RIYADH, 29 January 2007 — A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. Today’s amateur and professional photographers are like artists.
For photographers, it’s a matter of perfect timing as they attempt to freeze a moment in single frame in a fraction of a second. However, for a group of Saudi amateur photographers, the task of capturing the Kingdom’s evolution in a single shot was anything but easy.
As part of its strategy to promote the Kingdom’s creative amateur photographers, a private Saudi company is displaying the photographers’ work in its annual calendars. This year’s theme is “Heritage and Modernism Through the Eyes of Saudi Photographers.”
According to an official at the National Company for Cooperative Insurance (NCCI), the company began randomly selecting amateur photographers in the Kingdom in order to give them the task of shooting a single photograph that best expresses the evolution of Saudi Arabia.
“We selected them from their exhibitions or their work in the Kingdom,” said Hani Al-Saigh, NCCI’s marketing communications manager.
He also said the task did not limit photographers to shoot only certain elements of Saudi life. “We tried to give them as much creative freedom as possible,” he said. As a result, photos were taken of the Kingdom’s landscape, old and new parts of cities, traditional scenes, agricultural scenes, contemporary lifestyles, and people’s behavior and customs.
Al-Saigh said that the company’s drive was to nurture the talents of amateur photographers. The works of the selected photographers are displayed on the pages of the calendar.
He said that the company has a different theme for its calendar every year. “Last year our calendar displayed the art work of disabled children with the cooperation of The Disabled Children’s Association,” he noted.
The calendars are distributed to clients, retail outlets, friends, media outlets and other private institutions.
