2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

And this is why I will never eat at Hardees again… or until I forget about this. A forum user ordered a burger from Hardees and ended up not finding one bug but a bunch of bugs in his sandwich! [Link]

I just found about freelensing and can’t wait to try it tomorrow during the day. This is the definition of freelensing according to Luke Roberts:

Photos taken with the lens detached from the camera but held in place and moved around to focus. This also lets extra light in sometimes causing light leaks and giving a vintage look and feel.

Also:
* Gives extra bokeh by shrinking the area in focus (aperture is 0)
* Allows for super macro shots
* Delicious light leaks
* Tilt-shift effects

For some cool freelensing samples (better than mine above) click [Here], [Here] and [Here]

Update: Here are some more free lensing shots I took which turned out much nicer. In all the shots except for the last, I had the lens flipped backwards.

I love watches so when the owner of Q8 Chrono emailed me the link to his site I quickly went to check it out. It’s kinda like Q8car.com except for watches or at least thats the kind of site I hope it turns into. The site lists a lot of new watches and also around 20 used watches (which is my favorite section). There is a pretty decent used watches market in Kuwait but all the stores that sell them are scattered around Kuwait. Having them all online on one site would be pretty practical. The site is still being worked on and the owner still has many things he wants to implement but for now you can check the site by going to Q8chrono.com

I hope the used section gets updated often and there should be a way of contacting the site if I want to sell a watch or maybe an automated form? I also just realized the used watches section is 2 pages long, you need to click on older entries at the bottom to get to the second page. Not very practical, he should ditch wordpress and set up a proper e-commerce site.

Update: Ok found the contact information, it was on the main page but there should be a link to the contact info on every page.

A group in Kuwait called BLD have started posting videos of their graffiti escapades. So far they’ve posted only one video titled “Kuwait Graffiti #1” and there is a second video on the way soon. I personally prefer more colorful graffiti which hopefully their second video will contain. [YouTube]

I was emailed the following:

Throughout the coming months there is going to be an eventful calendar of activities at different Starbucks locations. Ranging from insightful and inspiring photography exhibitions, to fun live music performances and gigs and many other more art forms to be included and surprises to be later announced.

Each weekend the photography exhibitions will take place in 3 Starbucks stores across Kuwait so choose the closest to you and come encourage young creative youth in Kuwait and spend a great weekend at Starbucks..

The schedule of events and locations are to be found for reference below:

6 -7 March
Starbucks Al Bidaa:
Ammar Al Othman & Samar Al Bader

Starbucks Behbehani Villa – behind Church – Kuwait City:
Saleh El Gaith & BaderAl Ajeel

Starbucks Mishref Coop:
Abdula Al Foudary & Nawaf Al Saleh

13-14 March
Starbucks Avenues (by Fountain):
Maha Al Asaker & Jarrah Al Boloshi

Starbucks Kuwait Free Zone:
Saleh El Gaith & Bader Al Ajeel

Starbucks Palms Spa & Resort:
Samar Al Bader & Sherifa Ben Ali

20-21 March
Starbucks Al Bidaa:
Maha Al Asaker & Jarrah Al Boloshi

Starbucks Salem Al Mubarak – Opposite Al Fanar:
Bader Al Ajeel & Ammar Al Othman

Starbucks Hilton Al Mangaf:
Abdulla Al Foudary & Nawaf Al Saleh

27-28 March
Starbucks Behbehani Villa – behind Church – Kuwait City:
Sherifa Ben Ali & Maha Al Asaker

Starbucks Palms & Spa Resort:
Jarrah El Boloshi & Saleh Al Gaith

Starbucks Marina Mall:
Ammar Al Othman & Abdulla Al Foudary

For more information visit their Facebook group [Here]

Thanks Maha!

I am watching Bloodsport at the moment (old Van Damme movie) when I spotted a character that’s supposed to be an Arab called Sadiq Hossein. He looks like a tanned Asian and through out the movie no matter what he is wearing or doing he always has the gutra on his head. Its too funny.

Someone emailed me about an exhibition thats taking place in Kuwait for a “digital artist” called Anwar Ghader. So I googled him to check out his work when I found a cool post on Projekt Cyan showing how in under 10 minutes you can replicate one of his work. I really dislike how some people take a picture, apply a few Photoshop filters and then call it art. That’s not art, what I posted the other day is art. So if you want to find out how to create your own digital art like Anwar click [Here]

Update: Just so there is no miscommunication. The reason I don’t call Anwar’s work art is not because it was easy to create or because it is ugly or anything of that sort. Its because of the way the work was created. If I take an image and using the software Rasterbator I create something nice, does that make me an artist? If I use Obama Icon Me to create a cool looking poster, does that make me an artist? So why is it art when Anwar (or any other person) uses live trace to create the work?

I love the bottle! [Link]

I promise this will be the last photography related post for this week but I’ve really been wanting to post this ever since I saw the pictures on Nibaqs blog. Someone Verity Cridland scanned and restored photos they she had taken of Kuwait back in the early 1960’s and then uploaded all the photos onto her flickr account. There are a lot of great pictures there so please check them out. [Pictures]

Thanks Nibaq!

So my plans of getting a Voigtlander Bessa R3A on hold for now. Instead I decided to get a near mint condition Yashica Electro 35 GSN. This rangefinder was produced between 1973-1977 and has a very sharp 45mm f/1.7 lens. I got mine from eBay for around KD20 which is actually considered expensive since most of them go for $20 or less. If you want to see samples of photos taken with the Yashica you can check out the Yashica Electro pool on flickr by clicking [Here]

After taking the picture of “The Almond Tree” with my Sony W300 I decided I wanted to invest in a macro lens for my Nikon D70 and D90. A macro lens would allow me to shoot subjects from extremely close distances. I started looking for a cheap macro lens because it isn’t something I do a lot of (macro photography) so I didn’t want to spend too much money on it. After a bit of research I found the Sigma 50mm f2.8 Macro lens. At $255 it wasn’t very cheap but got great reviews and the lens was very sharp.

But as I said, $255 wasn’t cheap and on eBay used ones were still around $150, cheaper but I still wasn’t convinced. Then I found out about “reversing adapter rings” (pictured above). Turns out there is a ring which you fasten to the front of your lens, and that ring allows you to connect the lens to your camera in reverse. When you connect your lens in reverse to your camera you get to shoot in macro. Sounds strange I know, and connecting your lens to your camera the wrong way round is sure to raise some eyebrows but I bought the ring and it works!

Below in the first shot you can see the bushes outside my office building. I took that picture with my 50mm lens at the closest distance I could get before the lens stopped focusing.

In the second picture I shot using the same lens just mounted in reverse using the adapter ring. It’s much more closer and it’s still using the same lens!

I don’t know whats the Canon version of this ring but the Nikon one is called BR-2A. I got mine from Amazon.co.uk for KD10. There is a ring on Amazon.com but it doesn’t mention if its the BR-2A although it looks like it and its selling for KD5.

So if you are looking for an affordable way to get into macro photography this is the way to go. The adapter rings works on both my 28mm and 50mm prime lenses.

Update: Another advantage of this ring is you don’t need to carry another heavy macro lens with you, you just carry this ring.

A reader yesterday emailed me a link to a website of a Kuwaiti illustrator called Ahmed Al-Refaie. I checked out his work and was blown away so I emailed Ahmed and asking him if he could tell us a bit about himself and his illustrations and this is what he had to say:

Currently, Im about to graduate from Kuwait University “English Literature”. I don’t like it, but certain circumstances forced me to since there was no Graphic Design in KU. My name is Ahmed Al-Refaie (22) (Kuwaiti, although that does not matter, an artist is an artist no matter the origin ), my art is called vector art. I’m self-taught, never attended any art related classes. When I was 10, I started sketching, beginning of high-school I began graphic design, but this current style you see all around my website started in early 2006. Usually my art was varied in style and that is what I think of as a corrupted aspect of an artist. So I made and refined my own style. My website does not include my old works. For more technical details, I use a mouse, keyboard and Photoshop CS3 ( I always get the question “do you use a tablet?” ), just a good ol’ Apple mighty mouse. I was a bit into 3D using 3D Max but quickly lost interest as there are many giants in that field, its just not for me. That said, my work is completely raw, no pictures, filters, I do however reference body gestures (sometimes) but the image used is removed and I recreate the whole thing.

I think the guy is extremely talented and I think its about time KU setup a design department. There are a lot of talented young people and it would be sad to see them all taking random majors like English Literature or cooking just because they don’t have design.

Here is a link to his deviantART gallery [Link]
Here is a link to his personal website [Link]

I recently decided that whenever I travel I want to take a 35mm film camera with me instead of a digital camera. I realized when I have a limited amount of pictures I can take (36 per roll) I tend to take only the shots I really want and not just everything I see. With digital cameras I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos and I spend a lot of time deleting random junk because instead of spending more time taking 1 shot I use that time to take 5 shots of the same thing.

So I decided to stick with film instead of digital. When I went to Munich last year I took my 30 year old Nikon FE and came back with a lot of cool vintage looking shots. [Check here] Thats why I started looking for a new film camera, one that has personality which is something very important for me.

I started first by checking out the Nikon F3, then the Nikon F4, then the Yashica Electro 35 GSN, then the Canon QL17 GIII, then the Konica S2, followed by the Konica S3 until I finally landed on the Voigtlander Bessa R3A which is pictured in this post. Its one of the best looking camera I have ever seen. Its extremely well built and to some people its one of the best rangefinder cameras ever made right behind the Zeiss Ikon. I found one on eBay second hand that came with the fastest 40mm lens ever made, a Voigtlander 40/1.4 Nokton. Bidding was ending at 4:50AM so I set my alarm to 4:40AM and went to bed at 10PM. The maximum I wanted to pay was $500 since brand new the camera and lens were selling for $940. Sadly I didn’t win the bid. Even though I ended up increasing my budget to $600 the auction ended at $606 and the other person bidding looked like he could have taken it even further.

Now I need to decide what to do but I just wanted to share this camera with everyone now that the auction is over. Its such a beautiful camera!

K5 has an interesting post about this cool little store he found called Nawader Al Kuwait. The place has a huge collection of vintage Arabic vinyl records and also vintage radios and record players. The place also has other random items, personally I am interested in the painting of the musicians above so I might pass by tonight to check the place out. You can see more pictures and information about the place on K5’s blog [Here]

I got home after work to find a bunch of retards fighting under my building. I parked my car in the basement and walked up to the ground floor to find around 20 teenagers (16-18 year olds) shouting, screaming and shoving each other around. I watched them for like 5 minutes and then decided to go upstairs and watch them from my balcony. A lot of fights erupt next to my building because there is a billiard place in the building next door that attracts a lot of the wrong crowd. There is also a prostitution ring that operates in that same building but they only open for business like once a week and its a pretty tightly run ship with high end customers so they never cause any problems (I should post about them one day). The billiard place on the other hand just attracts all these trashy kids that want to fight for the dumbest reasons.

While watching the fight from my balcony I heard what sounded like one guy yelling at who I thought was one of the Bangladeshi janitors in my building so I went back downstairs to make sure no one did anything to the workers. Turns out the workers were inside the building away from harms way but the fight outside had turned really violent with guys holding cutters and some guys bleeding. I live in a shopping mall in the old Salmiya street and these guys were basically fighting in the backside, then moving inside the mall and then back out to the front of the building onto the main Salmiya street. It was ridiculous! So I asked the landlord if he had called the cops and he told me yeah when the fight had first started but no one had come yet.

20 minutes later and the cops still hadn’t showed up. Actually the fight dispersed and everyone ended up going their separate ways and the cops never showed up. I went back up to my apartment while the janitors started to clean up the blood stains. Unbelievable.