Yahya Salem, CNN

Slovakian photographer Petra Basnakova made a series of remarkable and personally transformative discoveries during her three-year-long journey among Palestinian Bedouin families. “This photography journey was a wakeup call for me because it completely transformed my personality,” Basnakova told CNN. “I’ve grown up and found my inner peace, and I started to appreciate things I didn’t before.”

The resulting photobook, “Born of Sand and Sun,” was born of pure chance. On a trip with friends to the Nabi Musa shrine east of Jerusalem — part of her first trip outside of Europe — Basnakova diverged onto her own excursion deeper into the Judean Desert, known as El-Bariyah to her hosts, who prefer the desert’s Arabic name. Blanketed by an unfamiliar heat, she remembered sitting to rest her head on an oil stone, only to be awakened by a “miracle” — a Bedouin boy on a white donkey herding two black goats, signaling for her to follow him….

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/06/style/born-of-sand-and-sun-bedouin-photos-basnakova/index.html