Prominent international photographer Nigel Downes Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula
The 30 Holy Days project was shot by prominent International photographer Nigel Downes and its aim was to showcase the diversity of people in Qatar and promote the spiritual and human elements of the Holy month of Ramadan to a wider audience.
The project, promotes spirituality, traditions, family and heartwarming messages and wisdom narrated by a wide range of Muslim and non-Muslim people from all around the world and also illustrates the multicultural aspects of Qatar.
Nigel’s images feature aspects of Ramadan such as the Ramadan cannon and mosques and minarets. It mostly features close up portraits of followers of Islam and their individual journeys through the Holy month.
“As Ramadan 2019 appeared, my producer Samantha Maeer flew in from London to help me create a project to celebrate this year’s holy month. I’ve been based in Qatar for almost a decade, so I have a large portfolio of Mosque and minaret photographs. We thought we could lead with artful Islamic images. However, as we discussed the project, and started shooting, we felt the need to understand Ramadan in a little more detail,” said Nigel.
“After speaking with friends and acquaintances, including experts from Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s College of Islamic Studies and even an Imam from the state Mosque we quickly realised we were missing the essential spirit of Ramadan and therefore like all good stories the narrative and direction evolved,” he added.
Nigel has been a photo journalist and commercial photographer producing documentary and advertisements for corporations and government bodies. He has worked in many countries including in the Middle East for many years.
According to Nigel, he wanted to introduce his Muslim friends to his UK and American friends in the hope of fostering a common understanding and a genuine curiosity to know more. Moreover it was his aim to illustrate that despite race, religion or geographic location all of us share a common ground, that of humanity.
Nigel and Samantha said that everyone they spoke to had their own personal understanding of the holy month, and each one had valuable words of wisdom to impart to others.
“We quickly realised that regardless of race, religion or geographic locations these were simple messages that needed to be shared, especially in light of recent dark events around the world.
We decided the best way to illustrate and celebrate the festive season would be to introduce our friends here to the world across our social media platforms.
By doing so we could reveal the human element that everyone understands, so that anyone can understand the experience and thoughts in an emotional way,” they said.
The 30 Holy Days project can be accessed on his social media accounts- Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
