Horizontal is the new vertical

It's 4.44pm on a Thursday - November 6th to be precise. It's about 80 degrees outside and extremely sunny. I'm sitting in the darkness of my hostel room with the lights out and the shade drawn where I make my permanent residence for the next 8 and half months, in the beautiful city of Luxor, Egypt. It is the place of dreams: smash India, the Middle East, and Africa together and imagine the possibilities.

I am stuffed, exhausted, dehydrated, intestinally destroyed, and elated. I'm drinking a re-hydration beverage that tastes like the ocean with sugar added and it will launch me into my daily one hour comatose sleep that happens after lunch and before dinner where I have epic dreams and wake up with a slow thundering heartbeat. Often its just a walk upstairs to get a towel to clean the photo equipment that leads to me falling asleep with all my clothes on and my industrial air conditioner blasting as donkeys hee haw and the collective prayers of a thousand men droan from outside my window.

Thus far I have had no time. And I mean it. Up at 6.30am each morning and out to the temple by 7.30am where I photograph talatat blocks until 2pm, these are "stone blocks of standardized size (ca. 27 by 27 by 54 cm, corresponding to ½ by ½ by 1 ancient Egyptian cubits) used during the reign of Akhenaton in the building of the Aton temples at Karnak and Akhetaten." Thank you wikipedia. The blocks can be dated around 1350-1330 BC (as I like to say "older than God") and feature a wide range of images, including everything from standard hyroglyphics to images of horses, cows, sacrifice, offerings, kings, and queens. The people I work with are versed enough in Egyptology that they can literally read the blocks as if they were a book - it's quite impressive. Indeed, I have been hired by the American Research Center to photograph 16,000 such blocks. I think everyone has recognized this to be impossible and I feel a little better about my inability to realize that goal. To do that within 9 months, I'd have to shoot about 100 a day, or one every 10 minutes. But each rock must be carefully wrestled from a staggering stack inside a cave-like magazine so that it can be documented, treated with various resins and chemicals, given a unique number, and cleaned before it gets to me, where it must be properly leveled, dusted off, and lit with the studio lighting to highlight all of its relief/detail before I can move on to the next rock. All of this under a tent in the desert of Karnak Temple.

The most amazing thing about working in this place is the way you are surrounded by mind-blowing artifacts and its not like they are always set aside as tourists attractions, much of the time they are just an inherent part of the landscape. Just outside the ARCE hostel for example is a huge trench that resembles a huge moat or a miles-long empty swimming pool with a dust floor featuring beheaded Sphynxes for as far as the eye can see. They are not set apart from the city, but instead intermingling with sleeping dogs, horses, children playing soccer and stick fighting, even karate lessons.

While I am completely overwhelmed and underslept I feel very blessed to be here. I love my day job. This is by far the best I've ever had it. Sure I don't have a long line of amazing work to brag about, I've scooped ice cream for famous people in New York City, served up delicious Jerk Chicken Sandwiches and Lattes at a cafe in Brooklyn, worked on an English Magazine in St. Petersburg and freelanced for the St. Petersburg Times and taught English to hip elite business men and women there. So this basically blows everything out of the water.

The challenge for me will be to make my time here work for me. I came into this job thinking I'd have too much time on my hands, that I'd take up some stoic monastic life studying Arabic and teaching myself to play the guitar in my room. The reality is I have zero time and I have to find a way to change my workflow around so that I can put aside time for myself - for exploring this place, photographing it, and other activities. I cannot get too wrapped up in my work to let the opportunity pass me by. Thus far it's been staying up until 11pm dusting talatat in Photoshop and straightening images and fixing backgrounds and black levels. I will meet with my boss tomorrow to figure out how I can do my job without investing 12 hours a day into it.

There is always a running list of extra-curicular activies to be had - beyond the little favors: printing some photos of the guys from work, helping the guy at Karnac with his Russian in exchange for Arabic, taking the birthday girl out for dinner, going to the market for necessary fabrics and accessories - beyond that there are bicycles to be had, to take a ferry out the West Bank (the other side of the Nile) and ride through the sugar cane and photograph, get some motorcycles and drive over the bridge miles down the road, rent a hot air balloon and sail a mile high above the city, which is caked in satellite dishes and epic sunsets. A trip to Morocco here. A jaunt to Uganda there. A New Years visit to St. Petersburg?

There is too much. Too much. And free cappucinos from the kitchen. Tuesday, actually, was the first day I actually resented not being in America. I stayed up until 2am to catch the first polls of the Presidential Election come in and then I was up at 6.30am watching Obama give his acceptance speech, almost in tears, before I had to run out to work. I would have liked to experience that in America, the excitement, but I'm getting it from all the over here, where Obama is championed by the Egyptians and they are still congratulating me on his victory. They, like the rest of the world, recognize what this means. Things are going to change.



I will be back in July. By that time, America will have gotten a taste of Obama-style government. It will be interesting to see if the same spark that is lit in the hearts of Americans and foreigners is still lit then, because as he said, the road ahead is long and hard, but I have every faith in Obama, his administration and the country's ability to bounce back. I, like Michelle Obama, would be one to say things like its not until recently that I've felt truly proud of my country. I know she's gotten a great deal of flack for that statement but the last 8 years have been rough and ideal-shattering. I want America to be regarded with respect and admiration again. I don't want to be associated with my country's abominable actions in Iraq and Guantanamo. Now, for the first time in years, I am proud to say that I'm an American, because I know that this image of us has changed. The enormous strength and convictions of one man and all the excitement, hope and positive energy he evokes has transformed the game.



I am excited about returning to America someday. I probably won't make it my permanent residence until my old age, but I love what's happening there. For now though, I like this life. I have always been interested almost solely in two things: photography and travel. If this is the way to do it then I'm sold. This place is amazing.