A few years ago I shared some photos of when the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show came to Kuwait in 1986. One of the performers of the show had shared them with me after reading my initial post on the show asking if anyone remembered it or had any info on it. The performer had promised to send me more photos but never did and I forgot to follow up with him until recently. While working on my Kids’r’us post I came across two photos of Kids’r’us staff at the Buffalo Bill’s event since they had a pop-up there. So I sent the photos over to him and turns out his brother was one of the performers posing in the photo. He then sent over all the photos he had of their trip here.
Now they’re not the best quality photos since he took photos of the photos with his phone and the lighting isn’t that great. But it’s better than nothing. I uploaded all the photos to Flickr so they can be downloaded by anyone and you can see them all by clicking here.
There is a very cool retro RV parked on the Gulf Road near Burj Hammam. It’s been there for a few days at least and looks super cool. No idea who its for but really curious to see if the inside is also retro-looking. The exterior makes a great backdrop for a 70s photoshoot.
It’s been a year now since the DJI Mini 2 got launched but I just got mine a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been wanting the DJI Mini 2 ever since it was released so a few weeks ago I got in touch with Xcite and asked them if I could get one to review. I’m not a drone expert so this review is directed at other people like me, beginners basically. The Mini 2 shoots in 4K, is pretty tiny, and it’s also really light weighing just 249g. If you want more detailed specs of the Mini 2 there are tons of videos on YouTube that do just that. Instead, I’m going to give you my opinion on why I think this is the best drone a beginner can get right now.
Full disclosure, I have a long-standing relationship with Xcite who provided me with this drone. They’ve been very supportive of the blog from the very early days and they’ve lent or given me a number of items over the years to review, as well as hooking me up with discounts. I’m a huge Xcite fan.
I’m not sure where to start this review since I’m really excited about the drone, and I wasn’t expecting to be. If you’ve never owned a drone before it can be a bit intimidating at first and even if you have had a drone before, maybe a basic one like the original Mini 1 or the Spark, then flying probably still intimidates because of certain limitations like the battery life and connection issues. At least those were the two things that kept me from flying my drone often and both those things no longer are an issue with the Mini 2.
The last drone I had was the DJI Spark which was pretty good but most of the time I’d have connection issues once it got to a certain height, distance or if I was flying in an area like Salmiya which caused a lot of interference. It was freaky because I didn’t want to lose the drone and it made me a lot more cautious whenever I wanted to take it out. The DJI Mini 2 on the other hand uses a different connection technology called OcuSync and I think this is my favorite new feature. I haven’t had a single situation, not even for a second where I had a connection problem. I’ve flown it out far and as high as it can get and haven’t had a signal drop or even a low signal warning. It’s made flying the drone so much more enjoyable and it’s given me much more confidence.
The other feature I’ve been loving on the Mini 2 is the battery life which now lasts up to 30 minutes. That’s a lot of time which is great cuz I always felt so rushed with the Spark which only had around 15 minutes of battery life. Last week I headed out to Sulaibikhat to film the flamingos and I actually spent a lot of time just hovering my drone low near the water just watching them on my screen. It would take around 5 minutes to reach them since I was parked pretty far from their location and another 5 minutes to get back but with that, I still had around 20 minutes left of just pure stalking time. It’s enough time to get completely immersed and zoned out, I literally spent all my time just watching flamingos catch their food and eat as if I had my own private National Geographic channel. Whenever the battery was going to die the drone would just let me know and then start flying back to me. Really easy.
OcuSync and the battery life together have made me want to take out the drone more often and not have to worry about anything which is why I think it’s the perfect beginner’s drone. I can just focus on shooting and not worry about the other things. When the weather was misty this past weekend I just parked next to the Kuwait Towers and casually took the drone out to see if I can capture the towers coming out through the fog. It’s such an easy thing to do now and it’s because I’m no longer worried about flying the drone. After reaching a height taller than the towers I realized the fog was too high and had completely engulfed it, so I decided instead to fly towards the city to see if I could capture Hamra Tower. I didn’t end up getting a good shot but just the fact that I was able to on a whim head into the city with my drone is something I’d never have done with the Spark.
The DJI Mini 2 is really everything I’ve wanted into a drone. Something small, light, have a long battery life, and no connection issues. It’s made me want to fly the drone much more and given me the confidence to do so. If you want to get into drone photography, this has to be the best drone to start off with. I got the DJI Mini 2 “Fly More Combo” pack which comes with three batteries, a charging hub, extra propellers, and even a nice carrying case. The price of the full package is 175KD and you can get one from Xcite.
@th9neighborhood is an interesting Instagram account if you appreciate old-school architecture. There are so many interesting buildings all around Kuwait that would look incredible if they were refurbished but instead are left to crumble till they eventually get demolished. Maybe the photographer will eventually capture enough buildings and publish them in a book, an archive of what we lost.
Kuwaiti photographer Majed Alza’abi won the Natural History Museum’s “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” competition. The competition which is held yearly since back in 1965 is considered to be one of the largest wildlife photography competitions in the world.
Majed’s photo came first in the Animal Portraits category. He had trekked for four hours to meet Kibande, an almost-40-year-old mountain gorilla before capturing the winning photograph. I had to crop the photo to fit the blog but you can check out the full photo on Majed’s instagram account @majedphotos.
A couple of weeks back a video of tires burning at the tire graveyard went viral. The problem is the video of the fire that went viral was actually from the huge 2012 fire at the tire graveyard. Back then all the tires were piled up together in one large pile (check out the photos here) but after that big fire, they started separating them which you can see in the satellite photo here.
Even after separating them fires continued to break out just not as big. Even the satellite image linked above has a fire in it, thats how often fires were occurring.
تواجد سعادة الشيخ #عبدالله_الاحمد الحمود الصباح مدير عام #الهيئة_العامة_للبيئة ورئيس مجلس الادارة بمنطقة السالمي لعمل جولة تفقدية لسير العمل، تعمل الهيئة جاهدة لنقل الاطارات من رحية إلى السالمي لاعاده تدوريها او تصديرها إلى الخارج، واتخاذ الإجراءات اللازمة للتخلص منها بأسرع وقت. pic.twitter.com/S1pB7lTQ2s
But recently, after a fire broke out back in April, the EPA decided to start moving the tires to a new location and piling them into smaller piles with a much larger distance in between to try and prevent any chance of a large fire breaking out.
A follower shared a link to the @trtworld account which recently shared photos of this new graveyard and I thought the pictures looked great which is why I’m sharing them here. This is currently a temporary solution until more recycling centers are built or the tires exported. For a few more photos, check out the trtworld post here.
Originally opened in 1983, the Kuwait National Museum was badly damaged during the 1990 invasion and had remained mostly closed since. There were plans to demolish the museum and build a new one but thankfully in 2014, they decided to refurbish and fix up the existing buildings which I think was a great idea. If only the same was done to the ice skating rink or Sawaber.
The picture above was taken by @111.street. Here are some interesting links related to the museum:
A few years ago I sold my Nikon D800 and Sony RX1 and replaced them with the incredible Sony A7 III. I never regretted selling the Nikon but I did regret selling the RX1. There are only 3 cameras I’ve owned that I’ve felt very passionate about, The Panasonic GF1 and GX1, and the Sony RX1. They were compact cameras I carried with me everywhere and used extensively for the blog. I was hoping the A7 would replace the RX1 but due to its size that never happened.
Then a few weeks back I passed by the new Fujifilm store in Boulevard and it got me thinking about the new X100V. I’ve always loved the way the X100 series looked but I’ve only ever used the original one that was released back in 2011 and I didn’t like it. Since my original review, Fujifilm released the X100S followed by the X100T, X100F, and now the X100V. According to all the reviews I read online, the X100V was considerably better in every way over all the previous versions. On Amazon they sell for around KD422 without tax or shipping. In Kuwait they have a summer offer right now and are priced KD399 after discount, so I ended up picking one up. They were originally out of stock but they had a shipment coming in so I waited around a week before getting the call to pick it up. I also ended up getting a slightly better discount on the camera due to a blog reader so ended up saving quite a bit more over the Amazon price.
I’ll eventually post a detailed review on the camera but I wanted to post about it now since the offer might end soon if it hasn’t already. The camera so far has been fantastic, and I’m really loving it. It was between the X100V and the X-E4 but ended up with the X100V because of some extra features that I prefered like the larger viewfinder and slimmer body. If you were thinking about ordering the X100V online, check it out locally first. The local Fujifilm website shows it’s out of stock and priced at KD435, but it might not be updated so I’d check their store in Boulevard.
The first time I posted about Brett Jordan’s photos of Kuwait was over 10 years ago when he started scanning and sharing the photos on his Flickr account. Since then he’s added more photos to the collection and I’ve posted about them a number of times with the last time being back in 2013. As of now, he has over 300 beautiful high-resolution photos of Kuwait on his account, all taken back in the early 60s.
I got in touch with Brett recently to find out more about the photos that have been circulating social media accounts and WhatsApp groups in Kuwait for a decade now. Turns out Brett’s collection of photos were actually taken by his parents who were both English and were working for an American oil company in the late 50s and early 60s. Brett’s dad was a refrigeration engineer and after Brett’s mum gave birth to him, they left Kuwait in the early 60s and moved back to the UK. But while in Kuwait his parents were part of a lively expat community that enjoyed a lot of partying, amateur dramatics, and drinking. His mum always speaks fondly of her time in Kuwait with the only ‘blot’ being a serious car accident when his dad drove into a huge pothole during a sandstorm.
I asked Brett if he still had more photos so he called up his mum and according to her she has more slides up in her loft. So he’s going to look for them the next time he visits her and hopefully scan those as well. For now, check out all the photos he’s scanned so far by clicking here.
Update: Brett has gone ahead and grouped up the Kuwait photos into one album so I’ve updated the link to reflect the change.
The Kuwait Boy Scouts have been around since 1935 and officially became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1955. On their website they have a section that contains old black and white photos from back in the 60s and 70s but with no caption or specific date mentioned under the photos. Still, they’re worth checking out if you’re curious and like old photos of Kuwait. Here is the link.
I also found an old AP video shot in 1960 at a scouts camp in Kuwait where they were preparing for a visit by H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Mubarak. The video has no audio but is surprisingly great quality so check it out as well.
Bonus: Their Facebook account contains a few more photos including ones of the Kuwait Girl Guides which was founded in 1957. Their photo album is completely unorganized though so you go to scroll to a lot of random stuff to find them. Here is the link.
A friend of mine is looking to get a digital camera so I suggested they check out Fujifilm. Before the pandemic, there was a Fujifilm store down the street from my place inside another store called Fisher that belonged to Boushahri Group (the Fuji dealers). I think Fisher was a brand that Boushahri had back in the 70s and they decided to revive it again since I’ve come across Fisher ads while flipping through really old newspapers. Anyway since the pandemic started the Fisher store has been closed and I think permanently.
The good news is that Fujifilm now has its own dedicated store located inside Boulevard Mall. The store has been open for around two months and they carry most if not all the Fujifilm cameras and lenses. All the cameras are also on display and you can play around with them and try them out which is great. I think we spent around half an hour yesterday trying the different cameras and we didn’t feel any pressure to buy something or to stop which was great.
If you want to check out Fujifilm cameras, the store is located in Boulevard Mall in Salmiya, on the top floor near Sultan Center. Their Instagram account is also @fujifilm_kuwait
Between 1895 and 1909, Russel Hamilton an English petty officer made various voyages from Egypt to Japan stopping along the way. One stop was Kuwait where he took these two black and white photographs with captions on the back.
The caption on top reads:
Shiek of Koweit and followers. Note that some have covered faces, fearing evil eye of camera.
The caption below reads:
Taken during bombardment of Koweit. Somali outrage led by the “mad mullah” – Sheiks Pallace Koweit
If you’d like to see these photos in hi-res, click here.
Last week I was looking for something on Google and ended up stumbling across an old picture of Salmiya which I hadn’t seen before. I started digging around looking for a higher resolution version and turned out I had actually posted the photo on my blog back in 2009 with a bunch of other old photos.
My memory is terrible and I’ve published over 12,000 posts so there is no way I can remember everything. I tried to find a higher resolution version of the photo online but everyone else had taken it off my blog so I couldn’t find one. So I decided to go through my emails to see if the source had originally sent me better quality scans. Turns out he had scanned the images in high res but because they were over 160MB he only sent me low res versions. I decided to randomly reply back to that person’s original email 12 years later asking if he still had the high res images. Turns out he did! He sent me a link to all the photos and I downloaded them and just put them up on Flickr and you can check them out here.
Anyway, I wanted to do a before and after comparison of Salmiya and you can view that in high res here. It’s impressive how many old buildings are still there but sadly they haven’t been maintained and are all in a state of disrepair. The whole neighborhood honestly is disastrously mishandled with no sidewalks or parking spots and loads of large open garbage bins that stink up the neighborhood. My neighborhood has so much potential and it’s sad I can’t do anything about it.
I’ve previously mentioned a place in the city where they still develop film but 35mm.kw has compiled a list of other studios around Kuwait where you can develop film. I’ve copy-pasted his list below but check out his website if you want to know their prices:
Shamia Studio
Location: Shamia co-op Shamia Mall (Google Maps)
Contact: 96644934
Film development: 35mm & 120 medium format
Scan 35mm: Yes
Scan medium format: Yes
Print: Yes
Ashkanani Studio
Location: Rumaithiya Co-op, outside shops (Google Maps)
Contact: 55654050
Film development: 35mm format only
Scan 35mm: Yes
Scan medium format: Yes
Scan Slides: Yes
Print: Yes
Iris Studio
Location: Salmiya, Easa Al-Qatami Street (Google Maps)
Contact: 67647879 – 66990058
Film development: 35mm & 120 medium format
Scan 35mm: Yes
Scan medium format: Yes
Print: Yes
Ghadeer Studio
Location: Qurtoba Co-op, Qurtoba mall (Google Maps)
Contact : 25319648
Film development: 35mm & 120 medium format
Scan 35mm: Yes
Scan medium format: No
Print: Yes
Kashmir Studio
Location: Kuwait City just before Al-Shamlan Mosque (Google Maps)
Contact: 97896914
Film development: 35mm & 120 medium format
Scan 35mm: Yes
Scan medium format: Unknown
Print: Yes
So 35mm film photography is definitely making a come back in Kuwait. So far I’ve posted about Ajas and CRATE, both of which sell 35mm cameras but only disposable ones.
35mm.kw on the other hand is another small photography business in Kuwait but they sell a variety of 35mm cameras ranging from SLR’s to Point & Shoot cameras. They have a pretty good selection of classics and carry different kinds of 35mm film as well. So if you’re looking to get into film photography and don’t want to bother buying a camera from eBay, check them out. Their website is 35mm-kw.com and they’re on Instagram @35mm.kw
