Friendly herd of camels on our way to the shoot
On Wednesday night Mark, Ian and a local friend and photographer named Saadia and all headed out to the UAE desert. The driver was prearranged by Saadia and the plan was to get the desert night sky, but the weather spoiled that. It has been really cloudy here and zero chance of seeing stars.
But, I now can say that have walked in the Arabian desert. How cool is that? It's red! As you know back home, it is a beige color. The red really stands out against the landscape and is really impressive.
Our experienced driver Omar took his trusty modified Toyota 4 x 4 to the desert and started to "dune bash" as Saadia called it. At times it felt like a roller coaster, but Omar knew what he was doing so we all just sat back and enjoyed the ride and laughed a lot.
Light painted desert tree against Arabian desert backdrop
The landscape is really barren and doesn't have a lot of trees or bushes to help make a foreground. But Ian started to walk and walk and walk until he was just a spec. He said he was in sand knee deep at times. He is still pulling sand out of his shoes. It was worth it for all of us because he found a couple trees to be our subject that night. A trick that photographers have in their bag is light painting. The concept is to paint the subject with a flashlight while the camera is taking a long exposure. As long as the person keeps moving, turns the light off and walks out of the frame before the shutter closes, then the person won't be in the picture. Many thanks to Mark for painting the tree in the image above.
Photographer taking picture of a photographer taking a picture. Go figure.