Silent Nomad
A traveller with a camera!
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A sadhu at the Kumbh Mela, India. The Ancient of Days.

At the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, India, 2019. Around 240 million people visited this event. An eclectic mix of the old, the new, the religious, and the curious. Most notable here were the thousands of sadhus (or holy men). Here is one I pictured, making his way through the confines of the festival. He reminds me of William Blake’s depiction of god in his “The Ancient of Days”. It’s unusual, I know, comparing a Hindu holy man with the Blake’s Judeo-Christian god. The visual comparison is striking; both are the Ancient of Days.

An NFT to a high-resolution image of this photo can be found at OpenSea.

 

Girl in the Iraqi Marshes

Heading into southern Iraq towards Basra in 2011, we travelled through the Iraqi Marshlands and came across a number of locals who had made their home here. It was a big contrast to the dry and dusty conditions that we had already travelled through to get here. Whilst we waited for a boat to take us across the waterways, I wandered over to a couple of huts along the water. A dog came out barking towards me, but a small girl followed the dog out and soon reigned it in. Another girl, who I presume was her sister due to their likeness, appeared out from these same huts with a welcoming smile, and I photographed her against the backdrop of the marshes.

Two Turkana women in red

It was the end of a long day during the Turkana Festival in Kenya. The day had been hot, with little shade, and now we drove to the windswept shores of Lake Turkana. Here, two girls of the Turkana tribe took rest and watched their tribe dance in friendship with the Samburu till dusk.