Sahara
1978-1982. That was a lifetime ago. Across the span of those four years, my parents undertook four trans-Sahara expeditions which would see us cross, north to south, the largest hot desert in the world (the Arctic and the Antarctic being the only two larger deserts by area), each time entering the North African desert from different ports of entry: Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. I was ten years old in 1978. My sister was eight.
Almost half a century later, I pour over a handful of boxes containing slides that were taken, as I said, in another life and another place. The years have not been kind to them. They have lived in numerous drafty attics across Europe, been exposed to damp, dust, heat, mold and a truck accident which saw them scattered all over a French roadway.
I have had a lot of fun restoring some of the images taken by my father, Charles Bogaard, on these excursions. To this day, my parents live their best lives on the road, seeking one horizon after another.
-Alex
