I bought an awesome ultra – mini light saber… That is all…

Or is it?

I feel like I should say some more since this post has appeared after another hiatus but I just haven’t a single clue what to write.

Tell me about this photo, you say.

Well, I’ve wanted to try light painting for ages,  so recently I decided to give it a go. This awesome looking “light-doodle” is what turned out.

Extremely easy to do, set the camera to shutter priority for about a 10-15 sec exposure. You’ll need a nice little multicoloured led torch, and if you’re shooting this yourself – a remote (or set the camera on a timer). Then prop yourself in front of the lens in a pitch black room, click and scribble away!

Have fun.. xoxo

“Fate controls who walks into your life.
But you decide who you let walk out,
who you let stay,
and who you refuse to let go.”

It’s amazing how from the ground you can’t really tell how much desert still surrounds the city of Dubai. But from up in the sky it’s pretty clear that the Burj is pretty much all by itself- standing tall in this sandy desert. Looking at the blue skies above and the dusty city below, it really gives you a true sense of how high it actually is.

This is another of the many many pictures that I took a few months ago on my Seawings flight (You can see the shot of the Palm here). Since I seem to be on a roll with pictures of all sorts of natural elements, I thought I’d also cover a ‘shamal’ or ‘sandstorm’. This picture was taken on a pretty windy (hence sandy!) day.

This last week we’ve had a couple of foggy mornings here in Dubai. There’s something about the mist, and the feeling of ‘walking in the clouds’ that I truly enjoy. I’m just glad I happened to have my good ol’camera with me.

Since the last two pictures have been of the moon and sunlight, I thought the natural progression ought be some mist and rain. But seeing as it doesn’t rain very often in Dubai, chances are you will not be seeing a rain shot any time soon. In the meanwhile, here’s a link to another brilliant panoramic photo taken by fellow tweeter Gerald D.

I’m really not sure why I haven’t put this picture up earlier! I only shot it over a year ago on a trip to Los Angeles    It was just one of those pictures that snuck itself in with the rest of the shots I was taking that day.

I was going through some of my old photographs and this one popped out and I thought – Hey, I ought have put this one up ages ago!

I really like the fresh feel that this picture has-  I’m surprised with the amount of detail that has come through. It made me smile when I saw it this morning, so I thought I’d share it with the rest of you, and hope it brightens up your day too

Have a good one!

PS: Just realised this is so typically me, to follow a ‘moon’ shot, with one titled ‘sunshine’ – which just happen to be my star signs Cancer and Leo

For a very long time I’ve wanted to get a really good photograph of the moon, but since my zoom lens only goes up to 135mm, I’ve not been as successful as I’d like. Next up I’d like to try and invest in a lens that goes up to atleast 300mm.

I looked up on how to get the shot right, since I always seem to either get white dots, or really dark grainy shots, or blurs. So after reading this pretty informative article, I set up my tripod in the backyard, and this is what I managed this time. The camera settings are on the right hand side if you’d like to see.

Still a little shaky, but I’m told that’s because the earth rotates, and my camera isn’t fast enough

The first time I remember listening to this verse being read was back in 1996 at the funeral of Princess Diana, by her brother Earl Spencer. This had to be the only time I’d ever heard it recited at a time of sadness. What I believe to be one of the most beautiful verses in the bible, this passage is better known for being read at the time of celebration – at weddings!

I can’t begin to explain how this picture has captured so many of my favourite elements which just make it extremely meaningful and in my eyes – Perfect.

The passage as you can see, is about ‘Love’, which in my opinion is the most powerful of human emotions.

The chapter number, just happens to be one of my favourites… good ol’ lucky number 13!

The 3 elements that this chapter discusses – ‘Faith’ , ‘Hope’ and ‘Love’,  are captured through the pendant in the shot.

And the portion in focus illuminates the most inspiring yet consise description of love :-

“4 Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; 5 love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; 6 love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. 7 Love never gives up; and it’s faith, hope and patience  never fail. 8 Love is eternal. “

I put up this post today for everyone who has someone they love or someone they’ve loved. I’ll end with a quote by Maya Angelou which goes… “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

When I was young and people would ask me what my favourite colour was, I would reply “The Rainbow”.

I’ve never really had a favourite colour… Proof of this is my wardrobe, which has gone through all sorts of colour phases. When I bought my first pair of green contact lenses, everything had to match – so it was all green. Then when I had my orange boots, everything had to be orange. Blue, to match my blue contact lenses. Purple, to match my purple contact lenses… you get the picture right? [Do I hear a - "Good God purple contact lenses???" he he ]

So I guess it’s only natural that my love for all things colourful, has crept into my photographs too. I’m sure by now some of you would have noticed- colour, concept and construction are a few factors that matter to me most when shooting a picture. I’m happiest when I have the ability to play around with my subject and ‘create’ my final shot.

This was one of those spur of the moment creations, shot under regular lighting  (good ol’ ceiling tubelights) on a large sheet of white paper on my kitchen floor. I’m quite pleased with the outcome!

To call myself a ‘competition enthusiast’ is a bit of an understatement. I’ve set all sorts of goals for myself for as long as I can remember and have always pushed myself to try and come out on top. So when it comes to competitions I wouldn’t really call myself  “lucky”, but more that my theory of numbers works out - ‘If you enter everything, you’re bound to win something! “.

I recently entered a contest called ‘UAE for free‘ and won a Seawings silver flight over the city of Dubai. Quirkily enough my seaplane adventure started off in the most unlikely of places! Firmly seated in the dentist’s chair, drill rapidly closing the gap between comfort and agony; I thought to myself … where would I rather be?? A question unexpectedly answered by a call from the good people at  Explorer Publishing to tell me I had won! After that I’m sure my dentist had never seen a person happier to get a root canal than me!

Onward to the big day- armed passport in hand and camera at the ready, I headed to the Seawings desk at the Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht club. We took off to the sound of cameras clicking excitedly as the city slowly dropped away below. The tour began over Port Rashid, and shortly the Sheikh Zayed skyline with the mighty Burj Khalifa was in sight. Only fitting that I was soon “on top of The World”! This was followed by views of the renowned Burj Al Arab, a swoop around the Palm (as you can see in the photograph above), a circle past the Marina, and before I knew it, 40 minutes just flew by (pun intended!).

I couldn’t have been happier to have won this! For the longest time, having seen Derrick’s many shots of Abu Dhabi, I had wanted to take aerial pictures of this city. The experience was nearly as thrilling as a 40 minute skydive without an instructor strapped to my back and a fear of “what if my parachute doesn’t open??”

Both mesmerising and exhilarating…

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat!

These last few weeks have been an eye-opener to me of sorts. I’ve lived in this city for close to a decade now, and it never ceases to amaze me how in metropolis like Dubai, can so many still feel alone?? Having been here so long, (and working in a job where I meet close to 500 people a month!) I’ve come across a lot of different people. A while ago one of them told me how she thought that every person she had met in this city had a “shelf life”. Her definition of that being- they’re around for a short time, but when their time is up, they pack up and leave and nothing is really ever permanent.

Now I’ve always been the sort to think that people I consider friends are forever. I’ve always tried to stay in touch with people who have been a part of my life through the years – way back to even friends I’d made in kindergarten.  So a few weeks ago when I started feeling like, I don’t really have very many people in this city that I can call my own friends – I thought about what that lady said and if this really was true about Dubai. In all these years of being here, have I not managed to make an impact on anyone’s life??

I’m happy to say that the answer to that came to me in a message from someone I would call a long lost friend. Someone who came into my life in this city for a short while- made me smile and then vanished without a goodbye. I always wondered what had happened there. But in his message he wrote- “you are the most natural person that I have met in that city, so I really don’t want to lose this friendship…I hope to hear back from you“. And just like that we were in touch once again. It couldn’t have happened at a more appropriate time.

I guess the universe does have a way of sending us little pick-me-ups after all, just when we need them most. It’s good to know that sometimes you can leave an impression on other people’s life and you don’t even know it…

Now about this shot- I tried the Bokeh effect made popular in ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the world’. Found a handy tutorial here… and just followed instructions. Easy enough. Hope you guys have fun trying it out with all different shapes, I sure did!!