In the March/April 1992 issue, writer and photographer John Feeney took AramcoWorld readers on a walk through the streets of Cairo during Ramadan. There, they were illuminated with the cover story and tradition of “Ramadan’s Lanterns.” Feeney, a longtime contributor with close to 100 credit lines in AramcoWorld, spent more than 30 years in Egypt, sharing stories and educating readers across the globe.
Ramadan, the ninth month of the Hijri lunar calendar, marks a time for fasting, blessings and prayers. Muslims give thanks to God during this holy month, and within Arab countries, one can find lanterns and other decorations adorning homes throughout. Merchants in larger cities even get in on the festivities, bedecking storefronts with these Ramadan lanterns, or fawanees as they’re called in Arabic.
“One week before Ramadan begins,” writes Feeney in his 1992 story, “part of Ahmad Maher Street, for most of the year a humble thoroughfare in the old medieval quarter of Cairo, is transformed. Usually home to tinsmiths, marble-cutters and makers of mousetraps, for one glorious month it becomes ’The Street of the Lanterns.’”
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]]>As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of AramcoWorld this year, we are looking back at some of the memorable and visual story spreads in the magazine. In the past, AramcoWorld has written about the cultural impact of a simple reed hut like those in the marshes of Iraq and built recently in Houston, Texas. That journey really began in 1964, with the publishing of Wilfred Thesiger’s book The Marsh Arabs. His travelogue connected the world to a culture and people few had known or experienced. AramcoWorld amplified that connection in the November/December 1966 issue with the story "In the Marshes of Iraq."
]]>On a warm June evening, people gathered at a park in Bethesda, Maryland, for a community potluck dinner welcoming the start of Ramadan. This image is part of a project called Everyday American Muslim, documenting the daily life of Muslims in the US. As part of an effort to share what I see and experience as a practicing Muslim and an American, it challenges some of the stereotypes prevalent in mainstream media, including the notion that one cannot be both Muslim and American.
A lot of the images in this project depict Muslims practicing their faith. Many more also show experiences that we collectively share in daily life. At this event there was a father carrying his son; children and adults roasting hot dogs, corn and marshmallows over an open fire; people mingling at a buffet table while enjoying a variety of food; children chasing each other, laughing and playing games.
Rather than focusing on differences in culture and faith, my hope is that anyone looking at these images of everyday moments can find something that feels familiar, that connects all of us as people.
—Zoshia Minto
@zoshiaminto
@everydayamericanmuslim
www.zoshiaminto.com
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The Duet series focuses on double portraits, a tradition in West Africa. I try to create a duality, a resemblance between two people through gestures, clothing, poses, etc. This series includes portraits of relatives, friends and people united by other ties. This particular image is one from a series showing portraits of men and women pridefully posing in front of walls reminiscent of Saint-Louis, Senegal, and its architectural heritage, old buildings steeped in history. At their feet lies a dark checkerboard reminiscent of traditional photo studios.
—Malick Welli
@malickwelli
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This photo was taken off Ambon Island, East Indonesia, in 2010. It is one of my favorites, illustrating the free-spirited nature of the children in the rural archipelago. While some children in the big cities may stay inside and play computer games, the children in Ambon with easy access to the water see the ocean surrounding their village as their playground.
To create the picture, I dove under the water and gestured to some children nearby to get close to me. I did not direct them at all. They acted naturally. I can tell they really enjoyed the moment because they have probably never seen a diver taking photographs while they played under the water.
To me, black-and-white photography evokes strong emotions. It allows you to explore the borderlines of light and shadow, the yin and yang. Celebrating complexity in the minimalist. Diving into the spiritual in the physical. This silhouette conveys to me the very spirit of minimalism and simplicity.
]]>I just love taking genuine moments. It makes me fall in love with that memory, and it’s forever captured in a photo.
—Norah AlAmri
@n_amri
I took this photo during a rainy day in November 2018 from the window of my family home in Fayoum, Egypt, located about 100 kilometers southwest of the capital. It hardly rains but a few times in the year in most parts of Egypt, and when it does, it is always something special, bringing joy and happiness particularly for the local children.
That day I was in my room when I noticed it raining. I looked out the window and saw children running out of their homes to play in the rain. I quickly reached for my camera and headed to the window to capture this scene. The children were jumping for joy as they ran through the rain while singing traditional Egyptian songs. Some of them even tried catching raindrops on their tongues. Women in the background were trying to make their way home quickly and not get wet.
I’m happy I was able to capture this moment. It reminds me of my own childhood and how I use to play as a child. I take photos like this because it shows how simple a joyful life can be.
—Hesham Elsherif
@hesham.a.elsherif
Little explored for tourism and not a popular destination even among locals, this section of the Tien Shan mountains, some 360 kilometers east of Bishkek, Kyrgystan’s capital, lies near the border with China. We trekked down a rough pasture road off the highway that winds towards the village of Enilchek. With Kyrgyzstan’s borders effectively closed to tourists in summer 2020 because of the pandemic, many in the domestic tourism sector took to the mountains to find trekking routes and local travel destinations. Spurred by a pretty view from the bottom of the valley and tempting topography on the map, along with friends from Kyrgyzstan Tourism, we headed up the Kuylu Valley. On our final evening, while laying out our sleeping bags in a vacant hut, local shepherd Altyn (pictured here on the last horse) rode across the river and invited us to join him for a trip to his pastures the next morning.
Horses are excellent models but difficult photography platforms. As I often do in Kyrgyzstan, I rode with the group to the top of the valley to then dismount and take pictures on foot. At some point, as I wandered off from the group, I could see Kanat Murzabek uulu (here on the first horse) approaching and the composition forming. I raced ahead to frame the three horses against the backdrop of the 4,600-meter peaks of the Mola Valley behind them.
—Stephen Lioy
@slioy
stephenlioy.com
As a young college student in the 1980s, George Steinmetz hitchhiked in the desert lands of north-central Algeria along the Sahara. In 2009 he revisited the region, now as a world-renowned photojournalist working on a book about the world’s extreme deserts and the human adaptations and settlements in them.
He recalled the hilltop city of Ghardaa and its unique architecture. This city is actually comprised of five villages, among them Beni Isguen, which in 1982 was inscribed as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and regarded as the best-preserved example of the region’s traditional building styles and urban organization.
The day before this image was taken, Steinmetz flew up to get a view of the town using the foot-launched, motorized paraglider—at less than 45 kilograms, the lightest motorized aircraft in the world—that allowed him to make uniquely close, low-altitude aerial photographs in remote regions. The next morning at sunrise, he made multiple flyovers above Beni Isguen, bracing the camera between his legs in order to look straight down to the pattern and colors of the village’s walled, rooftop patios and narrow streets. “There are still parts of the world that live on, in a traditional way,” Steinmetz reflects. “It’s important to know there are other worlds out there.”
—Sarah Taqvi
@geosteinmetz
www.georgesteinmetz.com
In 2021 a photography project took me 1,900 kilometers down the Tigris River through Turkey, Syria and Iraq. By the time we reached the city of Kut, in central Iraq, I had been camping along the riverbanks for nearly two months, mostly in the company of men, with the occasional night hosted by a local family. Here in Kut, at the home of a fisherman’s family, I was able to have some precious time with other women. I was also able to join their weekly ritual of washing one another’s hair. In the morning, four sisters woke me with tea, fried eggs and bread, and they turned on the faucet to fill a basin. We took turns washing, and then the sisters joined up in a line to comb and plait one another’s hair. It was a gentle moment, the kind I like to share and that replenishes me on a journey. My own hair was being plaited as I took this photo.
—Emily Garthwaite
@emilygarthwaite
emilygarthwaite.com
In 2011 I moved to the United Arab Emirates and I joined a group of cave explorers. After several weeks of training, we traveled to Oman's Eastern Hajar Mountains, some 150 kilometers south of the capital, Muscat. There, we set out to descend into the Majlis al-Jinn (Den of the Spirits), one of the largest cave chambers in the world. This is not a cave to walk or crawl into: Access is only from two entrances, both on the ceiling. The floor lies 158 meters below. These entrances were discovered in 1983 by US hydrogeologist W. Don Davison, Jr., who was working for Oman's Public Authority for Water Resources, and his wife, Cherty S. Jones.
We harnessed up and lowered our rope. For a descent of this length, we used an industrial-grade rope, which was stiffer–less bouncy–and thicker than the ropes usually used for climbing and caving. We began lowering ourselves down, one by one, by hand and slowly enough to avoid rope rub. I went second.
Once at the bottom, I photographed many in the group as each descended. At one point, as the sun was nearing its midday peak, a sliver of light cut into the shaft. I shot this frame as one of my teammates lined up with it perfectly. It only lasted a brief moment.
-Christopher Pike
christopherpike@me.com
cpike.com
For more than eight hours, we navigated the Sekonyer River in a wooden boat, cruising through Tanjung Puting National Park in the Central Kalimantan region of Borneo, Indonesia. After docking, we walked about an hour in the lush rainforest. Then, our tour guide and ranger, Adut, placed corn and yams on top of a wooden table.
It was not long until orange-haired Bornean orangutans began to approach the table. More than five were carrying babies. Seeing so many newborns was, Adut informed us, highly unusual. He conjectured that the park’s closure and resulting prolonged quiet due to the pandemic may have contributed to an optimal primate mating environment.
Observing the orangutans, I saw how intimately bonded the mothers were to their babies and how deeply they seemed to express love in every movement with them. As I watched a nearby mother and infant embrace, I photographed this magnificent moment as the mother was tenderly kissing her child’s neck.
Orangutans are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, mainly because of habitat loss—in Indonesia they have lost 80 percent of their forest area. Sanctuaries like the Tanjung Puting National Park are helping to preserve their lives and future. And while I was happy to see so many new families among them, it impressed on me the urgency of finding ways to thwart deforestation.
—Beawiharta
@beawiharta
Email: beawiharta@gmail.com
As a photographer, it always amazes me how sometimes my most casual photographs become moments of lasting reflection and universal attachment.
It was the winter of my grandfather Dhanji’s 89th birthday, and we gathered at Mani Villa. We spent the afternoon sunbathing, eating and listening to stories of Dhanji’s impassioned life in the sprawling garden of this beautiful half an acre of property: Mani Villa, home of our beloved grandparents, was a British row house in Jhansi, in north-central India, that was named after my late grandmother, Mani. After Mani passed in 2002, Dhanji lived there alone with their German shepherds, Gallant and Nikki, before he passed in 2012.
Here you see my late older sister, Seher, taking in the winter sun as my grandfather was immortalized in one of his “Dhanji quirks”—when his index finger went up, everyone listened! He regaled us with his wisdom in between bites of my mother’s gajar ka halwa, an Indian carrot pudding she made every winter for his birthday.
It’s one of the last moments we all spent together at Mani Villa. The property was sold in 2018. It was one of the toughest experiences for us to see our beloved family holiday home go, and it was a deeply emotional goodbye.
I keep this photograph of Dhanji and Seher close to me at my desk. I surround myself with the energies of these two spirits who have helped shape me into the person I am today. They are my guiding lights.
—Zishaan A. Latif
@zishaanalatif
zishaanalatif.com
For a long time now, I have felt there is a richer, more complete narrative about Karachi—my hometown—than what is often produced in news media. I’ve seen it labeled one of the world’s least-livable cities, one of the most violent. Perhaps. But that’s not Karachi’s full story.
For this photo series, I walked the narrow alleys of Lyari, the most-populated locality of Karachi, with two German filmmakers who were interested in capturing authentic Karachi narratives. It was nearing sunset, and as I looked up, I saw stunning rays of light spilling into the street. It was the “Golden Hour,” or “Magic Hour,” as we photographers call it—that time right after sunrise and right before sunset that offers the softest, warmest, most-dramatic lighting, perfect for photography. Many people were walking home from work, and I remember thinking I had never seen the Golden Hour quite this distinctively in any part of Karachi before. It was magical indeed, and the scene shown here reflects words that come to my mind in describing my city’s people: resilient, passionate, courageous and determined.
—Khaula Jamil
@khaula28
www.khaulajamil.com
He had put away part of his salary, and within a few years of joining the oil company, he saved enough money to buy a Rolleicord twin-lens reflex camera. He enrolled in a photography course by correspondence from the US and began to pick up freelance jobs, and in 1965 he qualified for a trainee post with the company’s Photo Unit. He rose quickly to become chief photographer, and even after he retired in 1985, he returned annually on special assignments for another nine years, becoming one of the most prolific photographers of one of the world’s most dramatic industrial transformations: the “oil boom” decades in Saudi Arabia.
Pipelines, refineries, wells, exploration teams and the communities of people who built and formed them became his daily assignments amid the constant challenges of heat, blowing sand and other adversities. This aerial image, shot in 1993, shows one of Aramco’s deep-desert road-building teams carving over and around 100-meter dunes in the eastern reaches of the Rub al-Khali, or Empty Quarter, on the way to Shaybah, the most remote oilfield in Saudi Arabia. Whether in the air over dunes or balanced on the shoulders of fellow pilgrims while shooting for AramcoWorld in Makkah, Amin brought his artistic eye and unflappable optimism to every job he undertook.
He died July 17, at the age of 93, having recently received one more honor for the kinds of photos—of flowers, people and places—that he enjoyed making in his retirement. In all, he received more than 70 ribbons and medals from photo societies around the globe, and three awards from the UN.
“My original thinking was that I should be a good photographer, learning as well as doing a good job,” he said. “People liked me and appreciated my work, and that’s what I wanted.”
—Arthur P. Clark recently retired from his position as an assistant editor of AramcoWorld. For many years in Dhahran, he worked closely with Shaikh Amin.
Photographs by Shaikh Amin can be found in the AramcoWorld image archive at https://photoarchive.aramcoworld.com
]]>One day I encountered a photo of a man looking through a car window as sunlight reflected his view of the nearby cityscape. Soon afterward, I began this portrait series, of which four images are shown here, in my hometown of Vence, near Nice, France.
I photographed residents in moments of daily life while looking through glass, and I added further perspective with interviews. It was a challenge to create such multilayered narrative portraits, especially as I was determined to avoid digital retouching. The area before the glass had to be in deep shadow for the reflected scene to be visible. The reflected scene, in turn, had to be extremely bright. My subjects had to hold the glass in a precise position while excluding me, the camera, and my assistant holding the softbox flash that provided supplementary light.
—Rebecca Marshall
Top left: “When I was little, I used to sit by the window at night and look at the moon for ages. I was born with an organ malformation and had eight operations before I was 6 years old. I’m still a bit of a dreamer ... outdoors, in the town’s open spaces, I feel free.” —Hugo, 16
Top right “The medieval town center is pretty. There are lots of shortcuts when you know your way around, but I don’t like coming here on my own. The streets are empty and dark, and I feel afraid. I’m learning judo. It’s good to be strong.”
—Mathilde, 11
Bottom left: “I lived the first 20 years of my life in this street, and I loved it. All the kids used to play together in the street, on bikes, on roller skates, while our grandparents sat around keeping an eye on us. At Eid and Easter, all our neighbors had big communal meals together.”
—Nadia, 42
Bottom right: “My identity as Mediterranean comes before my identity as French, and Vence is a Mediterranean town to me. I feel I have more in common with a Tunisian than a Parisian. We share the same chat, the same laughter, the same light.” —Anthony, 33
rebecca-marshall.com
@rebeccamarshallphoto
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On a winter’s afternoon in 2018 in Bogura, Bangladesh, I went out for a walk with my nephew. While walking, I saw a group of toddlers playing with colorful balloons and across from them boys playing cricket. I was struck to see a bright yellow sari hanging to dry in the sun, which really drew me into to the scene. I noticed that one of the toddlers had a yellow balloon in their hand and I thought about the composition. I positioned myself and waited there for about 10 minutes before the yellow balloon got away from the kids and landed in front of me. I clicked a photo on my cell phone just before one of them ran over to pick it up.
When on the street, I am always looking for light, color, and connection. This photograph reminds me of the stages of life, and here with beautiful light and color, I drew a line between the toddlers playing with balloons, the boys playing cricket and a woman’s sari. This is how life goes, in its own way.
—Fatima-Tuj-Johora
@fatimatujjohora
fatimatujjohora.com
Two summers ago I was browsing several hundred vintage postcards contained in narrow boxes all piled up in a Stillwater, Minnesota, antiques store. I was searching for images of Middle Eastern architectural motifs and styles found in the American-built environment, and I came across several postcards that each featured an imagined sphinx as seen in natural rock formations. Intrigued, I checked out postcard collector sites online and found more. Now my “Imagined Sphinx” postcards, destined to be part of a much larger collection of Middle Eastern Americana at the UCLA Young Research Library, number about two dozen. They show structures and formations mostly in the US but also around the world, notably in England and France—the two colonial powers that impacted the course of Egyptian history in the 19th and 20th centuries—as well as Switzerland, Romania, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Vietnam. And while the people who named these sites may have never themselves actually visited the Sphinx of Giza, Egypt, guardian of the Great Pyramids, they knew of it through textbooks, prints, paintings, photographs and perhaps even other postcards, from which they appropriated, for novelty and profit, the iconic edifice that has become so embedded in much of the world’s collective imagination.
—Jonathan Friedlander
oac.cdlib.org
In my hometown of Yefren, about 200 kilometers southwest of Tripoli, Libya, in the Nafusa mountains, my cousin Mira wears our grandmother’s tlaba (wool garment) to connect to her family roots. The photo is part of a documentary project I started to depict Amazigh women from Libya.
As a Libyan woman, I care about women in Libya. And because I am Amazigh, a term for the indigenous Berber “free people” of North Africa, I am drawn to photographing my own unique culture.
Our country is rich with stories written in art, in architecture, and in diverse traditions and languages. Focusing on the lives of women is challenging, yet I dream of taking more photos of them, more photos of us, while capturing the beauty and reality of Libya and highlighting life, as it is, in all its shades.
Linguistically speaking, Amazigh is a feminine word. Historically, Amazigh women were queens and held respected positions and leadership roles throughout North Africa.
Amazigh traditions differ from culture to culture. In Yefren, the tlaba played a specifically significant role. My mom told me how my grandmother wove her tlaba from their own sheep. Traditionally it was worn on every important occasion throughout the year, winter and summer, from wedding celebrations to childbirth and somber times of mourning at funerals. Tlaba is a lifestyle; the patterns are not just intersecting threads, but strands interweaving life and death, present and past, nature and earth.
Working on projects in my own country and being able to go farther than I used to go allow me to have new perspectives, and I was able to push through barriers of fear and challenges. It helps me tell stories that are beyond the stereotypical images of Libya.
—Nada Harib
@nada_harib, www.nadaharib.com
This past spring we were in Austria filming, just before the project was cut short because of the coronavirus. For this shot I did a simple rodeo 7, which is two horizontal spins, and added a little extra spice by throwing in a double mute grab, which is holding one ski with both hands. It was a super high-speed jump, which I needed to make the 25 meters to the landing. I was lucky to land it first hit. On jumps like this it can be easy to miscalculate. Freeskiers have to become amateur physicists to build the jumps, calculating speed and altitude to landing, as well as the height of the cliffs we jump from and how much time we have to spin—anywhere from 180 to 1440 degrees or more.
This past season I helped start Silk Road Freeride, the first competition like it in Kyrgyzstan. About 30 guys and women from Turkey, Bosnia, Kazakhstan and all over joined local Kyrgz to ski their mountains and get to know each other. When you have skiing as a common link, it’s not hard to socialize. It couldn’t have gone better, and I hope I can be part of this event for years to come.
I grew up skiing in New York, with small hills, frostbite-cold winters and absolutely no freeride terrain. But what we did have was a great group of ski friends and motivation to travel out for bigger and better. Couple this with me being the only Muslim professional skier in the whole sport, and you can see where my motivation to spread the love into the Middle East and beyond comes from. Everywhere may not have the fancy ski resorts, but there is extraordinary love for the sport, a great social culture and a great drive for more.
—Ahmet Dadali
@ahmetdadali