Portrait photo shoots

On my recent trip to England I brought back a soft-box for flash, I have since then tried to get hold of a light stand and that is not as easy as it sounds when you live so remotely as I do. But I managed against all odds at least that is what it felt like :-)
I am so happy with my new setup, I asked one of my friends the other day if she could model for me so that I could try out my new gear. I did not only buy a soft-box I also got a new lens 50mm f1.4 and a reflector and some other bits and bobs to fill out my camera bag with.
We planed the shoot to be straight after her work so that we could get the photo shoot under way and then afterwards meet up with some other friends for dinner.
I had in my head a photo shoot plan of what kinds of shots I wanted to do. I needed a chair as a prop and since I don't have one (I know it sounds silly but I do not have a chair in my house, I have bar stools but not a normal chair) anyway my model does so I thought, great I will come to your house then. In hind sight it probably would have been better if she would have brought the chair to my house. I have more plain walls than she did...as well as her ceiling is not white! I had planned to bounce one of my flashes against the ceiling and I think it got drowned due to that the ceiling was not white but peach.... ha ha but in the end we managed to get some great shots. The chair did not play a large role in our photo shoot as I had originally planned. I wanted to make very bright portraits so that the face is almost washed away only leaving some contours. That is not what I did not in camera at least I did more of that in Photoshop afterwards. I learned a lot by looking at the images afterwards of what I would like to do different next time with the light set up. So I would like to make another photo shoot and make some changes. My model is soon going away on holiday unfortunately so either I hurry up and get this next photo shoot underway or I will have to change model. I luckily have another model coming in a few weeks time. That I can use as well. I'll keep you guys posted :-)

I have for a few weeks now been waiting for a sunset with no wind you know when the water reflects everything like a mirror. I have another shoot planned in my head that I would like to do and it would be ideal to do during those circumstances but I am thinking I might be waiting in wain it being winter soon and all and more wind in the afternoon to come. Should have done this shoot during the summer! The greatness of  hindsight again. So I might just have to try and do the shoot now and see how it goes with wind. I will let you know how I get along.

Busy times due to rain storm

Wow, I have just experienced my first rain flood in Egypt. We woke up 06.00 to that is was raining into our house through every A/C unit. Before I understood what was really going on and able to react and put buckets everywhere where needed and move furniture so that the water could freely poor down into the buckets... Once that was all done we were quite excited that it was raining and very awake. I took my camera and the car keys and went out to see if there might be any interesting images waiting outside!
Its not very often that we have that much rain in the same time so you have to take the opportunities when they come.

After only a few hours if even that the sun was out shining again. Then at 16.30 the wind picked up and it started to rain again but this time it came in horizontally so it rained straight in through all our windows on the house. Not a nice experience. The power kept on going on and off as well all day. We had no internet connection or mobile phone network working so we all did feel slightly isolated from the outside world.
But not to worry everything is all back to normal now at the resort the rain have dried up and the sun is shining again and it looks like nothing ever happened.

Sinai Mountain Range

This morning I put on my trekking boots and headed for the Sinai Mountains.

The start of the trek was quite steep then it eased out for a while and for the last bit it was a bit scary steep again going up went ok partly maybe to my new walking style that I adapted. I had my photo gear in a backpack so I was therefore slightly back-heavy so for the really steep parts I started walking more like an Orangutan (nothing against them) with my hands forward almost touching the ground so that I would not involuntarily fall backwards but forwards in case I was about to fall at all. I was more scared though walking down the steep hill with the slippery rocks, my new Orangutan walk was not of any help then more the opposite it would have made my trip down a lot quicker that is for sure and I am not sure in what shape I would arrive to the bottom at.

The Sinai Mountain Range does not consist of solid rock it consists in part of red granite and volcanic rock, so very porous. Which can make the walk a bit slippery in places so you always need to be careful of where you put our feet.

On my way up I of course stopped several times to take photographs. My goal with the trek was to get some nice images of the Taba Heights Golf Course from a high vantage point and not for the exercise itself that I got for free. The day was very nice for such a trek because the sun was hidden a bit behind a thin layer of clouds so it made the walk more bearable and not too hot and also helped with the images of course since harsh sun light very rarely help an image. I have attached a few of the images I took from this morning.

Beduin Camp.

I walked all the way up to the top!

Hyatt Regency Taba Heights.