Wadi Hadramawt, Yemen, 2005

Clad in black abayas and sun-shielding straw hats called nakhls, women work the fields in central Yemen’s Wadi Hadramawt, an oasis on the southern periphery of Arabia’s Rub al Khali, or Empty Quarter.

Occupying a fifth of the Arabian Peninsula, the Rub al Khali is the world’s largest sand sea. Its 225,000 square miles (582,747 square kilometers) claim substantial portions of Saudi Arabia, as well as parts of Oman, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates. About a dozen Bedouin tribes still live in this harsh landscape.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Empty Quarter: Exploring Arabia’s Legendary Sea of Sand, " February 2005, National Geographic magazine)