A Vanished World - Hardcover

Thesiger, Wilfred

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393050866 ISBN 13: 9780393050868

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2002

Synopsis

A tour in pictures of the award-winning photographer's career contains selections from his journeys to sites on the farthest edges of civilizations, depicting such subjects as the Danakil, the Northern Darfur Muslim tribes, and Nuba wrestlers.

About this title

Review:

Praise for Desert, Marsh and Mountain:

‘His sensual delight in the harsh world of the nomad is apparent in his exquisite photography.’
Daily Telegraph

Praise for My Kenya Days:

‘Magnificent photographs... displaying a reverence for their subject matter’
Sunday Telegraph

From the Back Cover:

Wilfred Thesiger's superb portraits of tribal peoples have earned him worldwide recognition as a photographer. Using a box camera which had belonged to his father, he began his photographic career in 1930, at the age of twenty, during a short hunting trip in Ethiopia, and used the same camera to photograph hostile Danakil tribesmen when he returned three years later to explore the Awash river.

Whilst in Sudan, and now equipped with a Leica 35mm camera, Thesiger portrayed Muslim tribes in Norhtern Dafur, pagan Nuer in the Western Nile swamps and magnificent Nuba wrestlers. Among Ethiopia's Danakil he had travelled as a European accompanied by servants, but here he lived on increasingly equal terms with his followers. His photography mirrors this changed attitude – rather than simply recording people, places and events, he began to select and compose his subjects more carefully.

The visual drama of Arabia's deserts completed the development of Thesiger's latent talent for portraiture. During his five years in Arabia (1945-1950) he was able to depict his Bedu companions with the full sensitivity and power which his pre-war photographs had begun to suggest. Conceived on the harshest of settings, these Arabian pictures bear eloquent testimony to the inspirational effect the desert had upon Thesiger. In contrast, tranquil images of reeds, waterways and lagoons characterise his matchless portraits of the Marsh Arabs of Iraq – in which he captures a world which has now completely disappeared. Between 1951-1965 Thesiger visited remote mountain areas in Kurdistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their striking inhabitants remained quite unselfconscious in front of the camera – as did graceful tribespeople in northern Kenya and Tanzania whom Thesiger photographed some years later.

These unique portraits were all taken under exceptional conditions, often in particularly hostile environments. Together, they provide a magnificent pictorial record of diverse cultures and vanished worlds.

Praise for 'Desert, Marsh and Mountain':

"His sensual delight in the harsh world of the nomad is apparent in his exquisite photography."
JAN MORRIS, 'Daily Telegraph'

Praise for 'My Kenya Days':

"Magnificent photographs... displaying a reverence for their subject matter"
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Praise for 'Among the Mountains':

"The photographs alone make it worth a place on the traveller's bookshelf"
WANDERLUST

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0393050866
• ISBN 13: 9780393050868
• Binding: Hardcover