A Vanished World"Wilfred Thesiger's superb portraits of tribal peoples have earned him worldwide recognition as a photographer. Using a simple box camera which had belonged to his father, Thesiger began his photographic career during a short hunting trip in Ethiopia in 1930 and used the same camera to photograph hostile Danakil tribesmen when he returned three years later to explore the Awash river. Whilst in the Sudan, and now equipped with a Leica 35mm, Thesiger portrayed the Muslim tribes in Northern Darfur, pagan Nuer in the Western Nile swamps and Nuba wrestlers. Among Ethiopia's Danakil he had travelled as a European accompanied by servants, but here he lived increasingly on equal terms with his followers and his photography mirrors this changed attitude. The dramatic visual impact of Arabia's deserts fully awakened Thesiger's latent talent for portraiture and composition. During his five years in Arabia from 1945-50 he was able to depict his Bedu companions with a sensitivity and power only suggested by his pre-war photographs. Conceived in the harshest of settings, these Arabian pictures bear eloquent testimony to the inspirational effect the desert had upon this great traveller. In contrast, tranquil images of reeds, waterways and lagoons characterize Thesiger's matchless portraits of the Marsh Arabs of Iraq -- in which he captures a world which has now completely disappeared. In the seldom visited regions of Kurdistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan Thesiger took many photographs of their striking inhabitants who remained thoroughly unselfconscious in front of the camera -- as did the graceful tribespeople of northern Kenya and Tanzania later in Thesiger's eventful life. These unique portraits were all taken under exceptional conditions. Together they provide a magnificent pictorial record of diverse cultures and vanished worlds"--Publisher description. |
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Abyssinia Afghanistan Arabia Arabian Sands Asaimara author's party Bakhtiari Barzan Bedu Boran canoe Circumcised Samburu boy circumcision circumcision ceremony clothes colour Danakil Danakil country desert dhow Druze dune Duru Elizabeth Edwards Empty Quarter Ethiopia goatskin cape Hadhramaut Haile Selassie's coronation Hamdo Ouga Hazarajat Herki tribe Hindu Kush Huaishil Iran Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Marshes janili Kabina and Salim Kandaris Kurdish Kurdish tribes landscape Laputa Lekakwar Leica Leica II Leicaflex lenses lived Madan magnificent Mahra Maralal Marsh Arabs Marshes of southern Masai Monfried's moran Morocco Mount Hendron mountains Muhammad Sirage Mungur never nomadic northern Ethiopia northern Kenya Nuer Nuristanis OPPOSITE A Mahra OPPOSITE Yemen Pitt Rivers Museum Pizdhar portraits portraiture Rashid Sa'ar Salim bin Ghabaisha Salim bin Kabina Samburu initiate Second World southern Iraq Sudan Suq al Thuluth take photographs Thesiger found Thesiger photographed Thesiger recalled Thesiger's photographs Tihama tribesmen Umar Vanished World village wearing WILFRED THESIGER Yazidis Yemen young Samburu