Category: Photography

I passed by the junkyards earlier today to take some pictures and while I was there I noticed there were a ton of dogs. It’s not the first time I spot wild dogs at the junkyards but today I counted over 60 roaming around either alone or in packs. I started stalking a few and found them interesting to watch so I decided take pictures of many of them as I could so I could share on the blog

It wasn’t easy finding all the dogs and I’m positive I missed a lot since the whole area is full of streets and alleyways and unless I was planning to spend the whole day there I couldn’t go through each and everyone of them. I also only took pictures of the dogs that were on the streets but there must be a lot more in the actual junkyards or hiding in the cracks and crevices of old abandoned containers and cars.

I spent 2 hours driving around the junkyards looking for dogs and none of the ones I spotted seemed aggressive. Some looked sad and depressed while others seemed happy roaming around. One thing I noticed is the fact that none of the people in the area were afraid of the dogs. I spoke to a bunch of workers and from what they told me the dogs live and survive on their own without any help from humans. The workers in the area don’t feed or take care of the dogs but they also don’t mind them and none are afraid of them. It’s really sad but so interesting at the same time. Check out some pictures below.

When I first heard that the orange Chihuly sculpture at 360 Mall got damaged I got really upset since I imagined a large chunk of it had fallen to the ground. Luckily my imagination had run wild and the damage turned out to be barely visible. I passed by 360 Mall earlier tonight and actually had a hard time spotting the damage which is great.

If you’re curious to know how both the Chihuly sculptures were built check out these pictures that were taken during the installation. [Link]

A friend of mine just posted some great pictures of Extreme Sports in Tilal Complex. I’ve written about them before but never really had my camera with me to take any pictures. You could check his shots out [Here]

9ura.com is a Kuwait-based group that was created to showcase talents and educate people about the Middle East through photography.

They just launched a few days ago and they’re holding their first photography competition with the theme “Environments in the GCC”. There will be three categories: Culture, Nature, and Urban and I think I already have a photograph that I will be submitting.

If you want to take part in this competition you need to upload your photo to their website some time between August 15th and October 15th, 2011.

Here is a link to their website [Link]

Photo above taken by Bader Al-Ajeel

IMPORTANT: I just read the fine print and there is an important point that I previously missed. According to their fine print, by submitting your photographs to 6ura.com each of your submissions becomes THEIR property. They will have free, permanent, non-exclusive, and royalty-free rights to use, reproduce, and/or display your photos in any format they please. Personally, this means I won’t be submitting anything to them since I want to remain the owner of my photographs.

By accident I found this website full of photos from Kuwait dating back to the 1950s all the way to current times. The photos I’ve posted here are just some of my favorites, but you can check out all of them by clicking [Here]

Notice the photos on the wall?

Love the Dodge

Hippo loose in the zoo after the Iraqi invasion

I’ve previously posted about old cinemas in Kuwait but I’ve got some more old photos to share, ones that aren’t on the Cinescape Facebook page. The picture above for example is of the Hawalli open air cinema. I can’t imagine sitting on this hard metal chairs for 2 hours and in this heat, not sure how they used to do it before. Below are all the pictures I got:

If you want to see some more old pictures you can check out the ones that are on the Cinescape website [Here]

Thanks Ali

I haven’t been to Failaka since the late 80s but looking at these pictures taken by Kenneth I’m thinking I should really pay a visit and maybe even spend the night since the hotel above looks great. [Link]

I found out about the website “Kuwait Invasion – The Evidence” and I’m really surprised I didn’t come across it before. The website contains over 1,200 pictures taken right after the 1990 invasion as photographic evidence to all the destruction caused. The pictures are organized into galleries but each page has only 12 thumbnails at a time so you will need to do a lot of page flipping to see them all. In case you’re looking for something specific you could try the search feature on the website but I’m not sure if all the images are tagged properly.

I flipped through 80% of the photos and managed to find a picture of Safeway and Showbiz but I wasn’t able to find any pictures of Kids R Us for some reason. I also saw a lot of pictures, the kind I hadn’t seen before like the one above of a residential door barricaded to keep the Iraqi’s out. Most of the photos feel very eerie and I only wish there was an easier way to view them all. Here is the link to the website [Link]

Photos by Adel Al-Yousifi

The Kuwait Scorpions rugby football club is one of the oldest clubs in the Gulf. They were formed back in the 1940s when the Kuwait Oil Company and the British Army played the region’s first ever recorded rugby fixture and they’re still around today and still very active. The pictures below are of the Kuwait Scorpions dating back to the 1950’s.

Here is the link to the clubs website [Link]
Here is a link to the the pictures in high resolution [Link]

Thanks Tron

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