Featured Photographer 1: Dawn Wadsworth

Our trips offer photographers, both amateur and semi-professional, the opportunity to take amazing photographs! Over the next few weeks I will feature work from a few of our guests – I hope you like their pictures as much as I do.

My first photographer, Dawn Wadsworth has joined me on a good number of adventures over the past four years; these expeditions have included wadis, deserts, forts, mountains and many encounters with wildlife. She currently uses a Nikon P1000. Please click on each pic to see the complete photo. All these images are (c) Dawn Wadsworth.

I will let Dawn introduce herself

“I’m an aviation and transport architect based in the middle east for 6 years now – firstly in Qatar, and now in Dubai.

I’ve had a life-long interest in photography – it seems to run in my family, with my maternal grandfather being a leading light in the photographic society and giving lectures on the interesting places he had travelled to. My father has also done this – telling stories of his world travels, too.

My favourite photographic subjects are landscapes, and the natural world – and especially abstract patterns that the world around us creates.

I had heard about Marina from the Offroad Group I had joined in Qatar where I had learned the basics of desert driving. Our group used to travel across to the UAE to take part in Marina’s Dark Skies Challenge, so when the opportunity came to go on one of her Oman trips on my first weekend in Dubai, I jumped at the chance. It was before I had been able to import my car from Qatar, so I rode as a passenger with my friend, Gwendal.

The experience was fabulous, and I wanted to join in behind the wheel as soon as I could – at first, in my Landcruiser Prado, and later in my FJ Cruiser, which had a far more powerful engine.

Since then, I have regularly joined Marina’s trips. There is always something fascinating to see, or someone to meet, great camaraderie, a sense of adventure, and always time to stop and appreciate the view – whether in a wadi, a desert, or on those short stretches ‘on the road!’”

Liwa Crescent

Dawn’s first outing in the beautiful Liwa Crescent. Every year I run a Liwa Crossing trip; taking the smoothest route I can find through enormous dunes with areas of tricky driving, this is an invitational trip for guests who have driven with me a few times before. It’s a real team effort to get everyone over the 100kms and this, as well as the scenery and the challenges we encounter, makes it the most magical of trips. Dawn captured the real “feel” of this trip beautifully!

Other Desert

Since her first outing as a passenger on our first Rub Al Khali and Umm As Sameem trip, Dawn has upgraded her car to an FJ and followed us for a few thousand kilometres over the desert areas of the UAE and Oman.