YEMEN THROUGH AN AMERICAN’S LENS

It took over a year to convince American photographer Don Whitebread to come to Yemen. It is, after all, a long ways from the California suburbs.

“Yemen had never been on my list of places to visit,” admits Whitebread.  “But I’ve always been curious about other places and cultures.  Yemen looked unlike any place I’d travelled to before, which made me a little nervous, but that much more interested.”
 
Slowly but surely, he wrapped his head around the idea.  “Most men, when they face a midlife crisis, buy a new car or get a new wife,” he jokes.  “But I love my Prius and my wife, so I decided to go on an adventure to Yemen instead.” 
 
His friends and family initially thought Don had gone insane.  This was in the wake of the failed Christmas bombing and Yemen’s presence in the American headlines was far from positive.   But they were supportive, and in April, he embarked on a journey across 11 time zones in what he has since called, “The trip of a lifetime.”
 
He arrived in Sana’a and was immediately blown away by his first impressions of the country.  “I was shocked at how surprisingly hospitable and genuine the people were.  I really liked that it didn’t seem to make a big difference to people that I was American.  In most places, being ‘American’ carries some baggage and expectations, but in Yemen, it didn’t seem like people wanted to pre-judge.  That was refreshing.”
 
Yemen’s Ministry of Tourism and the Yemen Tourism Promotion Board facilitated Don’s trip around the country, and following several days of shooting in the old city of Sana’a, he traveled west into the Haraz Mountains.  After photographing al-Khutaib and Manakha, he was impressed by the child guides in Hajjara.  Bilquis, the girl depicted in the above photograph, quoted him an ambitious sum for a handicraft.  Don protested, and she shrugged, stating simply, “Business is business” in perfect English.  “These village kids speak three or four languages, it’s incredible!” he said.
 
He then traveled to Bura’a, Yemen’s first nature preserve. The wild baboons proved entertaining, especially the alpha-male captured in the above photograph. Don left Bura’a and spent an evening camping by the small “river” at Khamis Beni Sa’ad.  It was there that he photographed the men unloading the truck with jagged mountains and wadi in the background.
 
His 4x4 rumbled north through the wadi to the Mahweet Governorate, and Don, a landscape photographer, was in his element.  “I was unprepared for the beauty of the hill towns in the mountains,” he said.  “I would have loved to stay longer to be able to watch the light and weather change around Mahweet.  But I did get extremely lucky to see a sunrise, sunset, and an approaching storm.”
 
He returned to Sana’a to catch a flight to the tropical island of Socotra, Yemen’s jewel in the Indian Ocean.  Although he had seen photos of the island, he remarked, “Nothing could have prepared me for the pristine beauty of Socotra.”  He camped at Ar Har to shoot the white sand dunes that spill from the limestone cliffs down into the turquoise sea.  He then traveled to Diksam to spend two nights sleeping beneath Socotra’s fabled Dragon Blood trees, endemic to the island.
 
Back on the mainland, Don traveled north from Mukulla through the barren Joul, to the Wadi Hadhramaut.  He photographed Shibam, Tarim, Seyoun, and Wadi Doa’an.  Impressed with the mud brick architecture he captured the process of shaping and drying the square mud bricks used to construct the fantastic skyscrapers and palaces that the region is famous for.
 
Don is the first to admit that two weeks was not nearly enough time to photograph Yemen.  “This country is so geographically diverse it is amazing” he says.  But the Yemeni people also left a lasting impression on him.  “I found that the people in Yemen love their country and are quite protective of her.  Many people seem truly concerned that I take home a good report of Yemen back to America.  They sincerely wanted Yemen to be well thought of in the world.”
 
One of Don’s mentors once told him that it takes three visits to a country to be able to photograph it properly.   Will he return?  “I’d love to,” he says.  “I feel like I’ve only just broken the surface. Yemen was a photographic wonderland.  As I travelled the country, every day was a new jaw-dropping vista or fascinating bit of culture or history.”
 
“I’ve found a Yemeni salta restaurant in San Francisco, but it’s just not the same,” he says. “I could spend another two weeks just walking around the old city with my camera, and a number of my photographer friends are now eager to accompany me after seeing some photos from the trip.”  He smiles, “In sha Allah.”

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