​

I decided to go to Niger in February 1975 as I had heard about a full moon Touareg festival in the middle of the Sahara desert between Agades and Arlit.

​

Agades is a beautiful town, the houses are built out of clay and straw, which gives it a warm red colour especially at sunset. 

 

From Agades I took a Land Rover with a Touareg guide and after six or seven hours we reached the small oasis where the event was taking place.

 

I then saw coming from the horizon, a small group of women on donkeys with a herd of goats surrounded by  dust coming slowly towards us.  Their faces were painted with black designs, they were wearing very colourful clothes in an impeccable state.

Then came the men, young boys and adults riding their camels, with their blue Indigo turbans and light blue robes.  The turbans are also used to protect their faces in sand storms.  People call them the blue men as the blue dye colours their faces.

 

The women gathered together sit around a circle, Ululating, the men come circling around them with their camels, you could hear the gallops on the sand.

 

I had a Canon camera and used 64 ISO slides Ectachrome and fujichrome and GAF 500 for sunset.