Saudi Flowers 1

I had bought the Nikon VR105 awhile back to try macro work, so it was time to do some flowers.  The light in my garden is very good. It’s filtered by tonnes of sand in the air  that we breath as well as the tree’s, well actually weeds, but I made the gardener let them grow anyway and they looked great. With the sun shining on the tree’s as it went down into the desert I was able to get some great colourful and abstract backgrounds and play with rays breaking through the foliage.

This was the start of something good................

Istanbul - WoW

I’d been out of Saudi for almost a week and my juices were flowing, I was looking forward to this. The great thing about Istanbul is that all the amazing sights are in walking distance from your hotel. It was the end of Ramadam and the people were in the streets, an entertainment and food tent city appeared outside the blue mosque, it was fantastic at night.

I am pleased to say that I took a step forward here and really started concentrating on framing, there was so much that interested me all around so it was easy to get right into it. I think I got my D80 to it’s best here and it is a fantastic camera for night stuff.

What really amazed me was you can walk through mosques at prayer time and even take photos inside....of people praying.....now this was in such contrast to the Saudi thinking that I was gob smacked, so of course I went to town on it. I learned later that other Mid Eastern countries are very happy and focused on their prayers and like to display this to visitors, it’s a much more open view.

I walked and photod myself to exhaustion, loved the abstract shots possible in the Underground Cistern, and of course Aya Sofia is a must, subdued colors and wonderful soft light. One afternoon I went to the Grand Souq and wondered through the maze of color and smiles, then went out around the square as the sun was setting and watched the hussle and bussle as the traders set up for night and then made my back to the hotel in darkness getting some great shots on the way....that was a memorable day.  

Draculaville - Bran

Time for trip to Transylvania. Andra arranged a rooms in a big house again, it's a good way to go. It was fun to go to the place we hear so much about and see in so many movies, but of course it isn't the actual Dracula Castle, it's just more convenient to call this one Dracula's. I heard that the vampire's relatives are suiung the local council for profiteering at the expense of the beloved blood drinking ancestor.

There's some stalls and country fun to be held around the small town including drilled port shoulder chop which I was into in a very big way. A rustic and local stay with lots of authentic Romainian food and bits.

One of my all time favs is the staircase one below.