Robert Sansone
Only after accepting the opportunity to teach a group of seven Northeastern photography students in Egypt, I had realized that I was in a bit over my head.
Finding my own direction to photograph in a foreign land can be challenging enough, compound that with an additional seven photography students’ ideas and topics, now I am surely in over my head. Now add in the fact I do not know one word of Arabic, and I have not visited Egypt before, now you can see how deep I am in over my head.
Big Challenges are what feed me, they are what I look forward to. I get excited trying to solve puzzles, problems, and experiencing new situations. Location based photography has been a major direction of my personal work since I began to study photography on my first trip to Florence, Italy in the summer of 1990. Trying to relate to the local environment or location can be the biggest challenge to a photographer. Language, culture, food, and even the people, can also be a bit overwhelming.
Egypt has all of the challenges I need to be excited about. The residents are some of the nicest people that I have met traveling around the world. The history here is phenomenal, it is visually amazing. It is super hot outside, but it only rains two days a year.
This Summer Dialogue is not just an opportunity for the students, it is an awesome opportunity to challenge both me and my photographic work.