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Sunset Hills, Los Angeles, California, April 7, 1985 © Terry Guy

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Gasoline Smell, Los Angeles -- November 25th, 2023

Etsy

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The Los Angeles House: Decoration and Design in America's 20th-Century City, 1995

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Tones of the Burnt, Los Angeles -- January 2nd, 2024

Etsy

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Praying at a synagogue in Kabul, Afghanistan, 1972

El-Idrisi (1100 - 1165), the Spanish Muslim cartographer, mentions the Jewish community of Kabul in his book Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al Afaq (The Delight of Him who Deceives to Journey Through the Climates). From the Middle Ages, Kabul Jews lived in a separate Jewish quarter – Mahall-i-Jehudiyeh. Back then, the city occupied a central place on the trade routes connecting all of Asia. The merchants were considered the elite of the Jewish community of the city. Many of them traded in leather and karakul (sheep pelt) and traveled long distances between Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent . Oftentimes these trips were dangerous, taking the merchants along narrow Afghan mountain passes where Hebrew and Aramaic prayers can still be seen carved in rocks.

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Saint Catherine (detail), After Bernardino Luini, 1510 .

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Brigitte Bardot

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Jane Birkin in La Piscine (1969)

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Women of Sinai -Al-‘Arish

The Sinai dress is a masterpiece of art. Some dresses are predominantly red and are only worn by married women, while the blue ones are worn by widows. Dresses with a mixture of blue and red are an indication that the wearer has ended her period of mourning and is now ready to marry again.

The number of colors and the geometric designs embroidered by the women of Sinai on their dresses makes the latter a marvelous background for their kind of jewelry. It is the same as the Palestinian dress known as the Bir Sab' dress, with reference to the Palestinian area adiacent to the borders of the Sinai Peninsula.

The burgu', or veil, is an important piece of adornment worn only by the married Bedouin women of Sinai. It can almost be considered a piece of jewelry, for it is covered with quantities of hilyat, or round pieces of silver or white metal, or even gold, and sometimes old metal coins. The burgu is also sometimes adorned with a number of chains attached to both sides of the veil, ending in silver units covered with primitive designs stamped onto them, or ending with units of tube coral.

There are only two types of veil in Sinai, the short one worn by the women of the Akharsa tribe and with it a silver necklace or pendant, and the long veil worn by the women of the Bayyada tribe. Unmarried girls leave their faces uncovered so that young men may see their beauty and seek to marry them.

The Sinai Peninsula is inhabited by a number of Bedouin tribes who migrated to Egypt from the Arab peninsula and Palestine in ancient times. They settled, mixed, and intermarried with the different communities of inhabitants surrounding the peninsula, starting with the people of the Egyptian governorate of Sharqiya to the inhabitants of Bir Sab' in Palestine. The borders were open then and an active trade exchange flourished. Moreover, the Palestinian towns and cities were a market for Egyptian products. As a result of the intermarriages, there is a great resemblance between the jewelry worn in Sinai and the jewelry worn in Palestine, so much so that some jewelry workshops in Cairo specialize in producing the pieces of jewelry sold in Palestinian markets.

- Sinai: Land of turquoise (The Traditional Jewelry of Egypt)

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Tafilalt woman Besancenot Jean circa 1934-47

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Tuareg man, Algeria, by Amine Ioua

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Tuareg woman from Niger (2000)

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At times serene, at times brutally harsh, the link between people and their environment is the crux of many National Geographic images. top photo: In a region of Mali that was once a land of lakes and plenty, a Tuareg family dozes in the semiarid. (1998) bottom photo: Sahel Women in northern India seek shelter from searing monsoon winds (1984) photog. Top: Joanna B. Pinneo, Bottom: Steve McCurry

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Lucien Gauthier

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Bedouin and Arab women, Saudi Arabia, by Hayat Osamah