Category: Photography

This cool photo was taken by Abdulla Ashkanani and you can see the larger version on his flickr page [Here]

If you’re at Marina Mall this weekend you can pass by the Marina Mall bridge for a photography exhibition being held by the Voluntary Work Center. They have a ton of photos on display taken by various photographers and some of the stuff is pretty good.

I saw the camera above on Gizmodo today. It’s a digital camera that’s waterproof and costs just KD10. Seems like the perfect thing to take to the chalet on weekends and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. It’s a 1.3MP camera which doesn’t sound like much but it’s more than you need for Facebook or posting on a blog. It also shoots video but from what I read the quality isn’t that great. In case you drop it the camera floats on the water which is pretty cool as well.

Anyway here is the link to the camera on [Amazon]

Update: My friend just told me he got the Kodak camera above from Amazon for KD18. It’s 12MP and looks a lot cooler than the KD10 camera I originally posted. It also comes in 3 colors. Here it is on [Amazon]

My previous post on the KPTC double decker buses reminded of some pictures I had taken awhile back. I was at junkyards when I spotted a bunch of old KPTC double decker buses parked together in miserable condition. It looked very sad just surrounded by junk and filled with junk. Below are some pictures I had taken on that trip.

Two Atlanteans for export to Kuwait at Northern Counties, Pemberton. 9 May 1983. [original]

Found these two pictures of the old KPTC double decker busses. Turns out they were built by the Northern Counties Motor and Engineering Company in England. The picture above is of the buses before they were shipped to Kuwait while the picture below is of the buses unpainted being taken for a test drive to make sure they’re working fine.

Turning into Enfield Street, Pemberton, heading for Northern Counties, a unpainted Leyland Atlantean for Kuwait. 28 April 1983. [original]

Here’s a quick spoiler, I’m very disappointed. When I first saw pictures of the X100 I fell in love with it right away but after playing with the camera all day I’m having trouble understanding how Fuji went wrong with this. The issues this camera has aren’t major but there are many which I am going to try and go through some below.

The first issue is with the Menu/OK button on the rear (pictured above). I read a lot of complaints online about how the button is too small and very difficult to press. I thought psshhht whatever, can’t be that bad. Well it IS that bad, I don’t know how the engineers at Fuji missed this but the button is tiny and nearly impossible to press. Every time I try to press it I end up pressing up or down instead. It’s really bad and very annoying when you’re trying to quickly select an option or delete a file since you keep missing the OK button and spend wasted seconds going up and down instead.

The second issue is with the focusing. It doesn’t focus! It’s ridiculous how terrible the focus system on the camera is. At first I thought I was having problems focusing on low contrast objects but I was just checking some portrait shots I took today and I don’t think any one of them is focused properly. Another issue with the focus is the fact the camera thinks macro mode is like a mile away. With most cameras you need to activate the macro mode when you get super close to objects but with the X100 you have to activate macro mode on objects that are more than 50cm away. And if that’s not bad enough after you’re done taking a picture in macro mode the camera puts it back in regular mode so if you have to shoot another shot in macro you need to activate it again. Finally when in macro mode the optical view finder turns into an electric view finder (which I hate) so during my shoot today the camera spent a lot of time swapping between the two modes and it annoyed the hell out of me.

There are some cool things about the camera, just not enough to make me want to get it. I love the retro look and the metal body although I do wish it was a bit heavier. The X100 has something called a hybrid viewfinder where information is displayed on top of what you’re seeing through the viewfinder. Hard to explain but imagine looking through a view finder and seeing information displayed on top of your subjects [Check this visual]. Some reviewers online complained about the start up speed and recording speed but it didn’t cause me any issues when I was shooting.

Now compared to my GF1 I prefer the GF1 in every way except for two things, the knobs and the optical view finder. I really like the exposure dial on top of the X100, it’s similar to the one I have on the Canon G11 and it’s a knob that should be on top of all the cameras. The shutter speed and aperture ring around the lens are also two things the X100 has and I wish the GF1 had as well. Lastly I wish the GF1 had an optical viewfinder like the X100. The X100 has both an optical viewfinder and an electronic one which you can swap between. I don’t care for the EVF, I have it on my GF1 and would rather have a proper optical viewfinder instead like the X100. Size wise the GF1 is slightly smaller and heavier than the X100. Focusing, although the GF1 isn’t that great focusing and although it gives me trouble every now and then it’s like ten times better than the X100, that’s how bad the X100 is.

Basically because I got to try out the X100 I’ve decided to cancel my Amazon.com order and stick with my Panasonic GF1. I really really wanted to love the X100 but I didn’t enjoy using it and if I’m not going to enjoy using it then whats the point in getting it? Now keep in mind my review was based on my experience with the camera in one day. There are a ton of better reviews online which I’ve listed at the end of this post. But personally I had issues with the camera shooting today and ones that would effect my ability to take shots the way I want. I’m not a great photographer and need every help I can get out of the camera and I felt the X100 was holding me back with some of it’s annoyances. Below are some pictures I took with the X100, they’re not as is from the camera since I’ve color processed them.

The X100 is available on Amazon for around $1,200 [Amazon Link]

Here are some reviews online:
Luminous Landscape 1
Luminous Landscape 2
The Pictorial
DigitalRev
Steve Huff Photo 1
Steve Huff Photo 2
Steve Huff Photo 3
Enticing the light 1
Enticing the light 2
Enticing the light 3
Photo Radar
ePhotozine
DC Resource
135 Street

A few days back I posted about the Fuji X100 digital camera and a reader was kind enough to lend me his to try out and review. I was having a really hard time deciding if I should get it or not since the reviews online are so conflicting and now I understand why. One minute I am going wow this is amazing and the next I’m going WTF?! I’m already divided on if I love this camera or hate it and I’ve just been playing around with it for 30 minutes! Will use it all day tomorrow and post a proper first impression and most importantly a side by side comparison with the Panasonic GF1. I really want to love this camera so hopefully everything works out fine.

I was just checking the blog ArtKuwait when I found out that there was an article on Art in Kuwait yesterday in The Economist. Turns out there is an artist who currently has his work exhibited on four billboards in Hawalli (who would have thought) and they’re going to be up there until the end of the month (check pic above). Here are some excerpts from the article:

ABOVE a busy roundabout in Hawalli, a suburb of Kuwait, loom four giant but subtle photographs about Arab identity and placelessness by Tarek Al-Ghoussein. A Palestinian photographer originally from Kuwait, Mr Al-Ghoussein has exhibited widely, but this is the first time his work has been seen in the country of his birth. Kuwaitis and Palestinians have a chequered past. Decades of relative harmony between the two peoples were soured when Yasser Arafat, as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, applauded Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Since then, the Palestinian population in Kuwait has dwindled from nearly half a million to around 40,000.

…

Mr Al-Ghoussein’s billboards will be on view in Kuwait until the end of April. They are the second instalment in a series of four art projects by Palestinians that includes Khalil Rabah, Jack Persekian and Tarek Atoui. Instigated and underwritten by Rana Sadik, a collector and philanthropist of Palestinian descent, the series is arranged to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Kuwait’s independence and the 20th anniversary of its liberation from Iraq.

“The billboards are a way to remind people on both sides of the positive historical relationship between Palestinians and Kuwaitis,” said Abdulaziz Al-Mulla, a board member of the Kuwait Graduates Society, an organisation of some 5,000 members. Interestingly, the artist’s father was Ambassador to America in the 1960s and instrumental in getting Kuwait into the United Nations. So it is apposite that Mr Al-Ghoussein’s photographs have been given such a cordial diplomatic role.

You can read the full article on The Economist [Here]

via ArtKuwait

Cy from the blog Cyrographics uploaded pictures of Al Hamra Cinema before it got demolished. He used to work for a company that surveyed the site and he found these photos while searching through some old files. This is what he had to say about the photos:

Disclaimer Notice: I am not the owner of these photos, they are just uploaded for the sole purpose of sharing a rare glimpse of Kuwait history for the younger generations of citizens and expats alike. All credits are due to LAS Architectural and Consultancy Office

I was browsing through my files from my previous office when I chanced upon these photos of the Al Hamra Cinema as it was before. Our office (LAS) used to do a lot of Master Planning studies and proposals for the development of Kuwait City and this area, Al Maqwa Al Shargi, where the cinema used to stand, was part of one of our studies. I don’t know much about the history of this cinema, or even Kuwait in general, but I know this cinema was and will always be a part of each and every Kuwaiti families lives.

We took these photos during our survey of the area in 2003.
The other photos in the set were taken in the latter part of 2004, I guess for sentimental reasons, when the building was demolished to give way to the construction of the Al Hamra Tower.

These files had been stored in our hard disks since then, almost forgotten and in danger of being corrupted, deleted and worst, being lost forever.

You can check his blog post [Here]
You can check out all the pictures [Here]

Also, here is my post on Al Hamra Tower that was built in place of Al Hamra Cinema [Link]

Phaidon Press (the best publisher in the world, period) uploaded a video to YouTube where the legendary photo-journalist and photographer Steve McCurry shares the amazing story behind the famous picture of the camels in front of the burning oil wells. [YouTube]

Blogger Mathai just posted amazing pictures he took at the Motocross Challenge which I posted about last week. This is the second event in a row where I could have gone and taken pictures at but instead decided to spend it at home sitting on my ass. The first event was the Kuwait Rally and now I missed out on the Motocross Challenge. I’m a perfect example of how even when there are things to do in Kuwait I end up sitting at home and watching TV instead. To check out all his pictures click [Here]

I just got back home after spending around an hour walking in Salmiya taking pictures of the dust storm. It was a very uncomfortable experience since I didn’t have a mask or goggles but I think I got some pretty good pictures. I am going to go through them now and try to post the best ones up tonight but I have a few I posted on twitter which I took with my iPhone like the one above of a guy wearing a plastic bag on his head. You can check out my twitter photos [Here]

Back in March 2003 I posted pictures of what until today I thought was the worst dust storm that hit Kuwait but looking at those pictures right now I realized today’s dust storm is the strongest I’ve ever seen in Kuwait. You can check out my old post from 2003 with the pictures [Here]

Update: Below are a few pictures I like from the ones I shot tonight.

Someone from Al Hamra Tower sent me the picture above plus a few more showing the tower above the clouds. Looks pretty cool and reminds me of the famous Emirates Tower photo.

Here is a pdf with a few more pictures [Link]

Remember the large mural (above) which I posted about awhile back? Well Cajie a reader of the blog took photos of the mural and stitched all the photos together to form one very wide image. You can check out the large image of the mural [Here]

Q8geeks posted pictures taken at todays rally here in Kuwait. Looks like there were a lot of good shot opportunities and I’m sure the great weather today helped out all the photographers. [Link]