desert solitaire

Well its been a bit since I posted so I thought I should do something at least before leaving for Luxor tomorrow.  I actually got to go into the desert on friday morning around 6:30 without the police following me.  It was great just to be out by oneself and not surrounded by 27 other people.  Of course I wanted to do some photos, but not much actually worked out.  this one I really like though, its a smashed bucket near the site that the Germans work at with the wadi in the background.  not much to say otherwise, but its more fun w/ depth of field for me!

If you think cloud computing is a good idea you're an idiot...

After fighting with blogger for a good few hours (hence the post name)here are a few images from the past two weeks; no theme or anything, just working…

Just a heads up though, this is a two part update, and the post below is the second half.  The second post contains images of a young calf being slaughtered the process of which I documented.  If you are squeamish about such things you probably don’t want to see them.

Mahmoud is a very nice man in Beni-Mansur who sold us some very foul tasting cigarettes (something like a $1.50 a pack and it shows).  We hear they are better than Cleopatras though, we’ll take that at face value.

 There  are 2 beers in Ægypt, Stella and Saquarra.  Saquarra is decent, but Stella is awesome.  Makes you wonder though…how can a country that has a conservative muslim electorate that frowns on drinking any alcohol at all produce a much better beer than anything those hacks at Budweiser and Miller can manage?

Sand in the morning on-site.  Yep…its sand.

Noful, the dog that belongs to the site guard Alam.  Most of the dogs here a vicious and feral, in-fact a few kids have been attacked by them since we have been here.  Noful however is a great little guy about a year old.

 A shot that I really like taken while Greg was cleaning all the sand out of the camera bag.  There is a second version below that speaks to the level of how much of a Nikon fanboy I am…

Ethics

So as many of you know, I am an avid meat-eater and have been known to never let a scrap go to waste.  I have thought for a long time about the ethics of meat consumption in our western society, specifically the presence of a disconnect that allows people to enjoy meat without the "pesky" knowledge that the matter on the plate was once a living creature, a thought process that I find to be extremely unethical by its very nature.  Fortunately, last friday I had the opportunity to adress this ethical delima when a 2 years and 10 months old calf was brought by the house-staff to be slaughtered on site in order to feed the expedtion.  Even though it was difficult to see, I kept my eyes open and photographed the process of the calf's death and I feel I now have a better understanding of not oly life and death, but the processes by which we as human beings take life to provide nourishment.

Warning, the images below are quite graphic, If you don't like blood, you probably don't want to see them.

Not all of Ægypt is Qadim and Maksur...

So since posting stuff from monuments makes Ægypt seem Qadim (old) and Maksur (broken) I thought it would be appropriate to get back to my roots of the little bits of everyday life here that I recognize as special. 

breakfast on-site

The car-ride back from El-Balianna, A bit harrowing, but interesting nonetheless.  Yes I am aware that both photos are pretty much the sme, but I couldnt decide which was better, what do you think?

The Guy who supplies the workers with water on-site.  A few times a day he rides his donkey over from the village with the water containers on its back.

Temples Part II

Last week we went to DanDara, a temple built by Cleopatra VII (i think).  it had been hacked up by the coptics in late antiquity, but I was able to find some details worth photographing.  the first 2 photos are actually from Seti, I liked them more after a second look.  at this point, I'm pretty satisfied with my detail work in temples, when we go to Karnak I plan on focusing more on larger scale stuff.

The Peopling of Abydos Part II

Went to Dandara today, got some nice stuff, for now though ill throw up some more people shots before bed.

Greg the photographer I work with,.  Hes younger than me and pretty badass even though he mumbles constantly.  Great guy though, and I'm glad to be working w/ him.

Amanda smoking on party night...even though she will claim up and down that she doesn't.  Greg was all belligerent at this point insisting that this photo wouldn't work...HA!

The funny thing about Ægypt is how excited random people on the street are to have thier picture taken by complete stangers w/ no possiblity of getting a print.  thank god for the digital age at least so they can see it on the camera.  This was taken in Balianna when we went to visit the fabric shop before the tailor came to the house to measure us, these kids were just across the street insisting we take pics of them.  I let of a string of like 7 high speed shots and this one was the last, my absolute favorite though b/c of the kid on the right side of the frame moving.

Temples Part 1

Last week or so we visited Seti temple here in Abydos.  was pretty sweet and I tried a lot of low light stuff, which didn't really work too hot since I didn't have a tripod.  Curiously enough, there was definite info on the image on camera, but when I got to the computer, there wasn't enough on many images to pull from.  Today we are heading out to see the temple at Dendara, maybe that will go better.... By the way, let me know if these are too dark to really see.

The Peopling of Abydos Part 1

So turns out the internet here is intermittently shitty ("Welcome in Egypt") so I dont get to even post stuff when I have it.  things are moving along though.  tired right now, so I won't bother typing a description for each image (maybe I'll add them later), suffice it to say that I'm working more on developing my self in the direction of actually photographing people, not to mention "peopling" the landscape that I have shown and will continue to show over the next weeks.