To carry on with the theme of travel, I decided to post a few shots from my trip to the Middle East. I was traveling with a painter friend of mine, Rick Price, whom I met in San Francisco at a SCAD alumni party. Strangely enough, we hadn’t really known each other at SCAD, but we’d lived in the same apartment at different times in Savannah… a super cool apartment that overlooked River Street no less. Small world.

Anyway, we both had a thing for traveling and me being a photographer and he a painter, we thought we’d travel the Far East as artists. And seeing that this was the era before 9/11, the Middle East seemed wildly exotic and just safe enough to travel to. I’m glad we did as since then, it seems to have become less and less safe. Though I will say that at the time, my family was not keen on our travel plans.

The trip led us to Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Egypt. If I could, I would go back in a second to Istanbul, Jerusalem and Egypt for more photos, food and shopping. Yes, the art and history are amazing, but it’s the day-to-day culture that I really love exploring the most when I travel.

We took a felucca trip down the Nile and stopped at Elephantine Island, near Aswan, Egypt

I almost can’t believe that we actually did this, looking back 10 years later. We actually rode camels across the desert from Aqaba, Jordan to Sharm el-Skeikh, Egypt. The camels were led by a Jordanian man who spoke no English and he walked and we rode for three days. And there was some joke made about me being traded for a camel. Um… glad that didn’t happen.

Statue on Elephantine Island, Egypt This sort of stuff is everywhere!

Hey! It’s one of my first silhouette photos. I love taking these kinds of photos now. This is a zurna player in Turkey. The zurna is a lot like an oboe and uses a reed. It is a very Turkish instrument.

Ahh…. Jerusalem! That’s another place I’d like to go back to again. The food! the shopping! The mix of three very strong and temperamental religions! We experienced Ramadan, Hanukkah and Christmas all on this trip and if that doesn’t influence your opinion on organized religion, I’m not sure what will. This is the scene on the men’s side at the Wailing Wall.

PS: These were all shot on slide film.