Category: Photography

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.

This is a picture of our dog Geo I took over the weekend.

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.

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]

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.

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?

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]

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.

I took the old film I found to get it developed today. Turned out it was empty.

Around 2 or 3 years ago I got a really old medium format camera as a birthday gift. I don’t think the camera works or if it does I haven’t figured out how but today I found the camera in my closet and when I was fiddling with it I noticed a hidden compartment. When I opened it up there was a role of exposed film just lying there. I don’t know who its for but I am guessing it belongs to the person who owned the camera previously. I am not an expert in cameras but I think the camera is over 50 years old at least… I think, so if there are any pictures on the film they should be interesting. Tomorrow I am going to take it to have it developed, hopefully I will have something interesting to share with everyone.

I just developed my first roll of colored film with my Holga camera and the results turned out to be pretty impressive. I really prefer color over black & white shots any day and if you compare my shots this time around to my previous black & white ones you can see why. The colors turned out very vibrant and the Holga effects were more obvious this time around. Click on more to see some other pictures.

I was just checking out pictures taken by a regular commenter on my blog (Hudis) and I found pictures of the Kuwaiti desert but like nothing I had ever seen before. We have mountains in Kuwait? I am guessing this is the Mutlaa Ridge near the Iraqi border and it looks like an amazing place. I didn’t think the pictures were in Kuwait until I noticed a car in one of the pictures had a Kuwaiti license plate. This place looks like a cool place to rock crawl with 4×4’s. [Link]

I just got my first shots with the Holga today. Results were fairly decent. I like the square format of the photos but in general the photos look like they could have been taken by any camera. I guess thats a good thing since this camera did cost me only $20. I was hoping to see more weird effects like the picture above if you notice the bottom left area of the picture you can see it blur a bit. Now that I know the camera is working I am going to load it up with some cheap color medium format film and take some more shots. If you would like to see 3 more photos click on more.

Just a quick update on my Holga. I just gave in my first role of black & white film to Boushari. Its going to cost me around KD5.500 to develop 12 pictures. Turns out they charge 4 times the regular amount to develop black & white pictures because they have to develop them manually. So in conclusion these 12 random pictures I took better be fucking good and even if they are this is the last time I will shoot with black & white since the whole Holga experience is supposed to be dirt cheap. I never liked black & white photography during university so I don’t know why I bothered to try it again now. Anyway while there I picked up some colored film, cost me only 550fils, really cheap.