Exploring and Photographing the Empty Quarter

Four hundred feet in the air, George Steinmetz continues to photograph Shibam, unaware of the effect his sudden appearance has down below; perched in the seat of his custom-built paraglider, aptly described as a "flying lawn chair," Steinmetz focuses on capturing this region of the Wadi Hadramaut from just the right angle, light, and velocity. Two aerial shots of Shibam transform the rectangular rooftops of these narrow, tapering towers into an irregular mosaic of beige and white tiles that fill the frame and elevate the merely picturesque to an artistic abstraction of color, shape, and shadow. Writing in a straightforward and informative voice which occasionally leans toward the easy manner of contemporary adventure writing, Steinmetz refers to their adventures throughout Empty Quarter and finds many parallels between the sights and experiences they describe and his own 21st century travels: "I would exchange camels and sextants for cars and GPS," he writes, "but I would hear echoes of their epic struggles as I experienced my own" (p. 16).