fire in the sky

fade to dark

one light strobe

bad exposure recovery and RAW

shooting RAW and processing it in Lightroom can save your pictures even if you have "badly" exposed photos. i can't stress it enough to shoot in RAW. i know you should get it right "the moment it clicks" but in such situations retrieving information from a jpeg will surely be impossible. of course it helps if you shoot with a fast prime.

here are the jpegs (i shoot RAW + JPEG FINE btw).

arabian moon

shoes

this is in my pursuit of learning to strobe. single light strobe on a home-made softbox with a SB900. using Nikon's proprietary Creative Lighting System (CLS). the setup was fairly easy, softbox directed down on the subject - shoes. Manual flash.

ramadan kareem

taken at 7:30pm just after sunset, the new moon on the horizon (middle part). ramadan kareem to all our muslim friends.

stainless

are you so clean that you can be called "stainless"?

the dubai fountain in bokeh

try google(ing) images of the dubai fountain at the dubai mall in the world's tallest skyscaper burj khalifa, you will find that there are a lot taken in very good , well-exposed and properly composed photographs.
but here is my take on it. in bokeh.

[t]hank [g]od [i]t's [f]ood

dimly lit restaurant lighting food photo.

high up there

dimly lit restaurant UNO chicago grill at deira city centre is where these lamps hang. good thing i was shooting RAW. there is so much detail you can recover just by shooting RAW.

an exemption.

Thanks Rod for the dinner.

cheesecake and carrot [cup] cake

what i buy outside doesn't taste half as good as these.

using the 18-200mm, on-camera flash bounce.

this was taken with the 50mm. remote flash camera right, flagged with the black foamie thing and bounced to the wall.

strobed portrait

on her birthday, i finally got the missus to pose for some portrait using neil van niekerk's BFT (black foamie thing) on-camera bounce flash technique.

here are my favorites.

blondies

the opposite of brownies, this is what blondies are. baked these myself. the recipe is available in the interweb.
i finally got the chance to use the DIY white bounce card i have recently made.
the lighting setup was simple. the plate was placed on a window sill and everything is just natural lighting.
i could not decide on the background so i shot it with two different colors. which one do you think is better?

on white.

on dark brown.

dhow cruise

we went to one of those dinner on a traditional boat cruise. my 50mm was too tele for such a tight place. it is one of those times when i wish i had a faster and wider lens for such occasions. if a sudden windfall happens i would like to have the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 IF EX DG HSM for versatility or the older Nikon 24mm f 2.8 AF-D would also be just fine.
but nonetheless, some images from my 50mm f1.4.

caged light

i'm finding more and more that light bulbs and lamps are interesting to photograph.
i do not know why.

plate 3

pasta pene in alfredo sauce.

plate 2

grilled salmon and vegetables.

plate 1

a series of food photos. i enjoy eating and taking photos. it's a good thing the restaurant the missus and i went to was ok with me taking "casual" photography. :)

buffalo chicken for starters

salt and pepper

underneath your umbrella

steel chairs

had the chance to do some (somewhat)street photography. in a conservative locale like sharjah, it is not "normal" to randomly take photos. maybe it's just me but i don't see much people doing the same.

tea for two

cherries

clouds

a rare cloudy summer sunset with the sun basking in orange glow here in sharjah, U.A.E.

faces

a portrait series in black and white.

Kodak Instamatic

The real thing. Not some iPhone app thing. Taken with my Sony Ericsson K800i mobile phone. It's selling for Aed450 or $122 at the local souvenir shop.