During my visit to Saudi Arabia, the majority of my time was involved with teaching my workshops. My host Abdullah Al-Saeed made sure that any free time I had, was spent sight seeing and enjoying the hospitality of his country. I was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity extended by Abdullah, his friends and the Saudi people I met during my visit. This was truly a once in a life time experience, one I would like to have again!GPS technology on my camera would certainly help me identify where this photo was taken. The gentleman shown in the photo at the top of this post is Mohammed Al-Musalli, he is a local artist from the town of Qatif.
If memory serves me, this is a very old fort build in the 16th century, it is the oldest castle in the Persian Gulf and was built by the Portuguese. It is located in the center of Tarut Island. Anyway, while being shown this wonderful location I asked to photography our host over looking a Mosque in this beautiful town.
In terms of lighting, this was a very quick set up. I first metered the background, underexposed it by a stop and a half and than turned on the strobe. Adam, one of my students at the workshop was with us this day and he hand held the SB-600 off camera and to the left. The photo really took only a few moments to achieve, having a VAL available doesn't hurt.
Prior to visiting this historic site, I had the opportunity to visit Mohammed in his home/studio. Mohammed is an accomplished and well know artist in his part of the world. His a photographer, painter and 3D artist.
After visiting the castle at Tarout we went to a beach where there was a traditional fishing boat beached on the sand. I had a few moments to photograph this ship before we lost the sun for the day.
I managed to add a quick fill flash using an SB-800 with the help of my friend Adam. He held the strobe at camera left and he used a hand to flag the flash off the sand in the foreground. DT
5 comments:
I had an opportunity to visit Honk Kong in January 2009 for work. Of course I took as much of my camera gear as I felt safe traveling with. I too had the benefit of friendly colleagues that were local residents to show me some of the amazing sites. I certainly would have had trouble remembering where many of the shots were taken. I shoot with a Sony Alpha camera, and I keep an ebay-acquired Garmin Forerunner 301 strapped onto my Lowepro pack. I turn on the Forerunner, let it lock onto satellites, and then set my camera clock in sync with the GPS. The, just start the timer on the GPS and shoot away.
I use a really nice application called RoboGEO to stamp the latitude, longitude, and altitude into EXIF data based on matching picture and track log timestamps. Then, once the photos have the location embedded, they automatically merge into my flickr map when I upload them. It is a very simple process with RoboGEO. It only costs about $25, and I highly recommend it. I think there are a few similar free apps out there now, but I'm happy with what I have.
By the way, as always, excellent photos.
-Brad
I found a little device about the size of a 9 volt battery called an IGotU or Igo. http://www.i-gotu.com/ Basically you charge it up and then turn it on and it locates satellites then when you go out shooting it keeps track of where you are. When you get back home you upload the data and it will show you where you were on a google map. By matching the time stamp from your photo and the time stamp on the map you can pinpoint your location by latitude and longitude. I got mine with a cigarette lighter charger. There is a little learning curve but the maps are excellent if you are into geo tagging your photos.
fhotoGraphx: Thanks for the information regarding the igotU/igo product, it looks very interesting and I'll look into it.
It will come in very handy for the Egypt trip I'll be doing in Nov. 2010. Thanks. DT
Along similar lines I use a GT-31 gps. Has the advantage of long battery life, high sensitivity and fast sync as well as being weatherproof. And, unlike many other models, it has a display on it which means you can just shoot the time once a day and correct the camera's timestamps when you're back home.
For tagging I use the free Geosetter.
Thank you David for sharing those photos with us. We really enjoy those days with you, hope to meet you again soon.
Regards,
Adam Ali
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