At the beginning of this year, I made the resolution to write at least one blog post per month. I thought that it would keep me focused and ensure that I keep working on my photography. After all, this is a blog about photography and writing one post a month didn’t seem to be too much of a stretch.
What I didn’t realize that I would be lucky enough to be out shooting so much that I wouldn’t have the time, or the inclination (because I was so tired) to write a post for the last 6 weeks. I actually have quite a lot of material to write about but as time is passing, it’s getting more and more difficult to put together the requisite stories
So, to make sure that I catch up with all my news etc, I am going to write a couple of short posts instead of the longer, more detailed ones I had originally planned.
First, a quick post on the annual Gulf Photo Plus week. This year it took place in Dubai from March 6-13th. For those not familiar with GPP, just google it; It’s the biggest photography festival in the Middle East and is an attraction for many photographers, hobbyists and professionals alike.
I assisted David Nightingale running a number of workshops; There was “Shoot the City” which emphasized city and architecture. That involved getting up at 5 am in the morning to make it to the first location in time for sun-rise, a couple of hours shooting at the DIFC and another sunset shoot at yet another location at tail end of the day. There were two “Shoot the Street” workshops where we spent a good part of the day shooting in the local fish market and old Dubai (the Creek). There was a landscape workshop where we went out to the desert, although that was probably my least favorite day out because of the sandstorm! Then there were two post processing days where we learn't how to edit and select the best images and work on them in post using photoshop.
Besides the GPP events themselves, there the impromptu trip down to the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi when 8 people piled into two jeeps to shoot the Mosque during the blue hour and an evening spent roaming around the Madinat Jumeriah looking for photo opportunities. Not to mention the informal chats with the likes of Zack Arias, Joel Grimes, David Hobby, Ed Kashi and RC Conception.
Then there was the informal get togethers with friends from past GPP weeks. I have made so many friends over the past few years and it was always wonderful to catch up and share experiences with them. And the making of new ones, something I look forward to every year.
A tremendous experience, one that I cannot recommend highly enough.
So here is my very diverse sample of images shot during GPP week, it should give the viewer a good idea of how crazy and amazing that week was. I have more but honestly, I just haven't gotten around processing all of them so I will probably publish them gradually over time.
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