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Bahrain-based travel writer Francine Burlet is using her photographic and artistic talent to highlight the threatened way of life of the kingdom's traditional fishing families.
Her collection is called 'Endangered Species' and displays six images highlighting the life of Bahraini men who make their living from the sea.
She is one of eight participating photographers exhibiting their work at the Al Riwaq Art Space in Adliya in a 'typology' photographic exhibition entitled 'Same, Same but Different' until early March.
Francine, 44, who lives in Amwaj Islands, said: "The Bahrainis are inheritors of the Dilmun civilisation and are seamen by tradition - pearl merchants, divers or fishermen. But the sea appears to be pushed away from the villages and from the ancestral ports of the island. Three million tons of sand is taken from Bahrain's waters each year for land reclamation and construction purposes, harming the marine life and the coral reefs. Where do fishermen fit into this new landscape?
"They are becoming an 'endangered species', just like the fish they catch. I thought it was urgent to give them a face and a voice."
Francine's passion for photography began at the age of seven during a trip with her parents to the French Island of Corsica. She said: "I was so shocked by the beauty of the high rocky mountains falling into the deep blue sea that I started taking imaginary pictures using my finger - I had no camera!
"My father started teaching me how to take real photographs with his own camera and I never stopped after that."
Francine's work was showcased at an exhibition in the US last June after the curator of the Annual Chicago Arabesque Festival stumbled across her photographs on her Facebook page. She said: "He invited me to exhibit 20 images in an open-air gallery where huge posters of Bahrain that I had taken were featured in the middle of a street for five days - it was a dream come true!"
Francine, from France, has been living in the kingdom for two years. She has travelled to more than 60 countries over 20 years as a travel reporter and is fascinated by the island's 'melting-pot' of cultures. She said: "A photograph is life distilled and preserved for eternity. The fundamentals of photography are an expressive face, a fleeting moment in nature or an abstract shape."
Francine will also be showcasing her work alongside photographers Corinne Faure and Didier Audbert at the Arts Centre next to the Bahrain National Museum in November as part of the postponed French Week 2011.
