Category: Middle East
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Victory Red
Victory Red Nowhere else have I seen such importance attached to bright red lips as in Iran. Perhaps it is in honour of the 14th-century poet Hafiz, who remains hugely popular in Iran and who never tired of extolling the red colour of wine, roses and his lovers’ lips in his odes.But under the rule…
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Lipstick lips
Lipstick lips Iranian mannequins are made and used in bits and pieces. After the torsos for showing dresses and legs for leggings – see two earlier posts – it’s now the turn of heads for scarfs. Or is it lips for lipsticks? Photo of the week: Mannequin heads, Tehran, Iran 2017
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Legging legs
Legging legs Underneath the body-covering veils and the hair-covering head scarfs of Iranian women a secret, colourful, swinging world can go hidden, unnoticed by the peeping eys of the morality police. Photo of the week: Legging legs, Tehran, Iran 2017
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Window dressing
Window dressing “How beautiful … will I ever be allowed to wear a dress like this?” White dreams for ladies in black. Photo of the week: Window dressing, Tehran, Iran 2017
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Salty beach
Salty beach My old Hachette guide tells me that very long ago, before the Tertiary Era, the Dead Sea was an expanse of sweet water lying above (!) the level of the Mediterranean. After the dislocation of the valley of the Jordan it sank to great depths and came into contact with salt deposits deep…
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Dead at the Dead Sea
Dead at the Dead Sea This luxury resort at the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea looks pretty dead itself. Tastefully laid out in a colour scheme that pleasantly matches the backdrop of the Dead Sea landscape, it does look rather sterile. There’s no living soul to be seen; even the palm trees look artificial and…
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Witness from Baghdad
Witness from Baghdad The heads of the women are blurred and their faces hidden in veils. But their eyes see. We see eyes that see. Eyes that have seen. And now the eyes have directed their penetrating look at us, confronting us onlookers. Remember last week’s photo? REMEMBER? We shall remember, Halim Al Karim! Photos…
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Remember
Remember REMEMBER: written in capital letters on a wall on a hill in Amman, Jordan. I saw it from the hill opposite whilst visiting two modern art galleries located there. REMEMBER: is it an artistic statement; is it connected to the artworks in the gallery spaces and buildings? That could well be the case. As…
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Patriotism
Patriotism I was once given a serious telling-off by a young boy in India about my alleged lack of patriotism. Everyone in India always wants to know where you’re from. As soon as they heard I was Dutch, they would often tell me the story of how a little boy in the Netherlands had saved…
καιρός remembered 