Early 20thC Africa & Arabian Peninsula

[bixaorellana]

Sir Wilfred Thesiger took nearly 40,000 photographs during his eight decades of travels throughout Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner looks back at Thesiger's appreciation of desert communities and their ways of life.

Historically interesting audio slide show and sensitive black and white photography:

click photo

[onlymark]

I saw that earlier on the BBC website and you beat me to it.

He was a hero of mine ever since my school days as our houses were named after explorers. I was in Thesiger.

[bixaorellana]

Whoops! Sorry, Mark. As a matter of fact, I stole it from your link about the 2400 year old soup (#93).

You have good taste in heroes and are obviously better educated than I. This was the first I knew of him. Do you have any good tidbits of information?

[onlymark]

I'm not often accused of being better educated, that's for sure.
His appeal for me was, as an explorer, he did it all with the minimum of logistics and support apart from what he could get from the local population. He never mounted large expeditions manned by westerners and tried to leave as small a footprint as he could.
Plus, and more importantly for me, he rarely had a set plan of where he wanted to go and see. It wasn't based on collecting scientific evidence or recording anthropological data or anything much at all. He just seemed to want to be there and go and see stuff - wandering at will more or less.

His main interest turned to being the people he encountered as much as the places he visited, as his record of photos show. There nearly always seems to be someone in them rather than just the scenery.
I'd say he was a 'gentle explorer' as much as a gentleman explorer.
In later life though he sponsored a number of local children and their families, which altered their status, whilst on the other hand wanting tribal traditions and attitudes to continue - which was a difficult balance to achieve.

[Deleted]

People who always manage to depict the locals in their photos are admirable.