Saturday, July 30, 2011
"Car"cass II - The Cremation
I saw this carcass today in a parking lot off Gulf Road near the Kuwait Towers. I'm thinking it was probably there for a couple days, the smell wasn't so bad.
Carcass II - Kuwait Photo From The "Good Side"
Carcass II - Kuwait The Not So Good Side
Carcass II - Kuwait With No Make-Up
Carcass II - Kuwait Face It, You're a Wreck
Iconic Kuwait
When you see images of Kuwait, the Kuwait Towers are almost always included. They are only about 5 miles down the road from us but we took a little time and went up there today. Otherwise we'd probably "get to it someday" and still never have been when it is time to leave for good. It cost 2KD (about $7.20) to take an elevator to the top ball of the tower with two balls. The lower ball houses a restaurant and cafe, the upper ball houses a 2-level viewing platform and a gift and snack shop. The windows weren't very clean, but with the dust the way it is around here, I didn't find that very surprising.
Kuwait Towers - Kuwait City
Kuwait Towers - Kuwait City
Kuwait Towers - Kuwait City
Kuwait Towers - Kuwait City
Water Park @ Kuwait Towers - Kuwait City
You Can See! - Kuwait City
Friday, July 29, 2011
A Few More
These photos are from my visit to the Jewish Cemetery just before I left in 2009. I didn't have my computer at the time so at first I didn't post photos, but later I tried using what I had to work with on a laptop.
Jewish Cemetery - Sarajevo
Jewish Cemetery - Sarajevo
Jewish Cemetery - Sarajevo
Jewish Cemetery - Sarajevo
Jewish Cemetery, Sarajevo
I don't know what made me think of these photos today...these were taken during our visit with Shelby in May.
According to the sign, the Jewish Cemetery in Sarajevo is the second largest in Europe. Only the Jewish Cemetery in Prague is larger. The Sarajevo cemetery dates to 1630. It was home to snipers preying on the residents of Sarajevo during the siege in the 1990's and was heavily mined. The cemetery is de-mined now, but much of it remains overgrown. Many of the headstones exhibit the wear and tear only a bullet can provide.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
"Car"cass
The wrecks around here are impressive in their destructive power. Friday and Saturday mornings especially, you can see "carcasses" as I call them, on the sides of the highways. Remnants of the high-speed shenanigans gone wrong the night before. I decided that I would take on the making of documentary photos of the destroyed autos as one of my projects while I'm here.
My first "car"cass shot is from an accident a hundred yards or so up the street from our apartment.
Toyota Corolla, RIP - Kuwait
My first "car"cass shot is from an accident a hundred yards or so up the street from our apartment.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Behind McDonalds
I took this photo back in March....we haven't seen many, if any, days as dust free since then...today was probably the closest. This sculpture, or whatever it is, is behind the McDonalds on Arabian Gulf Rd. I'm hoping to soon get and post a photo that is more typical of this time of year. The afternoon sun low in the sky with the dust and haze and the city sky line...
Doves - Kuwait
Saturday, July 16, 2011
English Muffins
One thing you can't get here, but would be legal if you could (unlike alcohol, and pork) is English muffins. We've had family successfully mail us some packages during the cooler portion of the year, but the packages certainly wouldn't survive the current temperatures. So a few weeks back I started looking into making my own and found a promising recipe at Allrecipes.com. (I highly recommend the site, anything with 4+ stars has been very good)
Yesterday I tried the recipe out for Elesa's discriminating English muffin palate. She liked them...they aren't perfect, some don't seem to have the bigger "nooks & crannies". I'm sure that most of that is due to technique, which I'm hoping will get better with practice.
Homemade English Muffins
Yesterday I tried the recipe out for Elesa's discriminating English muffin palate. She liked them...they aren't perfect, some don't seem to have the bigger "nooks & crannies". I'm sure that most of that is due to technique, which I'm hoping will get better with practice.
The Bench
Near the top of our apartment building's stairwell is a bench...maybe as a resting place for those of us that do the stairs for exercise?
The Bench
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Out and About II - Kuwait
Another outing organized by the AWARE Center a few weeks ago was an evening with a guided tour through the "House of Mirrors". It is a residential house where the lady of the house, Lidia Al-Qattan, basically went nuts 20 or so years ago and started covering walls in bits of colored glass and bits of mirrors...grand mosaics to small little details: doorways, hallways, doors and floors, radiators, lamps, stove, the stairway to the 2nd floor. Basically the outside of the house and the entire first floor are covered in bits of mirror. She was a very friendly and animated hostess/guide and her stories about how it all began and the various rooms were funny and entertaining.
The second floor was more dedicated to the art work of her late husband, Khalifa Al Qattan and some of her other interests and her own artwork, planets, the universes...harmony ...all illustrated with colored lights, painted carpet and sculpture.
Here are a few of the photos I took. All 22 can be seen on photobucket...HERE.
Fish - House of Mirrors, Kuwait
Paint on Carpet - House of Mirrors, Kuwait
Reflections (Imagine That!) - House of Mirrors, Kuwait
Lights - House of Mirrors, Kuwait
Reflections II - House of Mirrors, Kuwait
The second floor was more dedicated to the art work of her late husband, Khalifa Al Qattan and some of her other interests and her own artwork, planets, the universes...harmony ...all illustrated with colored lights, painted carpet and sculpture.
Here are a few of the photos I took. All 22 can be seen on photobucket...HERE.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Out and About - Kuwait
I'm trying to get/stay on top of things with regards to the photos I take here in Kuwait. Just a week or so ago we went on a tour of the Arab Organizations Building organized by the AWARE Center. It is a bland building from the outside (as all but a very few of the ultra modern glass towers are here) but the inside has art work and design work worthy of writing home blogging about.
Here are a couple of teaser photos and a link to a slideshow (as yet uncaptioned:)
Entrance Foyer - Arab Organizations Building, Kuwait
Screen - Arab Organizations Building, Kuwait
Water Fountain - Arab Organizations Building, Kuwait
Entrance to Sitting Room - Arab Organizations Building, Kuwait
Here are a couple of teaser photos and a link to a slideshow (as yet uncaptioned:)
I'm Famous...
or maybe obscure...
I was reading a photography forum and a reference was made to how you can use google to search for a particular image. (if interested, see http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html)
The discussion centered around copyright infringement...basically stealing people's photographs posted on line and either claiming them as your own, or using them without attribution (and compensation) or the worst I guess, selling them. Being the curious type, I searched a few of my photos and was shocked...SHOCKED I tell you, to find that some of my photos have been used without attribution:
Possibly my favorite photo of all time, blogged HERE
Shows up at a travel site page about Kakadu HERE
One of my very recent photos taken while on a return visit to Sarajevo, taken from Shelby's balcony. Shows up in a thread "The Skylines in Eastern Europe"
One of my Plitvice photos shows up in a thread all in Cyrillic that I can't read.
A Lake Bled photo is linked on another travel site
And my blog entry about Sutjeska Monument has photos showing up a number of times including twice on this site.
Last, one of my earliest blogged photos is apparently "for sale" or for upload to your facebook account...it's making me rich!
The coolest part though, is how many people apparently look like an elephant....or a tombstone (see the "Visually similar images" :)
It is also cool how google tries to figure out where and what of the photo is taken.
I was reading a photography forum and a reference was made to how you can use google to search for a particular image. (if interested, see http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html)
The discussion centered around copyright infringement...basically stealing people's photographs posted on line and either claiming them as your own, or using them without attribution (and compensation) or the worst I guess, selling them. Being the curious type, I searched a few of my photos and was shocked...SHOCKED I tell you, to find that some of my photos have been used without attribution:
Possibly my favorite photo of all time, blogged HERE
Shows up at a travel site page about Kakadu HERE
One of my very recent photos taken while on a return visit to Sarajevo, taken from Shelby's balcony. Shows up in a thread "The Skylines in Eastern Europe"
One of my Plitvice photos shows up in a thread all in Cyrillic that I can't read.
A Lake Bled photo is linked on another travel site
And my blog entry about Sutjeska Monument has photos showing up a number of times including twice on this site.
Last, one of my earliest blogged photos is apparently "for sale" or for upload to your facebook account...it's making me rich!
The coolest part though, is how many people apparently look like an elephant....or a tombstone (see the "Visually similar images" :)
It is also cool how google tries to figure out where and what of the photo is taken.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
A Day in Dubrovnik
Lot of links in this one...could keep the curious among my many readers quite busy...
Although we ended up going back a number of times, the first trip we took to Dubrovnik in late January of 2007 was one of our last as the original 5...the weather was great and we had a good time. My original blog entry was Here.
I took a huge number of photos that day as did Ryan and Shelby.
A later trip to Croatia that included a stop in Dubrovnik I also blogged Here and put a slideshow of our friends' entire visit on photobucket. At least one other trip to Dubrovnik didn't even warrant a mention in the blog.
I've been trying to organize things lately and when I started keywording the photos from that time period... (and ironically, I blogged about my lack of organization with regards to my photographs using a photo from this original trip Here) I realized how many I liked that were taken in just that one day. So I processed a bunch of them over the past few days and here is a sample of the results.... the entire slideshow can be seen on photobucket, I've still have a few to add, and the photos haven't been captioned yet....that may be asking too much of me...enjoy.
Silhouette and the Sea - Dubrovnik, Croatia
Water Drain - Dubrovnik, Croatia
Flag Above the Walls - Dubrovnik, Croatia
The Walled City - Dubrovnik, Croatia
Cross Above Dubrovnik, Croatia
Although we ended up going back a number of times, the first trip we took to Dubrovnik in late January of 2007 was one of our last as the original 5...the weather was great and we had a good time. My original blog entry was Here.
I took a huge number of photos that day as did Ryan and Shelby.
A later trip to Croatia that included a stop in Dubrovnik I also blogged Here and put a slideshow of our friends' entire visit on photobucket. At least one other trip to Dubrovnik didn't even warrant a mention in the blog.
I've been trying to organize things lately and when I started keywording the photos from that time period... (and ironically, I blogged about my lack of organization with regards to my photographs using a photo from this original trip Here) I realized how many I liked that were taken in just that one day. So I processed a bunch of them over the past few days and here is a sample of the results.... the entire slideshow can be seen on photobucket, I've still have a few to add, and the photos haven't been captioned yet....that may be asking too much of me...enjoy.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
"Bonsai" Tree
Every time I drive down Cemetery Rd past Greenlawn Cemetery I'd look at this tree and think it looks like a big bonsai tree. After a bit of a snow this past winter, I walked down and took some photos. They didn't really turn out like I'd visualized, but yesterday when I was sorting through things, keywording etc. I took another look. Here are four interpretations (or "moods" as you will" via Photoshop of the very same photo. You're always welcome to vote for your favorite.
Pretty much straight out of the camera, with minimal processing, no cropping...
Tree - Greenlawn Cemetery Milford, Ohio
A bit of a crop, sliding the "Clarity" slider to the negative:
Tree - Greenlawn Cemetery Milford, Ohio
Same bit of crop, Black and white, various color filters applied and sliding the "Clarity" slider to the negative:
Tree - Greenlawn Cemetery Milford, Ohio
Again same crop, Black and white, various color filters applied, Clarity slider left in neutral:
Tree - Greenlawn Cemetery Milford, Ohio
Pretty much straight out of the camera, with minimal processing, no cropping...
A bit of a crop, sliding the "Clarity" slider to the negative:
Same bit of crop, Black and white, various color filters applied and sliding the "Clarity" slider to the negative:
Again same crop, Black and white, various color filters applied, Clarity slider left in neutral:
Friday, May 27, 2011
Sofia, Bulgaria (София, Sofiya)
A few years ago I spent some time in Sofia, Bulgaria. I took a lot of photos while I was there and even put some on the blog. Below are some of the photos that I don't think I ever got around to before.
St. Sofia - Sofia, Bulgaria Sveta Sofia
Church of St Nicholas the Miracle-Maker - Sofia, Bulgaria църква "Св. Николай Чудотворец", tsarkva "Sv. Nikolay Chudotvorets"
St. Nedelya Church - Sofia, Bulgaria църква „Света Неделя“ Sveta Nedelya
Inside St. Nedelya Church - Sofia, Bulgaria църква „Света Неделя“ Sveta Nedelya
St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - Sofia, Bulgaria Храм-паметник „Свети Александър Невски“, Hram-pametnik „Sveti Aleksandar Nevski“
St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - Sofia, Bulgaria Храм-паметник „Свети Александър Невски“, Hram-pametnik „Sveti Aleksandar Nevski“
Monument to the Unknown Soldier - Sofia, Bulgaria Паметник на Незнайния воин, Pametnik na Neznayniya voin
Soviet Era Sculpture - Sofia, Bulgaria
Friday, May 20, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
I've Been Busy
Very busy...including a trip back to Sarajevo...
Sarajevo Skyline At Dusk
Veliki Park Tombstone - Sarajevo
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