Capturing Awe

Dr. Rashid bin Hamad Al Sharqi*

Since ancient times, humans have been obsessed with immortalizing life down to its smallest details through art forms and monuments that stand to this day as witness to their existence. They made sculptures, built forts and palaces, dug the ground, carved rocks and drew on the walls of caves in awe-inspiring recordings of their everyday lives. At later stages of history, their colors and sketches evolved and they started drawing images for the departed on their gravestones and commemorated their great leaders and kings with statues and paintings. They were always searching for the perfect method to save those memorable moments of their lives; the ones that deserve to be kept after they’re gone. Finally, photography was discovered and humans found in it the perfect tool to capture the precious moments of their lives as eternal memories of them and the world around them.

Today, photography has become an art form in itself celebrated through competitions and festivals around the globe. Photos became an essential part of everyday life and with the evolution of technology and the development of photography tools, new uses and branches of this art have emerged taking the viewer to new heights of innovation and creativity. Keeping all this in mind, we, at Fujairah Culture and Media Authority, saw photography as the most appropriate art form for discovering and expressing the beauty of our country and documenting its heritage before it fades away. We wanted to focus on an art form that is capable of approaching the geographical features and the rich diversity of our local communities in an interesting way. Thus, the Fujairah Photography Award was launched with specific themes in each of its cycles and it was later expanded to include participants from the Arab World. Participation is open to all the nationalities living among us who find in the award themes a catalyst for their creativity in photography.

The Emirate of Fujairah, with its natural gradation of mountains, plains, oases and the sea, is stunningly diverse in its geography. It is a gem for those who wish to capture the untouched beauty of nature through photography and add a distinctive dimension to their repertoire.

*Chairman of Fujairah Culture and Media Authority