Category: Photography

Once upon a time there were two cool photography stores in Kuwait City. One day the building that hosted the two shops got demolished and the stores disappeared…

After a bit of looking around I then noticed one of the shops ended up moving to Muthana Complex but since I didn’t know what happened to the other store I assumed it just closed down. Then out of the blue, a friend of mine tells me he found the place in Shuwaikh. It seems when they demolished the building they decided to move out of Kuwait City and into the industrial area of Shuwaikh for some reason. I passed by and noticed they still had all the used film cameras and lenses on display for sale. They also still have Cokin filters and various tripods, camera bags and studio lights for sale. I was checking out the Nikons, they had the F3, F4 and F5 for sale but none of them were really in great condition. They had two medium format cameras (a Kiev and Mamiya) and also a bunch of compact cameras.

If you’re interested in passing by they’re easy to find. Go to Canada Dry street and if McDonalds is on your right keep going straight past the traffic light and straight under the bridge. Keep going straight you will see a huge place on your left called Ramez. You need to keep driving until you hit the round about and then do a u-turn and head towards the direction you came from. Before the Ramez building you take a right and then you turn left behind the building and drive straight. You should see World Photo in front of you.

Spotted by a friend in Dubai.

Thanks Nancy!

Desert Girl scanned and emailed me a PDF of a National Geographic issue dating back to 1969 that had a pretty long and comprehensive article on Kuwait. I hate reading articles like this because it just makes Kuwait in the present look slow and untrendy compared to Kuwait in the past (I know I know I should GTFO). The architecture, the lifestyle and the exotic essence seemed to have vanished. I found the picture above of this really beautiful looking villa which I think belonged to Ibrahim Al-Shatti in the article and I was wondering how the villa looks like today. It would be very cool if it was still in excellent condition just like in the picture. If anyone knows where this villa is located or can take a picture of it and email me I can then post it here.

Here is the article [6MB PDF]

The Boston Globe as usual have a great display of photographs, this time the subject is record setters. The one pictured above had the following caption:

Egyptian Mohammed Ali Zinhom, 25, attempts a new Guinness World Record for doing push ups on the 2 fingers of his right hand only, in front of the historical site of the Giza Pyramids, Egypt, Monday, March 8, 2010. Zinhom recorded 46 push ups in 49 seconds. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Here is a link to all the photos and the records. [Link]

There is a underpass in Paris that’s only 2.4m in height and a lot of truck drivers ignore the warnings and try to drive through only to have their trucks ram into the ceiling. Someone with a lot of free time set up a blog for this underpass where they postpictures of trucks after trying to go through. [Link]

I was checking out some photos Slate posted from Saddam’s private photo stash when I read a caption that cracked me up. They had the picture above with the following caption underneath:

Saddam was a fan of the Godfather movies and incorporated many Mafia-style elements into his regime—and into his wardrobe.

I found that funny because I could easily imagine him forcing everyone around him to watch the movie and then force them to each dress up as a character from the film. If only he was a Star Wars fan the picture above might have been even funnier. [Link]

I think these are the oldest photos I’ve seen of Kuwait on Flickr. There are only three images in this set but they’re great ones, here are their links:

Sailor in Kuwait
Camel in Kuwait carrying fuel for cooking
Sailing into Kuwait

Thanks Haya!

I found the winning photo for the World Press Photo of the Year disappointing, but the one above, which came first under the General News category was my favorite of the bunch. Check out all the winners [Here]

Thanks Henrik!

Here is another photography related post. This one is a collection of photographs called Happy Accidents in which the photographer Matt Stuart captures a moment in which strange/interesting things are happening. Some are a bit too subtle and fly over my head but most of them are easy to catch. You can check the colection [Here]

Note: When you get to the site click on the photograph to flip between them…

Martin Becka a photographer that uses a special printing/processing technique to make images look as though they were taken back in 1880. His recent project features picture of Dubai and the one above specifically is of Burj Dubai. All his pictures have the same outdated feel and it’s obviously very strange seeing something so modern but looking very old at the same time. He has more pictures which you can see [Here]

A reader called Haresh sent me the picture above which he took last night around 8:45PM. I checked and the picture isn’t retouched, its straight out of the camera. That looks like a pretty big lightning strike.

Picture was taken with an Olympus E-520 with an f-stop of 5.6 and shutter speed of 5 seconds. Location is Salmiya.

I spent most of the day today walking from one track corner to another trying to find the best to take pictures from. I finally found a spot that had green grass and some green painted pavement which I thought added some much needed color to the shots and so I ended up taking most of my shots there. I took around 400 shots today but here are some of my favorites right now. Like yesterday these are just a sample of shots, once I am done going through all my shots I will upload them all to flickr.

I took a bunch of pictures today and the ones below are my favorite at the moment. I might find some more interesting ones later but have some things I need to do now. Tomorrow is the second day of GulfRun5 and they will be racing on a different track which I think looks visually more interesting so I should get better shots tomorrow.

The picture above looks cool, nothing extraordinary but it looks like it was taken on Mars. Then you read the description and it says:

Paprika Mars. Made out of 12 pounds paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, chili powder and charcoal

Matthew Albanese is a miniature photographer, he builds small-scale landscapes and then lights them up realistically to give the viewers the impressions they’re real. The one above is just one of his photos, you should see the rest of his stuff [Here]