Photos capture the essence of the Baha'i Fast

Now in its fourth year, the “nineteen days” website started as a collaborative project between Baha'i friends and fellow bloggers, Amy Youssefian Sahba and Leila G. T., as a creative way for them to share moments of their early mornings and evenings for the nineteen days of the Baha'i Fast.

Since its second year, they have invited friends from all over the world to contribute, and every day a different pair of photographers shares their images. The 36 photographers slated for this year’s fasting season hail from the U.S. and Canada and from as far away as Hungary, Mozambique, Kyrgyzstan and Guam. In addition, not all of the fasting photographers are Baha'is.

They will be waking up before dawn to have breakfast, pray and prepare for the day. Then they will be sitting down at sunset to break the fast, pray and reflect on the day. Inspirational passages from the Baha'i Sacred Writings are included in the daily postings, along with each photographer’s personal thoughts.

“One of the incredible things about the project is how unified each day’s photographs can be: it is not unusual to find exact matches in horizons, or harmonies in color schemes, in photos that come from across the world,” said Amy and Leila.

You can see this on these sets of photos taken during last year’s nineteen days project in: Windhoek, Namibia and Boston, Massachusetts on March 3, 2010, Los Angeles, California and Luanda, Angola on March 11, 2010 and Brooklyn, New York and Boulder, Colorado on March 21, 2010.

The “nineteen days” project is being dedicated this year to the Baha’is in Iran.

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Reprinted with permission from the Baha'is of the United States
(see U.S. Baha'i News)