Khalid Al Thani: Malamh

A two-volume photographic study—in color and in black and white—of the cycles and changing moods of the Qatari desert.

Since 2007, Khalid Al Thani (born 1980) has taken tens of thousands of photographs (and counting) of the Qatari desert. The effects he teases from his subjects are decidedly painterly—tone, texture and suggestion prevail over any documentary exactitude of line or form. By faithfully returning to the same motifs (the Sidra tree, the oryx, the horse), his approach resembles that of certain great painters (Cézanne with Mont Sainte-Victoire, Monet with his water lilies, Morandi with his bottles and jars) who revisited the same beloved subjects over years and decades.
Malamh, meaning "details" or "features," is comprised of one volume of Al Thani’s color work, and another of his black-and-white work. The image sequence in each book begins with a sunrise, takes us through the changing moods of day and ends with a starry night—a lyrical cycle that Al Thani reinvents each time he visits the desert.