Cairo in Motion

In February 2015 (yes, I'm just getting around to editing the photos) my husband and I took a weekend trip to Cairo. The city was incredibly striking, and the mosques very different from what I had imagined, my main experience with mosques being based on Istanbul. The colors of the city were very earthy, particularly in the golden evening sun, the mosques looked almost as if they were constructed from sun-baked clay.

For the bulk of our trip, we ended up hiring a private car with a driver for several reasons: many of the areas are not very walkable, the distance between sights can be quite lengthy, we had a very limited time and long list of sights to see, and private car hire is remarkably affordable. The great thing about this approach is we were able to see quite a bit of the city. The downside is that much of it was in the form of landscapes passing by at high speed. But, of course, the joy of digital is that you can experiment a bit with no real associated costs (I'm looking at you, film!). So, I pressed my camera against the glass of the car, and, when feeling especially bold, I even secured my wrist strap and took some shots with the windows rolled down. As you might imagine, I ended up with a lot of rubbish, like this photo with a lovely reflection of my fingers in the window:

But, in spite of some blurry foregrounds, I think several of the shots came out surprisingly well all things considered:

In addition to adventures by car, no cliched visit to Cairo would be complete without a trip around the Great Pyramids of Giza on the back of a camel. Suffice it to say, I've also acquired the (limited) ability to take photos whilst being jostled along on the back of a growling camel (and occasionally grasping the pommel of the saddle for dear life). Again, I ended up with lots of rubbish, but also got a few shots I think work:

Ireland

I know it's been far too long since I've blogged, and I'm grateful to those of you who are still checking back. It's been far too much work and not enough play these days, and I'm afraid my photography habit has borne the brunt of this. That being said, I have been able to travel a bit recently, so I'll just quickly share a few early photos from my trip to Ireland. More to come soon, I hope! Thanks for tuning in.

The Cliffs of Moher were my favorite spot in Ireland. Very touristy when you first arrive, but with a path you can follow for miles, it wasn't hard to lose the tourists and feel like I was in the middle of nowhere. And, bonus, it just so happens that the Cliffs of Moher are also known as the Cliffs of Insanity from the 80's classic The Princess Bride. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're missing out!

I also really loved the Burren, which provided amazing views of the countryside I had just driven through.

More to come! You know, someday...

Lovely Landscapes?

As I gather photos for the July edition of the Guardian's Been There photo competition, I find myself once again contemplating how to avoid cliched images and stand out from the heap of submissions the contest must receive--and standing out is particularly tricky, since the contest is open to professional photographers. They've recently revamped the submission policy, so it's now possible to see my competitors' submissions. The submissions range from lackluster to quite beautiful, and in scrolling through the images that have already been uploaded, I can see a few key commonalities among the images that stand out to me.

The first factor that draws my eye is light. Of course exposure matters, but I'm referring here more to the subject of the photo than to its technical merits. Particularly in photos featuring skyscapes, my eye is automatically drawn to photos which feature bursts of light--especially when the light highlights an interesting feature of the landscape or conveys motion, as in photos of clouds with sunbeams bursting through. The second factor is foreground vs. background--photos with some depth (often but not always those which follow the rule of thirds or incorporate leading lines) catch my eye more frequently; photos in which the foreground and background are indistinguishable seem flat and uninteresting to me for the most part. The final common element in the photos that appealed to me was the successful inclusion of objects of interest. A strategically placed person or object can draw your eye to an interesting part of the photo or create a sense of motion.

So, after thinking about these principles and scrolling through my own insanely large collection of photos, I've narrowed my options down to the following contenders. Which one would you pick? Do you have strong feelings one way or the other about any of these? I have until July 24th to pick my entry, and I'd love to get your thoughts. Remember, you can click on any photo in the blog to see it enlarged. Thanks in advance for the feedback! Oh, and for those who read my last post, I checked in with the judges and yes, panoramas are allowed.

Option 1: Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

Option 2: Cape Horn, Washington

Option 3: Eklutna Lake, Alaska

Option 4: Kenai Peninsula, Alaska

Option 5: View from Flattop, Alaska

Option 6: Florence, Italy

Option 7: Malham, England

Option 8: Volta Region, Ghana

Option 9: Stanley Lake, Idaho