Maybe somewhat counter-intuitively, vegetables & fruits like melons, watermelons, cucumbers, etc. (that contain a lot of water), often grow well in dry-looking sandy soil. I think it may be partly because the soil is loose, so their roots can go deeper more easily, to reach the water below. As a result, I've often seen and heard of these plants growing or being grown near rivers and lakes, even somewhat far away from the water's edge, because there is water below, in the water table.
Source: I did a lot of gardening in my teens and also read a lot about it.
In the article it’s noted that the digital camera couldn’t handle the fine dust and sand of Sudan, whereas the film camera did. Are there digital cameras can handle such difficult environmental conditions?
I don't think it was so much the film vs digital, as the two aren't that different (digital has a sensor and no motor/film roll, but they're otherwise pretty much the same). The Mamiya must have just had better weather sealing, being a much more expensive camera.
Depends a _lot_ on the specific camera (and lens). Pro SLR lenses and bodies are generally more effectively sealed than consumer equipment, and generally more robust. A Nikon D5 with a well sealed prime lens will stand up to an awful lot of mistreatment. More, in fact, than the Mamiya he used.
However, medium format cameras are the best you can get for still image quality while still having something you can reasonably call "handheld", which is likely why he chose one. Also, this Mamiya (like most film MF cameras) is massively cheaper than a nikon d5, which means you care less about risk from dust damage etc.
Fuji's has one of the best weather-sealing (dust & rain) in the mirrorless segment. No idea about the lens he used, but my X-Pro2 survived (rain & snow) storms, even with a non-tropicalized lens.
OT - factoid. The photos in this article were taken by my former CEO, Christopher Michel. A serial entrepreneur with two exits (Military.com & Affinity Labs). He then turned into a full time photographer, but still advises companies, invests in a few and sits on a few boards.
There are a couple of moderately well known landscape pros that do. But yes. I'd also note that this is a MF camera, with (what looks like) drum scanned film. This tends to produce images with much better color rendition and improved sharpness and contrast than you'd typically see out of a "normal" camera. The photographer also appears to have used polarizing filters in at least one of the shots. Given all this, none of the images look significantly manipulated to me.
The Italian grave robber who destroyed more than 40 pyramids finally found his treasure, became rich by selling it in Germany and was buried in Bologna's monumental cemetery, among the city's most important people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Ferlini
