Category: Photography

I was chatting with Nibaq today and he mentioned that he might have read somewhere that Flickr was either banned in UAE or the ISP there is doing something to slow down the uploading of photos. So I decided to ask some UAE people on Flickr and this is what they had to say:

manaal says:
no idea….working fine with me.

w6an 3mry says:
it’s not banned but i think they are doing something to block some of the bad photos

Avish says:
:s inshAllah they don’t ban it totally coz i don’t know what i’ll do 🙁

7abo0ob el Emarat says:
la hopefully they wont cuz we all cant live without it 🙂

ZexySamurai says:
I can live without it! ‘_’ Hehehe, but I love it loads so I hope that’s not true…
P.S. the uploading speed is fine with me..

Eneas says:
what’s UAE?

Green Peace says:
it is working fine with me

My brother sent me a link to a girls photoset on Flickr with pictures of her browsing flickr using her PSP. Here is the link.

“Bidding has ended for this item at US $158.50. You were outbid.” My max bid was $151 $156, I would have gone to 160 if I had know it would end there. I hate bidding on ebay, this is why I usually use the buy it now option OR, I use a software called Jbidder to snipe a bid before the time ends. That means I can tell the software to check the bid 10 seconds before the bidding ends and bid over the highest bid. Anyway I was bidding on an excellent condition all black Nikon FE2. Sucks! [Link]

Update: Just realized my max bid was actually $156 not $151!

I feel like getting a 35mm camera. Yeah, people are moving away from film to digital but film does have one major advantage, it allows me to think 10 times before I take the shot, and when I do I would make sure its perfectly framed. Unlike digital cameras, each shot you take costs you money with film so, this will help me make sure the shot I take is the shot I want. With my previous digital camera I would go for a shoot and come back home with 200 pictures with maybe only 10 good ones. When I got my Nikon I told myself that from now on I would think about each shot before I take it and only take it if I know I would want it. In general this new way of shooting has worked, and I have changed my ways, but, I still am careless when it comes to framing. Hopefully getting a 35mm camera will help me get back down to the basics.

I have a few camera’s I am currently looking at:
Leica CM – fixed 40mm lens compact 35mm camera with titanium body and fully manual controls. Price is around $850
Leica Minilux – fixed 40mm lens compact 35mm camera with titanium body but it can’t go manual. Price is around $700
Nikon FM3A – A mechanical SLR (meaning it can work without batteries) with metal body, fully manual controls. Price is around $550 without lens.
Nikon FE2 – A mechanical SLR with metal body, fully manual controls but they stopped making it in the late 80s. Price is around $150 to $200 with lens on ebay.

I am currently leaning towards the FE2 since my parents had the older FE model. Its a very nice compact SLR and its very affordable. The Leica’s though are very tempting but just so damn expensive..

Hi miskan!

You may have heard on the grapevine that we planned to reward our dear Flickr members who bought a Pro Account in the early days. Well, it’s true! And since you’re one of those lovely people, here’s a little something to say YOU ROCK!

1. Double what you paid for! Your original 1 year pro account has been doubled to 2 years, and your new expiry date is Jan 31, 2007.

2. More capacity! Now you can upload 2 GB per month.

3. 2 free Pro Accounts to give away to your friends! This won’t be activated for a day or two, but when it is, you’ll see a note on your home page telling you what to do.

Thank you so much for putting your money where your mouth is and supporting us, even while we’re in beta. Your generosity and cold, hard cash helped us get where we are today.

Kind regards,
The Flickreenies.

Today I had a tough choice for the Miskan project. I had 2 good pictures but in the end I had to choose one. This one is the picture that lost the battle. I shot it today morning while dropping Nat at work. Its a trace from a fighter jet, we get them in Lebanon two at a time and usually accompanied with the breaking of the sound barrier.

I just got an email today from File Magazine telling me another picture of mine was accepted to be part of their collection. The picture this time is one of my favorites and I called it “Mad Robot”. The building in the picture is of the Kuwait Stock Exchange and it was shot while sitting outside at Second Cup. Here is the picture on file magazine [Link]

I just witnessed the strangest thing. There is a new pigeon on the ledge outside my window and he seems like a tough guy. The first thing that grabbed my attention was his hairy feet, like really hairy. Didn’t know pigeons good have hair on their feet yet alone this much. So I was was starring at the pigeons feet thinking what name to give him, when suddenly he started chasing this pigeon. They were both running outside and the hairy feet pigeon was trying to peck the other pigeon with his beak. Finally the second pigeon flew away. Hairy pigeon then proceeded to chase another pigeon! This fucker like chased 6 other pigeons off the ledge until he was the only one standing there. THEN, if that wasn’t enough, their were 2 pigeons sleeping below the ledge, the guy jumped them both! In the end he was the only pigeon left. So I decided to give him the name Zaeem which means chief in arabic. Then when everything went quiet, a super pigeon appeared. This other pigeon which I decided to give the name Rambo started chasing Zaeem. He wasn’t able to make Zaeem fly off but he was able to chase him till he ended up at the far end of the ledge. Now every-time Zaeem comes close to the other pigeons near my window, Rambo chases him back to the far end of the ledge. It’s really fun watching all this. Makes you wonder whats going on in their minds. I also decided to call the toeless pigeon Tobby.

Here is a picture of Zaeem with his hairy feet

Just found a link with pictures of the new Jaguar XK, it looks reeeaaaallllly fucking cool! Like Aston Martin cool but at a more realistic price. Never liked Jaguars before but if this is the new XK then I might become a Jaguar fan. [Link]

“Robert Clark usually shoots for the likes of National Geographic and Vanity Fair, but he’s currently crossing the country taking photos exclusively with a cameraphone” – Kottke

When I saw these pictures I felt so ashamed. This guy is taking amazing shots using a mobile phone and I can barely shoot a decent picture with my Nikon D70. It goes to show if you are talented and creative it will always show no matter what you do or use. Check out his pictures here.

There is this one pigeon I keep seeing outside my window which doesnt seem to have any toes. I don’t know what happened to them but its pretty fucking sad watching him all day long. He seems to be getting along fine with all the other pigeons, they don’t seem to be leaving him out of any of their activities but I know deep inside this pigeon wishes he had all his toes. He seems to be able to walk fine but every few seconds he tries to stand on just 1 leg, I guess cuz it might be his other leg hurts him or something. Anyway I took pictures for you guys to see.

Birdie Pic 1
Birdie Pic 2 (warning: not for pigeon lovers)

For those of you who follow my Miskan posts, here are the pictures I promised of the paper pack samples. [Link]

I actually started 2:48AM so I can post pictures that didn’t make the cut on Miskan.com. This picture is from yesterday but I decided to go with the visually more attractive Caution sign. This fire is from near my house. A garbadge bin was set on fire and there were 2 cops standing near it waiting for the fire trucks to come. One of the cops saw me take a picture and called me over. When I went to him he asked me if I was a journalist. I told him no. He was like why are you taking a picture? I told him because its something interesting. I asked him if fire trucks were gonna come, he replied saying they were. Then he asked me if I want to take a picture of them. I told him I couldn’t since I had to leave. I said thank you and left. [large pic link]

Via Boing Boing:

Transparent Screens is a Flickr photoset of laptops whose deptop wallpaper has been set to a digital photo of the walls and windows behind them, so that they appear to have totally transparent displays. The effect is striking.

[Link]

I was checking the top views for my pictures at my flickr account and the results are pretty strange, here is the top 5:

#1 Where Apple’s Go to Die 1325 views
#2 Fuck Me Boots 1261 views
#3 Incest 842 views
#4 The Red Light District 461 views
#5 I See Dead People 441 views