Sir Wilfred Thesinger
I visited Sir Wilfred in his room at a retirement home in Surrey. I had his book "Visions of a Nomad" and begged an audience with him on a visit to the UK in 2003. One of the last of the classic English explorers, in the 1940s he traveled incognito into what was then know as The Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia. Using an early Leica camera and black and white film he took some of the most striking travel photographs I have seen.
As we went through my copy of his book page by page, I was stunned when he told me he took ..."only one..." exposure of shot after shot of magnificent landscapes and portraits. Passing as a Bedouin he kept his camera and film hidden in a goatskin bag, returning home only after months in the desert to have the film developed. He said he had never taken a color photograph. He didn't need to.
Find his book if you possibly can.
As we went through my copy of his book page by page, I was stunned when he told me he took ..."only one..." exposure of shot after shot of magnificent landscapes and portraits. Passing as a Bedouin he kept his camera and film hidden in a goatskin bag, returning home only after months in the desert to have the film developed. He said he had never taken a color photograph. He didn't need to.
Find his book if you possibly can.
