Showing posts with label reportage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reportage. Show all posts

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Sana'a Yemen

Three shots from my recent trip to Sana'a, the capital city of Yemen.

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

Friday, May 09, 2008

Setting tasks...

It was on my mind that not only had I not posted in ages, I'm still learning... and along with the fact that Gareth has mad skills... :) but also that I did not post any shots from my neighbourhood as per the suggested idea a while back...

Anyways - out here right now the sky is hazy and very bland / grey. It's hot as hell, but not a hint of nice blue. So today I went out with a couple of rules.

1) None, or at least minimal sky.
2) Tight, reportage, human shots only.
3) Try to use the range of the equipment better
4) Try to not melt the camera or myself...

I'm interested in your thoughts... - there are a few shots here - probably too many for one post, however... I'm keen for your thoughts...

Oh, all shots were taken within 1 mile from my house.

I''m sure I could have done a lot more in Photoshop, in camera, in composition - please - let me know anything that comes to mind...













Cheers,

Bluey.