Exploring Cairo’s Ghost Mansions

When you visit Egypt, you’re supposed to come back with photographs of the pyramids. “I didn’t find them very interesting,” says photographer Xenia Nikolskaya, “and consequently didn’t photograph them”. In 2006, Xenia had travelled to Cairo with the help of the Egyptian Embassy in Moscow, but when she returned without a single photo of a pyramid,…

Markets of the former Soviet Union

My name is Gianluca Pardelli and this is my photographic odyssey to document the extraordinary atmosphere of the post-soviet market stalls and the astonishing ethic diversity of the people operating them. Markets in the former Soviet Union are, indeed, a fascinating mix of different cultural flavours. It’s hard to give them a geographical or ethnic label,…

Beautiful Beirut before Bombed-Out Buildings were part of the Scenery

Back in 1965, it wasn’t hard to make Beirut look good. Lebanon’s capital was a playground for the jet set, visited by movie stars and millionaires alike, counting Brigitte Bardot and Peter O’Toole as regular visitors. The Beirut harbor was host to the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship and the U.S. Sixth Fleet would anchor and…

A Groovy Fashion Show in 1960s Afghanistan

Kabul, Afghanistan was once known as the Paris of Central Asia. During the late 1960s, goat-skin coats were Afghanistan’s biggest fashion export, gracing the pages of Vogue and copied by designers for the chicest hippies longing for adventure along the Silk Road. For a December 1969 Vogue issue, photographer Fred Maroon and a team of American stylists arrived in Kabul…

Nubian Nirvana on the Nile

This article probably couldn’t come at a worse time. I don’t think you’ll find many travel sites talking about Egypt right now in light of recent events, but removed from the terror alerts, backed-up flight cancellations and the potential collapse of an overcrowded tourist resort, there is a little-known place along the banks of the legendary river Nile that…

Palestine’s Paradise: A Mediterranean Valley of Vines

These are not the rolling hills of Tuscany. This is the Palestinian village of Battir in the West Bank hills near Bethlehem; a land of olive groves, grape vines, fig trees and seven natural springs that feed ancient agricultural terraces of rich soil planted with green beans, zucchini and eggplant so sweet you can eat it like a cucumber.…

A Prime Minister’s Abandoned Beirut Mansion

There’s one type of home you don’t really expect to find crumbling in an abandoned and decaying state– such as the ones that belonged to heads of state or government, for example. But when a country tears itself to shreds in a civil war, I suppose we can begin to understand how the upkeep of an exiled…

The Google Street View Images being Collected by a Camel

Google has welcomed a new member to its Street View team: Raffia, the 10-year old camel. With a high performance “Trekker’ camera collecting 360-degree views strapped to the top of her hump, Raffia set off at 6am with her guide to photograph the UAE’s Liwa Desert in the clearest weather conditions possible. As we navigate the dunes…