From illustration assignment to a missing photojournalist in Gaza

I hadn’t expected a module of my illustration degree to take me to a missing photojournalist in Gaza, so I write this in honour of Nidal al-Waheidi and his superb talent

I had chosen the artist Hergé. We had to draw a piece in an artist’s style, taking the subject from one of our own photographs or one from a newspaper or magazine.

At home we have many TinTin books and I’d wanted to try out Hergé’s famous ‘ligne claire’ approach and this was the perfect opportunity. 

The question was, what photograph was I going to choose?

The subject matter

It had to be meaningful to maximise the depth of this exercise. For a long time now I have become more and more outraged at the situation in Gaza, especially when you see before and after images, ie, before 2023 and now (much footage is from last year), but even moreso when you look at pre-Covid, and, of course pre 1948, which was the Nakba.

Before 2023 the beach in Gaza was a place to relax and have fun, but now it’s often restricted (putting it mildly) and the sea is filled with sewage where infrastructure has been bombed.

Then I found an image from “LightRocket” (Pacific Press) on Getty Images, which I thought was an incredible photograph. There is no way you can imagine that same scene happening anymore with the camels and the fancy dress costume cat riding on one of them. 

What a well-composed, striking image anyway, but when you add the context, it’s incredible!

Rafah, Gaza – 2016/08/10: Palestine clown riding a camel on the beach of the town of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by Nidal Alwaheidi/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images).

The photographer

It really is horrifically telling about our times that my next thought was whether the photographer is still alive or not. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 263 journalists have been killed in Israel/Gaza since 2023 with a further 174 injured and 116 imprisoned.

I wanted to find out.

I discovered that his name is Nidal al-Waheidi. I looked him up with trepidation, hoping so much he was still working, maybe even harbouring ideas that I could even write a comment on his social media telling him what a great photograph he’d taken. But when I checked his Instagram, I found that his last post was on 4 October 2023. 

Further research on Reporters Without Borders revealed in an article called What happened to Gaza journalists Nidal al-Wahidi and Haytham Abdel Wahed, missing since 7 October 2023?

Ain Media photojournalist Haytham Abdel Wahed (left) and Asharq Business correspondent Nidal al-Wahidi (right), who disappeared while reporting on 7 October 2023. (Photo by RWB).

Apparently they had set off for the northern border of the Gaza Strip to cover the Hamas attacks and Israel’s response, and never returned. 

You can read the article here to learn all the details. He was possibly in an explosion, or perhaps in prison (there was word of mouth from another prisoner), but his body hadn’t been found. I was upset - but not surprised - to conclude that at this point he is MIA. His family and friends do not know whether he is dead or alive, which is extremely sad. 

Martin Roux, Head of the RSF Crisis Desk commented this on the case: “The multiple barriers imposed by the Israeli authorities have left the relatives and colleagues of Nidal al-Wahidi and Haytham Abdel Wahed trapped in a purgatory between mourning and hope. They must disclose the identity of all the journalists held in their prisons, as well as those they are holding hostage. Independent access for the international press to the Gaza Strip, which Israel has refused, could also help clarify the fate and whereabouts of the only two journalists that went missing on 7 October 2023.”

My heart goes out to Nidal al-Wahidi and Haytham Abdel Wahed and every single person affected by the genocide in Gaza that continues by Israel with such depraved impunity.

Looking through his photography on his Instagram, it’s clear he’s a very talented and dedicated photographer, and so that made the process of illustrating his photograph such an honour. I’m glad to highlight his talent through this piece and I hope deeply that he is found alive and well.

If you want to learn more about Nidal al-Wahidi and his circumstances, he is listed on the CPJ website as “missing” here.

The process

First of all I sketched out the scene for a portrait/comic format, as per TinTin. I was using Le Crabe Aux Pinces d’Or book, which actually was the perfect reference (sand, camels…) for this exercise. I pretty much took on the same colour palette.

Here is a sketch version of the photograph, laying the groundwork for the piece using Chromograph brushes by True Grit in Procreate.

Rough sketch in Procreate

Next I created another layer over the top of the sketch, reduced its opacity, and created the linework in Hergé’s ‘ligne claire’ style. 

Final linework

For the colour work, I made a layer for most separate pieces of clothing. I created a colour palette that was very similar to Hergé’s and also drew the camels and the people in his style. 

I did enjoy the process of imitating his style, it’s actually much quicker than mine – I can see how it optimised his efficiency for drawing so many comic panels at speed to deadline (as well as optimised for print) – and how few simple lines, say, for example on the camels, were enough and incredibly effective. 

The printing effect of TinTin means that on the printed pages, the colour isn’t always completely consistent.

The pages were printed using separate CMYK colour plates, so the colouring was designed to be clean and reproducible. But we do see that some areas have a deeper hue than others. I reproduced this by adding a clipping mask and then adding a darker shade of the same colour and blending.

As you can see in the image below, this was necessary particularly on the camels and the fancy dress cat.

For shadows I used black to create the shape and then reduced the opacity to 74%.

Layer process in Procreate

As I have the TinTin books at home, I could look closely at the page to reproduce the printed style.

These are some of my reference images from Le Crabe Aux Pinces d’Or. You can see how the sand is darker and lighter in places.

Le Crabe aux Pinces d'Or cover

I noticed that there are rarely patterns in this comic, so that’s why I simplified the patterns in my drawing too. Flat, plain colours would have been far preferable for printing at this time.

Below you can see how the colour is darker in some places on the camels.

Le Crabe aux Pinces d'Or - camels!

We see that the buildings and the sky have some darker and lighter patches, as well as the printing ‘grains’. I wanted to reproduce this, but working digitally without a printing press, the effect can come after and as a top layer rather than at the start of the process. 

This is the final result:

Illustration by Frances Marcellin of Nidal Al-Waheidi's Palestine clown riding a camel on the beach of the town of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip, 2016/08/10

I can’t really say that I hope you enjoyed this strange piece when it includes so much sadness, but at least I hope you felt something uplifting about the highlighting of this wonderful photograph by Nidal Al-Waheidi and I hope very much that he and his colleague (along with all other missing journalists) are returned alive and well to the world.

Thanks for being here! You can read more articles like this at my Substack - hope to see you there!