A Saudi family

This girl in Yanbu was hovering around the edge of our tour group, obviously curious, so I said hello to her and she said hello back.  When she got in the car with her parents she waved, and I gestured with the camera to ask if I could take her picture. 

I love teenage girls

Tourists are a new experience for Saudis, but the people were very friendly and would smile and say hello. But only the bold, beautiful teenage girls really approached us. They took our pictures, and we took theirs, and a few of the bravest ones asked if they could take videos. They wanted to know my name and where I was from and where else I was going in Saudi Arabia. They reminded me of the girls in Iran.

The guide in Jeddah yelled at one girl for bothering me and I said, “It's all right. I told her she could take my picture.” The girl just beamed at me. Honestly I was happy to have them take as many pictures as they wanted—a little recompense for all the pictures I've been taking on the sly for the past twenty years.

Urban poetry

A teenage boy on skates hanging off the back of a bus in Istanbul.  (Pointing out that the skater is a teenager, and a boy, seems almost redundant in these circumstances.)

I took this picture with my phone on the very long cab ride to my hotel the first night, when I was in the kind of semi-hallucinatory state you only achieve with serious sleep deprivation or really good drugs. And outside it was Istanbul, which is a mild hallucinogen all on its own.

Which is why I completely forgot about this picture until I was looking for something else last week, and the spooky light and unfamiliar pose made me take a closer look.

I love the way the boy is posed like a dancer, leg extended, hip cocked, waiting for the bus to move again.