Sana'a is a beautiful city, the old part of the town is a UNESCO protected area. Yemen has crushing poverty and is struggling with tribal insurgency in some areas. Sana'a is safe, the people are generous and welcoming. If you ever visit I thoroughly recommend the Burj Al Salam hotel
Needless to say I took a load of shots on our 2 day flying visit. Here are three of them.
Two Boys
Taken from the back seat of our cab as we were stopped at a Police check point on the outskirts of Sana'a - the two boys were trying to cross the road but were struggling. This was a really poor part of the area with all the buildings in bad disrepair. A quick shot taken with only a moment to take it before the scene went.
Wide Angle At Dar Al-Hajar (The Rock Palace)
Taken at a famous Yemen landmark - Dar Al-Hajar. This is about 1 hour outside of Sana'a. I recently bought a new wide angle lens (Sony 11-18mm) and have been using this for only a few shots, getting used to just how wide it is... again a spontaneous shot of this kid as he was running to catch his family. One regret with this shot is that I have not got a polarizing filter for this lens as yet and I wish the blue of the sky was more impactful.
Sana'a Shop and Electric Bulbs
One of the hundreds of little stores in Sana'a souqs. Selling everything from shoes, spices, daggers and Qat. Qat is the Yemeni drug that is chewed and stored in the cheek (you can see this in the shopkeeper's right check in this shot).
I liked the effect of the various light bulbs and the colour that this gave to the shop interior.
That's it - hope to hear some critical comments and I'll hope to post more soon.
Cheers,
Bluey
3 comments:
I like this one a lot. Did you have to do any post-processing to the white balance or brightness? On a cropping note, I think it looks better if you lose the two vertical fluorescents on the right.
(That comment was for the shop photo, btw)
My fave is the first one with the boy. Great image, which may also look good in mono. Second image is good, but looks posed and the extreme wide angle is...er..extremely wide and bendy, which distracts me. Last one may be better in full res, where all the details can be seen, but the smaller files lose that a bit. I find the bright bulbs a distraction, which is a shame, as these are the least interesting parts.
Ivan
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