The Snow in Egypt

 For some bizarre reason these days I can't load photos from my desktop so all my posts are from my phone or iPad. We didn't get any snow in Cairo or Giza at all, just enormous quantities of rain. The snow in Egypt fell on New Cairo which is a suburb up on the desert hill just east of Cairo and in St. Katherine's in the mountains in the center of Sinai. It isn't at all that unusual to get snow in Sinai, but snow in the gated communities east of Cairo was a first. There was no snow at all at the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, despite photos posted to Facebook. Those were either a park in Japan with miniatures or photoshopped.

Someone else's photos of the snow in Cairo

Pyramids Make People Silly

 The panoramic point at Giza always has bizarre photo opportunities.  Maybe a Japanese tourist jumping high into the air from a wall. I don't know why.

Or people standing posed to touch the top of a pyramid...or maybe a tourist bus. At the correct angle you get the shot of someone touching something untouchable but at another, complete nonsense.

Equestrian Photography

It isn't easy to take good photographs from horseback and taking great ones is a total fluke. I was out with a couple of friends this morning who decided to record the occasion. The contortions to get the right angle were entertaining, but the horses found the approaching cattle and donkey cart even more riveting.

A Suitably Heroic Pose

There was a horrible duststorm blowing across the Nile from the west and traffic was pretty much at a standstill. The erection of huge concrete block walls on some of the main downtown streets has really put a nail into Cairo traffic's coffin. A group of young men were laughing and horsing around as we were stopped in traffic and one got up on the railing by the river for the appropriate male Egyptian portrait in a mobile phone.

Just For Fun

I have a friend who photographs competitive bodybuilders all over the world. Ulrich comes to Cairo about once a year to check in on the Egyptians who are competing and to take videos and photos of them. He likes to make the photos interesting with good settings and so on, and I've been helping him with that for several years. So yesterday we were out in the desert watching a bunch of bodybuilders freeze to death in a chilly wind while flexing on camels. Only in Egypt...

Just To Get The Shot

It's amazing how you can get caught up in the immediate project and forget where you are and what you are doing. The young lady taking the photo has only been riding for a couple of months. Happily, her equine partner is a really lovely reliable mare.

The Eye

Shooting down into a terracotta water pot I find myself reflected against the sky. These pots are placed by people alongside the roads so that someone passing by can have a drink of water. During Ramadan a little is left in the pot for emergencies, but the pot will be filled just before sunset.

Another Pretty Face

Last week I pushed out into the hot afternoon to attend a reception at Al Badeia Stud near the pyramids of Giza in celebration of the publishing of a book of photographs by the stud owner, Dr. Nasr Marei. With some of the most gorgeous Arabian horses in the world there, it isn't surprising that Dr. Marei took up photography years ago. This is one of the photos in the book, The Arabian Horse of Egypt. You can find it on Amazon along with a caledar of his photography.

Look! That's me!

There is a small grouping of farmers' houses near Sakkara and when I go by I often take photos of the women and the children there, which I then have printed up at a Kodak shop. This time I photographed the result of delivering an envelope of photos. I made sure to print extras so that if there were two people in the picture, there were two pictures. They seemed pretty happy.

The Photography Elf's Friends

Years ago a friend of my daughter's gave me a plastic lizard that we called George. He lived on the dashboard of the jeep and gave great fear to many gas station attendants until he had an untoward end when the jeep (The other jeep, the good jeep, the newer jeep) fell into a canal while in another person's custody. The person and the jeep survived (the jeep more or less and needed to be sold while the going was good.) but George had vanished never to be seen again. A few years later I spotted George the Second at a bazaar, enchanted by his orange and green stripes. George the Second took up residence on the dashboard but he isn't scary at all, so another well-meaning friend decided that we really needed Snaky, a yellow plastic snake, as we were missing the gasps and hand jerks that the original George had occasioned. Another friend gave me George the Small, another beaded gecko, for Christmas. Ok, everyone. That's enough reptiles. It's getting crowded here and I'm worried about Mohamed spending too much time photographing toys.

The Photography Elf

I left my camera in the car the other day while I went into a bookshop and Mohamed, my driver and righthand man, got bored. I ended up with some interesting street shots and he had a lot of fun. He's turned out to have a very good eye for a photo.

Photographer and His Subject

The Arabian Horse Breeders' Association held a noncompetitive show at Rabab Stud today afer four days of the Egyptian National and International competitions. Some of the horses were shown at liberty, meaning that they were simply turned loose in the paddock for people to watch and admire. After playing around in the paddock for a while, this lovely black mare came to a stop next to one of the photographers for her handler to place the halter on her so she could be led out.

Cultures Colliding

I spent a morning a while back sitting on the Great Pyramid photographing people taking pictures of families and friends on or by the pyramid. About halfway through the morning I noticed a man in a galabeya, jacket and scarf who looked like a visitor from Jordan or Libya...not a local outfit. He sat quietly on a stone in front of the pyramid apparently waiting for someone for some time. Then a Russian family stopped to take a photo of the mother and son in front of the pyramid and this totally captured his attention. To be honest, mine as well since the woman had to be wearing some of the least appropriate clothing for visiting Egypt and more specifically the pyramids that I've ever seen. Short shorts, a backless tshirt and platform high heels....she could barely hobble around. With all the information out there on culture and sensitivity, I wonder if we really need tourists like this.

Great Shot

My friend Elaine Jaques caught these two young women looking at a photo they'd just shot with the camera on a mobile phone. There are probably more mobile phones than landlines in Egypt.