Faces

 As someone who sees the world in pictures, I often wish that there were no barriers to taking photographs of people's faces. It's tricky territory. But every face hides a lifetime of experiences, achievements and disappointments. Sometimes faces speak more of a foreign country than sights - such as those that The Nile reveals when you are cruising upon it.

In Egypt, I managed to capture a few faces. Current faces in addition to the many faces we saw in tombs and on the walls of temples. At Edfu, I gave the man at the top fifty Egyptian pounds for his image which seemed to disgruntle him. Fifty Egyptian pounds is about seventy pence in British money or $1 US.

This second portrait is of Fatma - our lovely Nubian guide on Elephantine Island, Aswan. She kindly agreed to my request and I said that the reason I wished to take her photo was because she had a nice face.

I spotted this mural on Elephantine Island. I guess that she is also a Nubian woman. The same artist had decorated some other walls in the neighbourhood.

Ayman was our onboard Egyptologist. He knew a lot and was certainly blessed with the gift of the gab but he didn't seem to understand that what people sometimes require is peace and quiet and time to absorb what they are seeing.

This lad was steering our "felucca" sailing boat across The Nile and was happy to pose when I asked him.

This young man was on security duty by The Avenue of The Sphinxes in Luxor. Naturally, he needed a hundred pounds after snapping a picture of an old Yorkshire couple in their sun hats with Luxor Temple looming behind them - like the perfect backdrop for Verdi's "Aida"...

By the way, the tall obelisk on the left was meant to be balanced with a similar granite needle on the right but it was stolen by France in the nineteenth century and re-erected in Paris at Le Place de la Concorde. In my humble opinion, they should give it back.