Synopsis for Potential Petra & Hegra Photography Book

To Rebecca Foote and the Royal Commission for alUla

My name is Bashar Tabbah and I am a historical photographer based out of Jordan. Over the past several years I have proudly authored a number of photographic/historical books, as well as collaborated with a number of notable organisations and figures. These include the Royal Hashemite Court, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS-Jordan), and the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME).

Over the past six years, I have had the privilege of photographing Petra in exceptional detail, and beyond documenting over one hundred landmarks within the site and its suburbs, I carried out several night photography and aerial studies of the site.

In 2021, my friend and co-author (of my first book), Jane Taylor invited me out to alUla to assist her with photographing the area for her book about the region, we spent several days and nights photographing and producing some truly beautiful work.

After publishing my most recent book last March, I began to look at what potential projects I could work on next, and that’s when the thought of an artistic coffee table book that combines the beauty of Hegra and Petra into one space, bringing the two major hubs of Nabataea together and connecting them as they have been historically, something I believe will be beneficial to both sites.

Linking both UNESCO world heritage sites in one book will achieve a lot for both, but more importantly for Hegra it will help elevate its status and bring more attention to a wider audience by highlighting its nature as a sister city of Petra and not some independent site, no doubt that it will encourage more interest and hopefully tourism in Hegra as well as in alUla.

My second book, ‘Unique and Outstanding’, was a collaboration with HRH Princess Dana Firas, director of ICOMOS-Jordan. The book explores Jordan’s UNESCO World Heritage sites, and was a departure from my usual narrative style as it focused heavily on photography with only a small amount of text. I absolutely loved producing the book and noted the positive reaction of the public, and so I would like to so something very similar in size and style.

The book is square in format (28 x 28 cm), bi-lingual (Arabic/English), with around 130 images and 15k words worth of text.

I own the rights to my images of Petra and I am aware that I was brought out to assist Jane on her project, for which she had signed an agreement with the RCU, and so in order to respect all parties involved, I would like to ask for permission to use the images which I took myself of Hegra for a potential book, and nothing more.

As for production and publication, the concept is in the very early stages of brainstorming, but my current vision is that it will be similar in shape and size to the UNESCO book, and either I will write the text myself with the assistance of several Arab and international specialists or I will commission one of them to write for the book. On all accounts the text should not exceed 15k words and will be focused on a general history of the Nabataean kingdom.

As for balance, the idea is to give equal weight to both sites, splitting the book in half, with each section dedicated to each city. Furthermore, I plan to experiment with the design concept of the book being omnidirectional, i.e., the book begins from whichever side the reader opens from.

As for publishing, I’m leaning towards locally either via Jabal Amman Publishing or independently, although there is a slim chance that a UK-based publisher might be interested in the project.

I thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing back from you