My story happened 3 years ago, during the warm and sunny month of November, in a desert …
At this time, I was working as a videographer with a team of 4 people, going from country to country and filming everything that we could, according to our video’s schedule. We were covering different topics like “24 hours in a city”, “interviews of local people”, “style”, “traditional food”, and many more. We were also shooting short videos in order to get partnerships with brands… and that is where my story took place.
On the 8th of November, we were in Abu Dhabi, and we had this idea to shoot an advertising video for a perfume with a Christmas spirit AND in the desert. So I won’t tell you how I wound up shopping for a Christmas tree in Abu Dhabi’s Ikea, but I will tell you about this specific moment that happened later on that day and that felt like falling out of a children’s book, my “Arabian Nights” moment. Not as crazy and wonderful as it sounds, but still, an epic moment.
We went to a resort lost in the middle of the desert Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara, we were there for the day, shooting inside the resort, and taking drone shots in the desert outside. One of the main elements of this video was pears, but we needed to color them. To color real pears! Yes, already original, isn’t it?
That is why I ended up in the middle of the desert (well not exactly middle, but you get it, right ?)with my friend-colleague, sitting on the sand, under 40°C, painting real pears in gold.
The hard part was trying not to get them recovered in the sand, they had to dry on one side, and then we could paint the other side, it was kind of mission impossible.
And that’s it. Not a big story, but very memorable!
Imagine that we were using spray paint to color the pears and with a tiny bit of wind, some of the paint surely ended up on the sand. Huhu, golden sand… Arabian Nights, here I am.
This is a moment I will always remember! Partly because I got gold stains on my jumpsuit, but also because it was so out of time and such an unusual thing to do. Actually, my whole experience with this team was crazy like this but that’s a story for another time…
This is a moment I will always remember! Partly because I got gold stains on my jumpsuit, but also because it was so out of time and such an unusual thing to do. I guess it was from moments like this that I learned to take the time to pause, realize what is going on, and fully enjoy the present. I also
learned that this was the type of life I wanted to have: the unexpected one.
