
FirstLook: Morning tafheem, al-Rumah, Saudi Arabia
First Place, 2018 King Abdulaziz Camel Festival Photo Contest
To get camels ready for races, they are taken out for tafheem, an Arabic word that has two main meanings in English. One is “gathering together,” and the other is “coking”—as in making charcoal, a process that uses some of the wood’s energy in burning, but which allows for quicker and hotter burning later. For these camels, that means when they compete on the eight-kilometer-long course in the al-Dahna desert.
This was my first experience shooting camel racing. I had left my house after midnight to arrive at dawn. As the sun rose, there was some mist near the ground, and this herd was kicking up dust, too. To me this photo shows some of the quiet spirit that is also part of the Arab heritage with camels.
—Abdullah Sulaiman Alshathri
@1alshathri
You may also be interested in...
Find Ramadan Lanterns on Cairo's Streets with John Feeney
Arts
In the March/April 1992 issue, writer and photographer John Feeney took AramcoWorld readers on a walk through the streets of Cairo during Ramadan.All the Lands Were Sea
History
Arts
In late 1967, photographer Tor Eigoland traveled for more than: a month, mostly by canoe, among the countless villages of southern Iraq's vast marshes. Now, 45 years later, writer Anthony Sattin calls his photographs a "rare and ethnographic record of a lost world. They bring us back to a time and place where people lived in harmony with their environment and respected the balance the natural world needs to thrive.'How to Discover Egypt From the Inside Out
Arts
Rather than just telling travelers where to go, the guidebook Egypt: Inside Out by Trevor Naylor offers an inside-out perspective that evokes the experience of being there, inviting readers to embrace an almost meditative travel discipline of slowing down to take in the details and complexities of Egypt, moment by moment.