Camel People!
A while back I did a photo essay called Endurance Junkies about Dubai's Camel Racing culture, naturally the emphases of that essay was on the camels, but I was never really satisfied with that essay because I always felt that I didn't pay much attention to the human side of the story, so this time around I went back and did a series of photographs of some of the support staff and handlers, people who quite literally live and breath with these funny looking animals day-in day-out.
Most of these riders and support staff comes from Asian countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, but there are quite a few local Emirati folks as well who don't mind getting their hands dirty and are still quite hands on with the training. For me, the most pleasant and encouraging thing to see was the level of involvement of the younger Emirati generation into this traditional sport, and some are quite passionate about it.
They are all very simple people though and and I'm fascinated by their faces.
Just in case if you're curious, you can see the first part of this series called "Endurance Junkies" here http://bit.ly/H0vj2X
or on my Facebook page http://tinyurl.com/8lkhgw3
A while back I did a photo essay called Endurance Junkies about Dubai's Camel Racing culture, naturally the emphases of that essay was on the camels, but I was never really satisfied with that essay because I always felt that I didn't pay much attention to the human side of the story, so this time around I went back and did a series of photographs of some of the support staff and handlers, people who quite literally live and breath with these funny looking animals day-in day-out.
Most of these riders and support staff comes from Asian countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, but there are quite a few local Emirati folks as well who don't mind getting their hands dirty and are still quite hands on with the training. For me, the most pleasant and encouraging thing to see was the level of involvement of the younger Emirati generation into this traditional sport, and some are quite passionate about it.
They are all very simple people though and and I'm fascinated by their faces.
Just in case if you're curious, you can see the first part of this series called "Endurance Junkies" here http://bit.ly/H0vj2X
or on my Facebook page http://tinyurl.com/8lkhgw3
