PORTRAITS OF ARABIA

17 Jan PORTRAITS OF ARABIA

It’s the first time I post portraits on the blog.

I’ve always felt uncomfortable taking pictures of people, feeling as I was stealing something from them.

But I do like portraits a lot, they tell the true story of a place with the eyes and the smiles of the persons portrayed.

So in my last trip to UAE and Oman I tried to capture some of these smiles, and I’m very happy I’ve done it: I could soak deeper in the place’s culture, I could talk to the people and learn more about them and their traditions, and I learnt that behind every portrait there’s a story.

Some advices to take travel portraits:

• always ask before taking a picture: some people will not want to be photographed, and that’s something that must be respected. A lot of them do it for religious reasons
• learn some basic words in the local language, at least the local greeting and “thank you”
• always show respect and modesty
• exchange some words first. A good idea is to ask questions about what they are doing or buy their products
• bring a portrait lens. All the pictures I posted here are shot with a 50mm lens with an aperture of f/1,8.

And here they are, the real soul of UAE and Oman, with their stories:

at the fish and vegetable market in Fujairah, UAE.

I was walking at the market and got caught by the color of the beard of this man, so I asked him if I could take a picture.

I didn’t ask the reason of the color of the beard, I though it was a bit rude, but as they explained me later, the color comes from the hennè, used for aesthetic reasons.

on the streets in Khor Fakkan, UAE.

Khor Fakkan is part of the Sharjah Emirate, one of the less rich ones, but the cultural heart of the Emirates. Sharjah is very attached to its traditions, alcohol tolerance is set by law at 0%, and so is the criminality rate in the Emirate.

again at the fish and vegetable market in Fujairah.

I found the way these two men posed for a picture so incredibly sweet.

at the Nakhal fort in Oman.

This man is actually an actor, and his job is to stay at the fort dressed in traditional clothes to be photographed by tourists. His smile though touched me for its incredible kindness.

This is one of my favorite pictures.

I was visiting the souk in Muscat, when I decided to leave it to take a walk alone on the outside Corniche.

On the street I noticed a group of people mingling in front of a chai, so I decided to ask if I could take a picture of them. All the men were happy to pose, and insisted to be photographed with their friends in groups of two or three. After a few pictures we started chatting and I was handed a chai too. They were a group of cab drivers and all of them wanted to give me their business card and told me to call them next time I was in the city.

At the end this old man joined the group for the afternoon chai. He is a retired cab driver, and when he arrived they immediately said to him to pose for a picture. He had no idea of what was going on and who I was, but he did as his friends told him, before joining them for a chat and a chai.

This is Adel, at the Nakhal fort in Oman.

Oman people don’t dress like the Emirati ones: while the ankle-length white shirt remains, the hat changes. In the UAE people wear the ghutrah, the traditional chequered headscarf, together with the aghal, the black band that it’s said to be used once to tie the camels.

In Oman instead people wear the traditional embroidered hat you can see on the old man in the previous picture, or if the person is more important or in special occasion they wear a precious turban.

This is Fatima, and I met her in a tourist village while she was crafting some souvenirs.

Fatima is one of the few women I could portray. Women can be seen less often in the street than men, and they are also more discreet and shy.

I asked why there are less women around than men, and I was told that while men like to sit in the street to chat and sip their chai, women prefer to stay at home or go to the mall.

Fatima is an islamic woman, and dress how her religion and culture instruct. To us this dress might look strange and oppressive, but as I learnt getting to know better this culture women and men doesn’t dress very differently: both sex have ankle-lenght clothes that cover the entire body, and something that covers the hair too.

Women, especially if they are young, can also be seen wearing very heavy make up, colorful nails and gaudy and trendy accessories, often very expensive.

This mask that Fatima wears in this picture is a mask that married women can wear. She wears it gladly as part of her culture, as her friends do, a bit like we wear wedding rings.

In the picture you can’t see it, but behind the mask there’s a big and beautiful smile.