Mark’s Notes On The Go

The past few weeks have been busy as usual. Work has been demanding of late, and I’ve been trying to get ready for a photo show that was on Friday. It was one of those things I kept meaning to put out there for everyone and never got around to it except for a bulletin on myspace at the last minute.

The show was great. We had a huge crowd of people through the gallery and the organizers did a great job of putting it together. I had 4 framed prints and 3 of them sold. This is actually a first. So far all my personal sales (not internet) were un-framed prints. So, I won’t be covering my walls in more of my own photos just now! I also sold a few matted prints and I got a ton of positive feedback (mainly from other photographers in the show). I’m still a bit shy about stepping up to the plate when people are looking at my work.

And over the remainder of the weekend I rested and I worked on editing the rest of my Egypt photos at last. There are a ton since I’ve last posted a blog. So, please check out my Egypt Gallery to see them all. I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it one last time, I’m incredibly happy with my decision to go to Egypt. I had heard a lot of people suggesting now was not the time. Maybe it’s not the best time, but it was my time, and I have to say that I had a brilliant time. I don’t know if I will ever see the Nile again in my lifetime, but I would welcome the chance again.

Egypt is an arid land, but still a place of astounding natural beauty. Two days on the Red Sea were not nearly enough, but sites like this will stay with me for a long time.

I took this with my neutral density filter so that I could get a long exposure and really expose the color of the sunset on the Red Sea. The little mountains across the sea are Saudi Arabia.

Also on the Sinai peninsula, we visited the oldest monastery, the Monastery of St. Catherine, a holy site for both Christians and Muslims, and a site of pilgrimages since Roman times. We also climbed to the top of Mount Sinai, which as I’ve recorded was incredibly strenuous for me, but so worth it.

And on our final day, we visited a 19th century mosque in Cairo. The beauty and details of this place was exquisite. This is only a single image of many I posted of this mosque. I really hope you check out more of them.

The carpeting in the Mosque of Mohamed Ali is original 19th century hand woven carpet - and I took this with my wide angle fisheye lens. The lighting is what was truly magic to me.

Coolness! This evening I discovered that I came in first in a Lonely Planet photo challenge on flickr. It’s a weekly thing where they give out a theme and you can submit photos to the theme. This past week’s was “Most High” and my travel photos of the hot air balloons from Egypt seemed to fit the bill.

As the week wore on, I was thrilled to get so many votes, but had no idea that it was even close to the top.

Clicking above gets a bigger image of the screen shot!

Put into perspective of course, it’s nothing huge. I’ll happily take a couple of travel guides even though I only have dreams of places I may go next right now. But it’s awesome reassurance!

Alas, the end of the sunrise hot air balloon photos shuffles to an end. The flight was a bit over an hour. I took a 100 pictures in the first maybe 20 minutes and then I sort of relaxed and just soaked it in. The most dramatic light was past and it was really down to seeing the Nile Valley and the Valley of the Kings from high above. We passed over a farming area as we floated back down, and all below us locals waved at the hot air balloons - which are for them pretty much a daily occurrence. These sunrise balloon deals are a popular touristy thing in Luxor.

While there are a few more photos added to the Egypt gallery that are from the air, this is the last balloon shot to share with you, the golden moment when the light was really with me and a balloon managed to get in the right position for me…

I’m somewhat active on flickr, but then I’m somewhat active on a few art sites. Flickr, though, at the moment, is probably where I’m most consistently active. I especially keep current on the local groups for the Atlanta area. A relatively recent addition to the list is the Atlanta Creative Post, a group where members can post their photos that they’d like to see others do post processing for and see the different takes on it.

This week, Julie, posted a photo I really liked from a wedding she shot. I liked it, it was a really fun shot of the bride swinging the flower girl, and I took my stab at it. I especially like these people shots, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed I shoot very few of these types so far, leaning far more towards places and things. So, getting to at least post-process is a good experience.

Julie liked the result so much she posted it to her flickr stream and made the explore front page at flickr which is really an accomplishment - over 400 people have seen it in the last 24 hours! I thought I’d share with you guys.

I’ve added a ton of photos to the Egypt Gallery tonight and over the last couple of days. This is something considering I had to swap out the hard drive on my laptop yesterday. I don’t know if it was a serious issue, but I had a file go all corrupt on me and windows crashed. It restarted, but I did a couple of drive tests from seagate that showed something was up. It was possible “merely” re-formatting would have taken care of it. No thanks, not worth the risk - I got a new drive, re-installed my OS and all my software and copied my files off the old one. Only lost one replaceable file. So, not bad. Next week I’ll take time the time to either reformat and re-test it or to call and find out about RMAing the drive which I’ll just use as yet another back-up drive.

Anyway, glitchy tech aside, I hit a stride with photos this week. I’ve got a lot to go, but I’ve posted some more from the Nile boat trip, the temple at Edfu, and I’m working through Luxor now.

After two days on a boat, Luxor was what the doctor ordered, a mix of western food and yet still with the awe inspiring temples from antiquity. The funny thing is, these photos of the temple at Luxor are as close as we ever got. It was an option to visit, but this, as striking as it looks, so paled to most of what we had seen or would see in the way of temples. And by not going, it held off the temple overload a little longer!

The first morning in Luxor is when the magic happened. My first experience with hot air ballooning. It was an experience that a week later I would claim as the highlight of the trip for me, and still something I look back on kindly. If you had asked me, I would have said, and still would, that I don’t like so much air between my feet and the ground, but my travels are very much about stepping outside those comfort zones. And it was ever so worth it. I don’t know when/if I’ll ever do it again, but I suspect I will, and I know I’ll treasure the memories. There are literally a ton of balloon photos, I’ll share a couple. I’d love it if you guys would pick your favorites and comment back with them. I want to pick a couple for prints and I just can’t choose.