Kuwait Motocross 2013-14

Kuwait Motocross 2013-2014

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon! A great day to begin the rally season! Today i will be sharing another motocross event I witnessed recently. This isn't my first time covering such event but I can still feel the excitement just by thinking of it. 

We reached the track field around 12:20 in the afternoon to attend the photographer's meeting which was new to me. This time, we were briefed on the allowed spots for photographers and some do's and don'ts during the race. However, since the lecture was in arabic and most of the photographers cannot really comprehend, it just turned out to be a "hear and throw lecture". It was an awesome sight to see the field full of bikers and photographers everywhere.  I was surprised to see the race track with hundreds of photographers covering the event. :P

Starting point

Pavillion

The event was held on the same place last year near the 6th ring road. I have been there previously and so the place was easy to find for me. (Link here) 

 

                                                     The great start of the race..

 

 

The whole event was superb and action-packed! (a biker with his bike, during the race flew over me by the way :P)
 

During the previous events I've already tried panning (Link here) on my shots, and so this time I tried shooting in multi-exposure to catch more action photos.  

Below are some of my shots:

 

The idea of doing a multi exposure shot is quite simple; First of all we need at least a monopod or a tripod to stabilize the camera. Having a wide angle lens will be a lot better to capture the full ground. (Apparently, i dont have that :( ... so i used telephoto lens and shoot from approximately 80 meters away.) You have to set your camera to a continuous fastest shooting mode possible. Lastly, you may now select the rider or the subject, study the bikers movement and shoot.. (Based on my experience, I had better image results shooting in manual focus and so I would highly recommend focusing your cameras manually)

You can now post process your images in photoshop. (The process is actually called digital blending.) Below are more of my processed shots.

 

My other action shots during the rally

 

 

It was awesome to see the field full of bikers and photographers everywhere. Thanks to www.q8racing.com for providing us updates and schedules of the competition. It was a very exciting and action-packed event over-all. I have met new indian photographers from the track. It's also good to see and bond with my old photography friends (I'm not saying you guys are old, but... ahm.. :P) Happy New year Everyone! :D :D :D 

Subiya Desert (travel)

September 20, 2013

Friday Bird Hunt

Rainy days are coming! And so my Friday group photo buddies decided to visit Subiya desert area to check for migratory birds. It's a bit early to check as most of the migratory birds are only expected to show up once rainy season has started (probably late part of October). 

It was a long Journey from Salmiya to Subiya desert area, but this trip has been very enjoyable and a memorable one :) Route map Here
 

We reached a desert near the Bubiyan island and met a Kuwaiti family who hunts birds for their hobby.

A hunter kid

Kuwaiti Family hunters :P

In the beginning, we were hesitant in approaching them as they are all carrying guns and they might not like strangers and photographers talking to them! Luckily, the group we met are good people and they had welcomed and showed us all their bird hunting stuffs (guns, bird caller gadget, etc..). They own 2 falcons with them and they gave us chance to capture some images of the falcons.

During the photo shoot, they have offered us tea and showed us the meal of the day :P Yummy? :D

Lunch under process :P


 Ready to eat! :D

They were really friendly and they gave us their stuffs to play too. It was an awesome day and we had loads of fun other than photography. They also gave us some tips and information about birds (specifically about falcons). We were informed that falcons would normally appear before sunrise (at dawn) and will hide once the sun is up in the horizon.

It is amazing how the kids are so trained in loading guns and shooting birds. I have seen a young 6-8 year old kid loads a gun and shoots a target in no time :P
 

We bid our goodbye to the family and thank them for the warm welcome. Leaving the area, i was happy but then sad at the same time as I 'm not sure if it has really occur to them that they are posing a threat to different species of birds of which can lead to their extinction because of their hobby.

Walking back to our cars, I saw a nicely-shaped dead tree from the area as well (I'm calling it The Dragon tree :P). 

Fixing my car before leaving. Gas tank almost empty :P

Another day on October 11 2013

We did one more expedition to check for birds.

This time we went really early following the Kuwaiti hunter's advice. We left Salmiya at around 3:30am to reach the area in time with full of hopes to see even just one bird to shoot.

But as usual.. it was an empty trip for birds. :P We couldn't find any hunters or birds that day and so we decided to just stay there till the sunrise and have some sun rise shoots in the desert. (The weather was freezingggg that day by the way! :P)

Although we are not lucky enough to  find any birds, I was happy and satisfied with my lonely tree images and my friend's silhouettes.

Special Thanks to Manoj, Sandeep, Kiran and Karen for this wonderful trip. ;)

Al Hamra Tower visit - III

Oct 9, 2013

Once again I got a chance to visit the top floors of Al Hamra Luxury Center, the tallest tower in Kuwait. This time I had a chance to shoot in an open space / balcony of the 60th floor.

Actually it was a surprise visit and I was not aware whether the pass is available or not. I've always wanted to have an access to the top floor in an open area as I wanted to capture the wonderful views from above. A big thanks to all my friends for making it happen. I was a bit sad and frustrated during my previous visit as we only had an access to the 55th & 59th floors. I was not able to get nice photograph results because of the double layered glass walls. (Although we shoot in a dark area, some reflections are present and dirt marks are visible too)  You can check my previous visits here .

I was pretty happy for having this chance again to see Kuwait lighted in colors in an aerial view! I really enjoyed this visit not only with the photos I got but also the moments we had during the photo shoot. Not to mention the new good friends I met which made this visit more enjoyable.

The photo shoot was really quick, because I had several things to do after the visit and the allowed time was a bit less too. So I did some shots quickly and left the place for another days exploration.

Below are some of the evening shots I took:

Credits to all the cool security guys of Al Hamra Tower for giving us the access again :P