A chance to see the bushy-tailed, large-eared foxes found in the Sahara Desert, comes "once in a lifetime," said Attum, an assistant professor of biology at Indiana University-Southeast, in New Albany. "That's something I'll never see again."
That moment is captured in his book, "Sinai: Landscape and Nature in Egypt's Wilderness," published in September by the American University in Cairo Press. It features 150 wildlife and landscape photographs Attum's taken over 13 years during his research trips to the Sinai Peninsula.
He's photographed the area's unique flora and fauna — such as fennec foxes, Egyptian long-footed lizards and viper snakes — and the desert, whose sands are "like an ocean," flowing as they're caught in the wind and stretching to meet the horizon.
It's a side of Egypt few people see, Attum said. He first became enamored with the area at age 16, after trips with his Egyptian mother, and has studied its wildlife since 1998. He's currently on a Fulbright fellowship in Jordan, where he's studying striped hyenas and the Nubian ibex, a tan-colored goat that mainly lives in mountainous desert terrain.
In his book and in his IUS classroom, Attum uses the full-color photos of his adventures as a teaching tool. When readers see a photo of the fennec fox, he explains how its large ears act like radiators to keep its brain cool, its huge eyes allow it to find food at night and its sand-colored coat lets it blend with the desert.
"A picture's worth a thousand words," said Attum, who's also received a Blue Earth Alliance photography fellowship.
As a biologist, Attum studies creatures on scientific level — and numbers, such as weight and population size.
But his self-taught photography, which has been featured in The Courier Journal, National Geographic, Egypt Today and The Jordan Times among other places, "allows me to look at it from a creative perspective," he said. "To see the environment in a different way — not quantitatively, but patterns in nature."
Paying attention to nature's repeating shapes, elements and lights, helps him "come up with more creative research projects," he said. "It allows me slow down and think about what I'll do on the next trip."
Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/ne ... /18057493/
