Afghan With A Rose, 1968 © Roland & Sabrina Michaud
The Empty Quarter Gallery Gate Village, Bldg 02 P.O.BOX 506697 Dubai Émirats arabes unis
There once was a man who loved a woman so much he could not be without her. The man, a French photographer named Roland Michaud met a Moroccan born girl called Sabrina in the late 1950’s. They began their life together traveling through the mystic lands of the Orient discovering and documenting its wonders. Their images are poems written with light and shadow, colour and texture, transcending space and time.
They made their way by car and by horseback, by boat and on foot; crossing the dramatic landscape of the Orient and documenting its rugged charms. From ruined cities covered with desert sands to the Pamir Mountains, where caravans of camels walk across frozen rivers in winter, to the Turkestan bazaars along the old Silk Road, Roland and Sabrina travelled and came to love this exotic paradise and its proud peoples.
A collection of Roland & Sabrina’s most famous works are on display in this exhibition spanning a lifetime of travel and dedication. An enchanting journey not to be missed.
Roland was born in France in1930; Sabrina in the city of Rabat, Morocco in 1938.
In 1960, the couple began on a photographic journey in their Citroen car to Ethiopia and North Africa where they acquired their first images later published in the French press.
Buddhist Nuns on top of mont Jiuhua. Anhui Province (China),2002 © Roland & Sabrina Michaud
In 1964, inspired by literary works like The Arabian Nights and Sufis tales, Indian epics and the writings of Chinese poets, the Michauds embarked on a 4 year journey from Paris to Singapore, taking photographs that revealed to the western world previously unknown countries which included Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and the land of the Kurds. On their return to Paris, they published their first photographic book.
During the winter of 1970- 1971, this time on horseback, they found themselves in the region of Pamir, Afghanistan where the couple joined a caravan of Kyrgyz herding camels. They documented the lives of Pashtuns, Tadjiks, Hazara farmers, Uzbeck horsemen, Nuristani mountain dwellers and Dervish vagrants. Their famous book “The Caravans of the Tartary” (1977) was a culmination of this incredible journey.
Now in their 70’s and 80’s they are still travelling to the Middle East and Asia and are faithful to their old Leica “Argentic” camera.
Their motto: Old age is winter for the ignorant, but harvest for the wise.
Roland & Sabrina are authors of 23 photographic books, translated into several languages, which have become a source of inspiration for generations of photographers and travellers a like.