Khalid Al Thani: Malamh (English / Arabic edition)

Since 2007 Khalid Al Thani has dedicated his vision to the Qatari desert, taking tens of thousands of photographs (and counting). Photography is his medium and yet the effects he teases from his subjects are decidedly painterly-tone, texture and suggestion prevail over any documentary perfection of line or form. By faithfully returning to the same motifs (among them the Sidra tree, the oryx, the horse), his approach furthermore likens that of certain great painters (Cezanne with Mont Sainte-Victoire, Monet with his water lilies, Morandi with his bottles and jars spring to mind), who revisited the same beloved subjects to transcend their physicality and access a greater emotional truth. Malamh, meaning "details" or "features," comprises a volume of Al Thani's color work, and one black and white. The image sequence in each book begins with a sunrise, takes us through the changing moods of day, and ends with a starry night-a lyrical cycle which Al Thani reinvents each time he visits the desert.

One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery