My Street- and Travel Photography Genesis

I quickly realized that this very Jaipur trip was kind of my Street- and Travel Photography genesis, ground zero where it all started. Apart from a disturbing, unhealthy fascination with the "dutch angle" at the time, and shooting most images in a cinematic 16:9 ratio (even in portrait!) this set of images is the first one that showed some kind of promise.

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Week 2 in Sri Lanka - Fuji X100s vs Leica Q

I spent my last week in Galle to mostly travel around the area, in an almost desperate attempt to see and capture as much possible quality stock before my return to Doha. This is (as always) made easier by renting a scooter, and with the wonders of Google maps in my pocket, deep explorations into the back roads and rural farmlands is always possible without the angst of getting lost.

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Week 1 in Sri Lanka - Fuji X100s vs Leica Q

As always, my trusted Fuji X100s, a constant travel companion of circa four years, accompanied me. However, having also recently accuired a new Leica Q, I was interested in seeing which one of these tools suit me best. Admittedly, my heart layed with the Fuji before the trip, as my short time with the Leica has been slightly unimpressive to date.

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Changing Website Hosts

Obviously I want my website to be seen and hopefully enjoyed by others, otherwise what's the point? This became a sensitive point for me when, despite my constant efforts to promote, views remained disappointingly (and consistently) low. 

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Portraits of Syria

With Aleppo again being in the international news for all the wrong reasons, I feel sad in the knowledge that many of the areas in Syria that I've been privileged to visit and experience before the 2011 start of this dreadful civil war, have been damaged at best, or at worst, completely destroyed. 

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It's as simple as Black & White in full colour ...

After many years of street shooting, all the time working almost exclusively in colour (and yellow for the last part), I think that a great colour display helped me to rediscover and appreciate the qualities of black and white. I started becoming interested in things like tonal ranges, shadow detail and light qualities.

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Street Photography in South Africa: Death of a Street Photographer

After an absence of almost three years, I'm about to take off for a week in Cape Town! The last time I returned to South Africa was around mid-2012 and I recall writing this overwhelmingly negative article about my impressions and street photography experiences at the time. I stayed on in South Africa for another year or so after this arcticle before moving on again, but have to admit that over time I started feeling slightly better about the charms that Johannesburg has to offer. Though my destination is different this time, I'm hoping for an overwhelmingly positive experience this time round. The original 2011 article:

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Street Photography in the Middle East: Some Observations

With wide ranging clampdowns on the freedoms of Street Photographers throughout many parts of the world at the time, the intention if the original article was to provide fellow street photographers with some informative guidelines to avoid legal problems when out photographing in the Middle East. At the time I didn’t quote and analyse any official, legal facts on general Middle Eastern policies and laws on Street Photography, but purely shared some of my own experiences and observations that would hopefully help to keep photographers out of unwanted trouble with the law.

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Cleaning out the attic ...

As a long-time resident in the Middle East Gulf, our desert summers are pretty extreme in terms of high temperatures and uncomfortable, humid conditions. Only the bravest, and certifyable insane will venture out with their cameras, and then only to realise that it was a massive mistake - even in the dead of night. Summer is therfore usually the time to revisit my old photo stock and catching up on some overdue editing. 

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The first posting ....

There are so many of my piers who simply excel at their blogging, which makes me wonder what I can possibly do to (at least) equal their efforts. There are an overwhelming number of brilliant technique, gear and other blogs / websites out there, who I don't really want to emulate or even try to compete with. Simply said, such blogs take a lot of effort, know-how and perseverance to put together, manage and market.

As an amateur photographer, novice blogger and regular bloke relying on a fairly demanding day job and lifestyle to support my street / travel photography passions, I'll probably be better off if this blog remains a simple extension of my website, focussing mainly on being a communication tool for what I'm busy working on, perhaps a some before-and-after processing posts, a place to post my thoughts, rants and raves, and sharing of interesting ideas and materials I come across from time to time. I've written a few "articles" before which I may also post here.

Anyway, hoping to keep this blog simple, unpretentious, casual, conversational and just a bit of fun. Given some time, it will turn into what it wants to be. If that is what you're looking for after a hard day at work, I look forward to your kind support and encouragement.