Taking pictures of our dog Geo is a difficult task. Other then the fact that he moves too much but also the fact that his body is a light color while his face is a dark black. Most of my pictures underexpose his face while keeping his body color intact or over exposing his body while bringing out the details of his face. So I was surprised to see that iDip managed to get a very nice shot of Geo with a perfectly lit face and natural colored body. Check it out. [Link]
Category: Photography
Geo by iDip
Fire next door… again
Around 10 days ago a fire broke out in the building right in front of my office and today a fire broke out in the building to the side of my office. The firefighter in the picture above was really pissed off at the other firefighters driving the fire trucks since they all parked in the wrong area and he was trying to get them to park in front of the main entrance of the building. He was screaming at everyone and even at the cops who had parked their car strategically between the firetrucks and the building on fire. I snapped a few shots and then left for lunch.
Before and After
Another cool thing I found on flickr, the pictures above were taken on a beach in Kuwait by Psycho Milt. They are both pictures of the same car except the first one was taken back in September and the second one taken mid March. Pretty cool.
Also if you like shots of crashed cars, Psycho Milt has a whole bunch of them which he shot here in Kuwait. You can check those out by clicking the links below:
PictureSync
A point-and-shoot with 3200 ISO, sounds promising. If I see some cool sample shots at the high ISO’s I might just get one for myself.. although I am not a Fuji fan.. [Link]
Kuwait Sky Tours
Susan, a regular reader of the site recently went on a sky tour of Kuwait and this is what she had to say about it:
A recent start-up called Kuwait Sky Tours is now operating in Kuwait and taking passengers on 15-minute helicopter rides at a cost of KD25 each. The 15-minute flight takes off from the helipad behind the Sultan Centre restaurant on the Gulf Road, travels up to Green Island and then back down to the Amir’s Palace in Salwa, before returning to land. It is a great way too see Kuwait from a different perspective. The helicopter is a MD 500-E and seats 3 adults. There is space for a child or a very skinny person between the pilot and front passenger. If you want to go, give Steve a call on 705 6666. They also fly from Khiran and Failaka on occasion. Cameras are allowed.
You can also go on a larger helicopter, for an hour-long flight for the princely sum of USD1,500. Or, try the executive jet, which is ready to fly you and 13 of your friends to any destination in the world! Don’t know that price; I was too afraid to ask!
P.S. Don’t talk into the headset during the flight. The pilot told me off!
Here are Susan’s pictures from her trip:
The Helicopter
Looking North West
Marina Mall and Marina Hotel
The Scientific Center
View of Salmiya
The Gulf Road and Kuwait Towers
House in Salwa
Radisson SAS
My mum was a flight attendant on Kuwait Airways during the 70’s and she always talks about how great the experience was and how she got to travel to so many places and meet a lot of new people. Two months ago while I was in Lebanon I found a stash of old photos she had taken during that time and I found the pictures really interesting since I love photos from the 70’s and 80’s that deal with Kuwait.
[Click here to view the pictures]
Note: The last two pictures were taken on board the Amir’s plane (Amir Sabah al-Salim Al Sabah) which she served on the last period of her career.
Note 2: If anyone has a bunch of “colored” photos dealing with Kuwait which were taken during the 70’s and 80’s send me them and I will post them online.
Note 3: The uniforms were designed by Dior.
Geo on Grass
This is a picture of our dog Geo I took over the weekend.
Adobe Lightroom
The photography software Adobe Lightroom beta is out and I downloaded and played around with it for a bit now and it seems cool. The installation file is like only 4MB and the system requirements needed to run are very acceptable. Unlike Aperture, Adobe Lightroom not only runs on my G5 at work but will also run on my older G4 at home. Seems like Adobe really wants to kick Apple’s ass. [Link]
Note: The beta is currently available only for Macs.
Holga in Lebanon
I took my Holga Camera with me to Lebanon and while I was there I took some pictures. A bunch came out a bit blurry I am guessing either because I wasn’t holding the camera steady enough or the fact that the focus system on this $20 camera isn’t very reliable. Some pictures turned out interesting and I am really starting to get a handle on this camera. Its terrible for indoor shots (no flash, shutter speed 1/100 with 8f, my film is iso 100) but does a great job during the day outdoor. Its definitely a landscape camera. Here are my favorite pictures from my trip. [Link]
Phew its over
The photography shoot was today and it went good. We originally had 4 different locations we were going to shoot but in the end I had to kill one because it wasn’t going to work out. I really like shooting ads in Lebanon. The quality of work you get from here is really world class. The photographer we were using is really the best one I have ever dealt with. For people living in Lebanon you might have seen his work, he does all the Aishti and Aizone shots. The Aishti work is so good that I used to think they were shot in Europe and was surprised when I found out they were shot in Lebanon by a Lebanese. Anyway I come back to Kuwait on Saturday, can’t wait.
Photographers Studio
This is what I call a photography studio. This picture only shows half the place, there is still a similar sized area to the right of this picture. The studio is on the 4th floor of an old warehouse in an industrial area. There is a large lift that fits cars, thats how that benz is up on the 4th floor. Its actually higher then the 4th floor since the first floor is like 4 stories high and then the rest of the floors are as high as this studio. S
Why don’t we have studios like this in Kuwait? How hard is it to find a large warehouse and turn it into a studio?
SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!
Awhile ago me and Nat drove up the mountain a bit to check out the snow and fuck was I shocked. There was A LOT of fucking snow, like a lot more then I had expected and imagined. I don’t remember a Christmas where there was this much snow by now. I got up to Faytroun an area before the ski slopes in Faraya and I had to turn back because the car was starting to slide and slip. I took some pictures though and video, the temperature was minus one. I will try to get the video online but here are the pictures:
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4
Update: Here is the video, you probably need quicktime to view it. [MPEG 1.8MB]
POLAROID
I got a really cool book today called The Polaroid Book. I haven’t opened the package yet so I don’t know hows the book inside. I just really love the books package and I am afraid to open it. Looking at the reviews on Amazon it seems other readers also didn’t want to open the package. I guess I will just keep the book closed until I get bored of the package and then tear it open.
It was empty
I took the old film I found to get it developed today. Turned out it was empty.