We were on a Nile hotel boat, and I walked out onto the top deck, and she was standing there, and the sun was doing that with her hat, and the cold white beads, and the flawless skin, and I just shot. I don’t know who she was; not part of our group. I think she might have escaped from an Agatha Christie novel.

The hotel boats are a staple of the tourism industry in Egypt, and with the Nile being the lifeblood of the country, taking some time to see it from on the water is interesting. River traffic is steady–commercial, tourism, transit, personal. The shore changes regularly from overgrown to agricultural to town. The ubiquitous desert looms, patiently, just beyond the narrow green band of the shoreline.

To see the “On The Nile” gallery, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index/G0000XVweUYXDBCM

HAPPY SOLSTICE!

Here in the Northern Hemisphere our daylight will now begin increasing. Light and brightness are positive metaphors in many belief systems, so, whatever your personal faith, as we turn back toward the sun, I hope there is only increasing brightness for you in this next orbit.

For more photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

It’s alive. Climbing the dune, the viscous sand oozes around your feet like gritty syrup, flowing up and over your ankles; you’re wading on a water-less beach. When you raise a foot to step forward, you raise a load of sand with it, adding weight to every effort to move. Each truncated stride forward slides backward a third of it. The dune resists your conquest. It was exhausting, and hot, and fascinating.

For more photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Bahariya Oasis is about five hours driving, southwest of Cairo, and surrounded by vast deserts in every direction. It seems to be a fairly large community and once we checked into our lodging, one of our group (thank you Donnie) arranged for someone to take a few of us in the back of his pickup into a local village, something not on the official agenda. It’s a mud-brick walls and hard-packed dirt streets place, but a commercial center as well. Several young men were cruising the neighborhood on their bikes. I’m just playing–slow shutter speed, pan with the biker, from the bed of a moving, bouncing pickup truck. Shooting like that is always hit or miss, so you do several frames, and hope for something interesting.

For more photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index