Organic Light Photography Newsletter
Issue #14 - Spring 2007
© Youssef Ismail / Organic Light Photography - All Rights Reserved

Spring Light

The Winds of Change

In April of this year, I had the great fortune of making a trip to the West African country of Mauritania. I had been preparing for this journey for a very long time. Actually the journey began 10 years ago with the realization of my own shortcomings and during that time many internal changes were taking place so that what I would experience in Mauritania would make sense to me now. One of the most difficult things to do in life is to look into the mirror and realize that the person we see is not perfect. The next most difficult thing is to make the intention to change for the better. I think changing for the better is one of the hardest things we have to do because it requires an immense amount of work. We all change over time, and changes for the worse usually come about through neglect and laziness, a downward entropic process that ends in complete confusion.

However, when we seek out a change for the better, we had best be ready for a very difficult uphill struggle. My trip to Mauritania was a milestone of a 10-year struggle that still continues to develop and refine my relationship with our Maker. What started out as an endeavor to learn the do’s and don’ts of prayer as a Muslim, became a realization that what I do as a photographer by highlighting the beauty of our little planet so that we as a species would come to the understanding that it is worth saving and protecting, was just as important as those do’s and don’ts. For the Prophet Muhammad, upon him peace, once said while holding a handful of sand that poured through his fingers “the Earth is your Mother, so take care of your Mother”. Among the Do’s that I learned was that doing what the Prophet instructed was a big to do. And suddenly, my photography had a new purpose, a prophetic purpose, a divine purpose: a goal of trying to take care of Mother Earth.

My visit to Mauritania had many goals. Visiting some of my earlier teachers, who had come to the United States to teach, was one. Seeing what conditions they lived in was another. Visiting some of the schools where some of the worlds most knowledgeable and gifted Islamic Jurists came from was another. And finally but not least, to photograph a land that few have ever photographed, especially in a way that would hopefully enamor us to it. Sadly however, what I found was a land that was in the midst of a very drastic change. I had heard, from several western students who had studied in Mauritania, stories of rock paintings. I was to say the least very intrigued.

The paintings the students spoke of depicted a hunt. A hunt, as I discovered after photographing them, which told of men on horse back chasing down a plethora of wildlife from giraffe to gazelle, to ostrich and even monkeys. The hunters wore what appeared to be helmets and wielded spears. The use of falcons was also depicted! After seeing them and photographing the paintings, I asked an elder from one of the villages / schools that was the closest to these particular paintings if he knew how old they were. He told me that he remembers them from a time when he was a little boy and that now he was in his eighties. I then remarked that they might be about 100 years old. He commented that they were older and that since his father told him of those paintings when his father was a little boy. So 200 years I asked, and he affirmed that possibility. Then he tells me that there are other paintings on the top of a mountain, which were much further away, that depicted war between men with bow and arrow and swords! I then asked him if he knew when Islam and the Arabs had come to this land of his ancestors and he replied more than 1000 years ago. Upon that we both came to realize that these paintings could very well be more than a thousand years old. I then asked him what happened to all the animals depicted. What he then told me put me in a state of shock.

He lifted up his hand and looked out towards the horizon and moved his hand from one end of the horizon to the other and said “all of this used to be green with all those animals running free among flowing rivers, and at the lake (a lake which is about an hour’s walk from the village that is spring fed from underground) lions used to hunt there. I remember all those animals and now they are all gone and we are left.” I was utterly shocked that in his lifetime he witnessed the demise of what could only be described as a paradise. I asked him what caused it, and he replied, “The desert came”.

The desert came. What a shocking way to put it. The wind blows constantly in Mauritania and with it, tons of sand. Since the 1960’s the Sahara has been advancing south due in part to sever drought in the northwestern quarter of Africa. On the upper plateaus of the Taganit region where I found the rock paintings, it is a semi arid desert today. Grass still grows there during the wet season, but quickly dies as soon as the rains cease. However in the low lands, desertification is all but complete. Sand is all that exists in an area that once had much livestock and agriculture. Today Mauritania only has a 200 km strip of arable land in the extreme south along the Senegal River. Life there is changing as well. With the advancing desert, many of the people who once lived a rural life have had to abandon their traditional ways and have moved to the cities. With that many social problems related to overcrowding and lack of resources have appeared. Those who used to farm and herd livestock are now consumers instead of producers and this is putting a great strain on the population. Those who have decided to remain in the desert now face a near impossible way of life. I fail to understand how people can live in those areas and it boggles my mind how they obtain water and food.

My short time there in Mauritania was very revealing. There, the winds of change are physically real – the wind is bringing the desert and with it an entire culture is forced to change or meet its demise. This change is due in part, I believe, to our activities here in the United States. I think global climate change due to human activity in the modernized areas is adversely affecting those areas of the world and the people who live there that still follow the beautiful ways of antiquity. Time will only tell of what will become of Mauritania and its amazing people. But we do need to make a change in our activities. We in the modern world have it in our power to change what happens to the Earth. We can, as we have been doing, continue to harm the Earth and its inhabitants or we can make changes, positive changes that might slow down the destructive processes that have been set into motion. For us in the modernized nations, we know we have the ability to move mountains if we wanted to and in the past we have, but sadly we seem to have failed to realize that something as light and as fluid as sand, can literally swallow us with nothing to stop it from doing so. If we do not become allies of the Earth, we will find it as well as our own selves as our own worse enemies. And with that we will succumb to nothing more than wind and sand.


Peace to You All
Youssef Ismail

Organic Light News

Organic Light Press

Digital Photography Classes

Did You Ever Wonder?

Have you ever wondered how Organic Light Photos were made?

Do you have a camera... like taking photos but were disappointed with the results?

If you could ask one question that you think would improve your photos what woudl it be?

Would you like to have that question answered by a professional photographer who understands your frustration?

Well now is your chance!

Just click the link below and enter in your question. You have nothing to lose?

ASK YOUR QUESTION NOW!

Photo Techniques 101: Exposure - Part 2

In this issue I continue with the topic of exposure.



In Part 1, the discussion was towards the Aperture. In part 2 we advance the topic by looking at how the aperture effects the appearence of the imgae. To read the full article visit the Techniques Section on the Organic Light Photography website now!

What else would you like to see explained here? Let Us Know!

Organic Light Website

Photo Of The Month

So check in and let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you.

A Humble Request