Dubai: Noor Ali Rashid, the royal photographer, marked 50 years of documenting the history of the UAE at a student photography award ceremony on Wednesday.
The 2009 Noor Ali Rashid Student Documentary Photography Competition, in its fourth year, was organised by Zayed University in collaboration with Dubai Municipality.
It honoured young photographers as a way of encouraging them to follow in the footsteps of Rashid who turns 80 this year.
"Today is a great day for me, this year is my 80th birthday. I am happy that by the blessings of God I am still working," said Rashid.
On the amateur photographers, he said: "They are more talented than me."
He advised the youth to "create a new thing for the new generation and to develop photography and make it easier for the nation." He compared photography to his early career as a photojournalist in Karachi more than 50 years ago.
Speaking at the competition, Abdul Rahman Mohammad Al Owais, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development and chairman of the General Authority of Youth and Sports Welfare, said: "It is an excellent initiative - a university honouring a guy who spent 50 years of his life documenting the history of the UAE in photos."
A total of 61 Emirati students, both male and female, took part in the competition.
The students were from national colleges around the UAE and the winners and their two runners in each category were honoured in the presence of Shaikh Saeed Bin Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Dr Sulaiman Al Jasem, the vice president of Zayed University.
Asma Ahmad Darwish, 23, from Zayed University, won first place for the UAE land segment in the photography category. Her winning entry was that of her shadow against a desert landscape.
"This is the UAE land and this is my shadow. It is like my identity stamped on my land," she said, explaining her winning artwork.
Huda Ahmad Safar, 20, from Sharjah Women's College, won in the her student documentary category.
