Dubai Picnic Brunch at Al Badia Golf Club

Hello,
I had the pleasure recently to photograph the Al Badia Golf Club Saturday Picnic Brunch.
The location of their picnic brunch is just perfect it is a large grassy lawn positioned at the foot of their clubhouse overlooking the 9th green and the 18th hole next to their lovely lake. It is a great picnic brunch for families with children they can run around at their large children's area so they are well taken care of while you sit and enjoy the gorgeous food. I personally love their outdoor setting especially right now in this weather it is so nice to be able to sit outdoors and eat for a few hours.
This time I was invited in to photograph some of their splendid food dishes and the picnic location. The weather was not optimal I must admit for taking photographs it was perfect to sit and enjoy the brunch however. :) They have both so you can sit and have a traditional picnic brunch feel on the grass or as I prefer to sit by a table then I can strap my little one in a high chair and keep her seated for a little while had we been on the grass she would probably not sit still much at all if any…. :) you have the option to choose.

A small peek at their children's area.

  

Holiday Greetings from Dubai

Happy Holidays everyone.
Having lived in the middle east now for over a decade I know very well that far from everyone are celebrating Christmas. But it is hard to believe when you walk out in any of the shopping malls here they have all gone full on Christmas from decorations, large Christmas trees to having Santa’s grotto etc. One of the fun advantages of living in such a multi cultural place as Dubai is that you get to be part of so many different Holiday’s in a year because they are all very heavily celebrated but all in a very good way!
This year it was my daughters first Christmas and she is so easy to photograph she practically smiles all day long so when I put a camera in front of her face she just continues with being her lovely self. I cant ask for a better model.
Since it is our first Christmas as a family I wanted to send a personalized Christmas Card this year to our family and close friends. Here are a few snaps that I have taken of my daughter, in my search of finding our perfect Christmas card. Please let me know which one is your favourite. I think my favorite is the one below, the first one. That one unfortunately did not make it as a Christmas Card because I took it too late so it would not have arrived in time. I have learned this year that I need to be much more organized and start already in October to think of fun Christmas cards ideas to have time to both take and print them in time for me to send them so that they arrive before Christmas.
I wish you all a very Happy Holiday if you are celebrating and a lovely and prosperous New Year!

My though on this one was to have something that represented where we lived now. It was unfortunatelly not the best weather while we took this one.

A bit of fun.

Happy New Year!

Ps. Don’t forget to photograph the New Year fireworks it is great fun and makes for great Photography Wall Art and fun cards.

Portrait Photo Shoot, Egypt

I have been traveling a bit lately, one of my travels took me to explore Petra in Jordan. It was amazing and definitively worth a visit if you have not been yet. I will show you some images from that trip a bit later not today. 
I have also taken quite a few event photographs of golf presentations but none that are very interesting to publish here so I will spare you that.

Today I will show you a few images from my portrait shoot I did yesterday with a family. We did an afternoon photo shoot at the resort which means that it is more calm and tranquil around us than if we had done it a bit earlier also the light has a very pleasing effect for portraits in the afternoon. The calmness of course suited us very well since a child's attention is very easily distracted if there are a lot of things going on around them. We had a few on lookers at times but we managed great even with that.
Even though we were outside and there was plenty of available light at least in the beginning of our shoot the sun did drop behind the Sinai Mountains quite quickly in the end. But as I was saying we had plenty of natural light but I still used a flash to get those nice catch lights in the eyes. I had the flash positioned straight up and used only the little white plastic card to direct the light towards the person I was photographing. When you are photographing outdoors make sure that you position your subject on the edge of the shade if possible also make sure that you do not get any dappled light in their faces, from tree leaves etc. Dapples in the face or hair can easily ruin any portrait so try to stay away from it unless you are trying to do something creative and work it in. But in general for portraits stay away from dapples in your objects faces the images will turn out a lot better and you will be able to sell your client more prints which is probably what you are after -Sales!

Busy with projects.

Hi,

Wow time really goes by quickly when you are busy, it felt like I wrote to you just yesterday. I am right now working on a new project, a Photography Book. It is not as easy as I originally thought to choose which pictures to use and which you are better off leaving out. My plan was also to have not only pictures but some information about the destination topic that I have chosen so needless to say I need to sit down and figure out what is worth mentioning and not. I will let you know how it turned out once I am finished with it. I really put pressure on myself now to get it finished didn't I :-) Maybe just what I need though.  

I have also updated my website so please have a look at it when you have time http://www.shippeyphotography.com

My hubby and I have recently booked our honeymoon trip to New York so I am right now making a very long list of Photography Equipment that I want to purchase while we are there. Here in Egypt you can not get any good photography gear that is worth spending your money on. For those of you who don't know it already I can tell you I like gadgets so its a bit hard for me to only read about all the new exciting stuff that comes out and not have the oportunity to go and test it and buy it in the shops. 

I just finished reading the May issue of Travel Trade Gazette Middle East & North Africa (I received both the April and May issue today?! Egyptian post..) where I saw one of my pictures published, its always nice to see your photographs in print.  I am quite sure I have posted the same picture on this blog earlier this year in February. It was a picture of the Kempisnki Hotel Soma Bay that they had used, unfortunately for me there was no credit line for yours-truly.

Here is a picture that I took recently of one of the Resorts in Taba Heights.