -then this is close to what it is like living in Egypt! In fact, on second thoughts, it makes me wonder why Egypt’s main export is cotton and not sandpaper!

When you fly into Cairo you notice how everything – especially the buildings – are sand colored. From the air it makes it look like someone has taken the emboss tool in Photoshop and gone mad. I suppose the pervasiveness of the sand is not that surprising really when you consider that most of modern day Cairo has been built on reclaimed land from the desert, and it seems that the desert does not want to give up without a fight.

So I was genuinely taken back by the riot of color that I found in a Nubian village today, not far from Aswan. It seemed like the architects of Jodphur – the “blue city” in India – had conspired with the architects of Burano – an island in the Venetian Archipelago famous for its brightly colored houses – and gone mad with Indigo and ochre pigment. All of these images are very close to or are the original color saturation – although admittedly it helped creating a dedicated X-rite ColorPassport profile for this day (more on that in a future blog).

This village – that seemed to stretch for miles so was probably really a town – was just an explosion of brightly painted walls, doors and window frames. You would turn a corner and see a vibrant blue wall with white shuttered windows, or walk down an alleyway and be greeted by a green and orange door, partnered with a red-striped wall. For a town who nearest neighbor some several hundred kilometers to the west is Libya and that is fully exposed on two sides to the dust, heat and sand of the western desert, it seemed extraordinary that such color persisted and was obviously encouraged.

Despite the stultifying 52 degrees C/ 125 degrees F at 6 o’clock in the evening, we wandered the village taking some wonderful images of both the colors and the people. We were welcomed, talked to, joked with and followed by scores of children wherever we went – right up to when Ibrahim , our guide, politely told them to go home.

Matt Brandon – whom I was exploring the village with – even managed to convince a man with a hosepipe to spray him to cool him down. In fact I think Matt had quite a good afternoon all round. At times he was like a little boy in a sweet shop with every corner boasting another “wallpaper” photo opportunity. In fact so much so that I suspect you may be seeing a few Nubian walls, door and images from Matt over the next month or so as he shares some of these with you. You can see some of his images in his latest post. I’ve tried very hard not to post too many similar images, especially as all of his are irritatingly better than mine!! It was a wonderful way to end four hard days of visiting villages, mosques, restaurants, hotels, boats and other locations as we scouted the possibility of a Nile Photo Workshop.

Over those days, our confidence in the feasibility of the workshop increased after what was a slightly shaky start, and Ibrahim really warmed to the challenge of doing something a little different and unstructured. As he grew to understand what it was that we were after, so the places we visited seemed to get better and better. He even adapted his style to the different way that Matt and I shot a particular opportunity and quickly learned when to help us or when to leave us alone. I know we will be looking to see more of Ibrahim in the future!

I think Matt and I were increasingly impressed with what Upper Egypt, the Nile and in particular Nubia, had to offer. The combination of rich clutrual diversity, wonderful temples and Luxurious sailing boats seem to me to be the perfect ingredients in which to practice the craft and develop the vision. As I pen this on the short internal flight home to Cairo, I am looking forward to processing the remaining images, working out the fine details and costs of the workshop and sharing all of this with you formally in the next 7-10 days.

   

Only two hours from Cairo by road, Fayoum is renowned for its year-round warm climate, numerous water wheels (introduced by the Ptolemies in the 3rd century) and lush agricultural land. Cotton, clover, tomatoes, medicinal plants and fruit are all grown here.

The main purpose of the trip had been to shoot the sunrise at Egypt’s only waterfalls, about 40 kms west of Fayoum. My Egyptian friends had been encouraging me for months to go to see these “spectacular” phenomenon and they can be a persuasive lot.  The light, they told me would be magical – and a fair recompense for the 3.30am start.

I guess I should have listened to my inner alarm bells. As you will see from the images the waterfalls are really more of a water tumble – in total probably only about a 20 foot drop, hidden from the dawn by the steep walls of the small river.

The light was flat and the location a challenge to find a good angle form which to shoot.  This disappointment was compounded by getting there about 30 minutes late despite having driven like Jensen Button in the pitch dark because one of them was nearly an hour late! One of the delights about Egypt is that a national characteristic seems to be a wanton lack of the “time and space” planning gene. Now for someone like me who spent 13 years in the Army, this is the short-cut to high blood pressure, a short fuse and broken friendships.

That said we got some fun images of the lake and the old wooden fishing vessels, and then headed west about 20 minutes into the desert to photograph some wonderful landscape shots for an hour or so.

We then drove to the pottery village of Nazla which is extraordinary – sat deep in a natural depression, with “modern”, and I use the word loosely here, villages all the way around the lip. It is a place that time has passed by.

A small collection of potters whose straw huts and method of making hand made pots and urns are unchanged for thousands of years, work tirelessly at their craft. It felt like stepping onto a film set, and if Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor had walked around the corner  dressed as Anthony and Cleopatra I probably wouldn’t have been at all surprised – other than the fact that Richard Burton is dead and Elizabeth Taylor hardly moves at all these days that is!

The potters were happy for us to take pictures, and would even re-work a gourd or a pot whilst we sought different angles or different light. It was however challenging shooting. Very confined spaces, dark interiors, with harsh exterior light, and without a flash, it was difficult to get a good balanced exposure. Stupidly I had left my speedlite at the top of the hill, in the car, as I was trying to carry as little as possible whilst I wandered around the village.

It was a real lesson in having to find ways around the exposure challenges, including the use of impromptu reflectors and diffusers made from old sheets or a piece of old white wood. I played around too with handholding lowers shutter speeds on a wide angle lens, using a new more composed grip. I got some pleasing results too.

As we headed home we saw these men fanning out masses of orange flowers in a small yard to be dried by the sun. We drove down the short track, and in true Egyptian style, they stopped their work and welcomed us with open arms. The light was fading fast, but they laughed, joked, threw flowers at each other as we snapped away. Everything that we suggested they do, they seized upon as an opportunity for laughter. When we bought out our pogo printer they were mesmerized, and of course another round of posing and tomfoolery was initiated. I am constantly heartened by the warmth and good nature of the Egyptians. Their openness, their interest in anything non-Egyptian and their delight at the simplest of gifts – a small pogo print for example – never ceases to warm the heart and leave you feeling upbeat at the end of a tiring day.

We left them promising to return. In fact i am keen to go back and spend the day there soon as I think they will make an interesting photo essay subject.

What had started as a frustrating day of missed opportunity, had become rich with hospitality and opportunity after opportunity.  Fayoum is a photographers paradise, and high on my list for inclusion in a workshop that we are planning for late 2010/early 2011, to be led  - we hope – by a world renown travel photographer. More of that in due course. You can see the other images – especially the landscape and the pottery village in the gallery.