My trip to Aqaba, pictures

A recent trip to aqaba
I took many pictues, but i haven't edited any of them yet.
so here they are, fresh out of the camera, only resized.

My trip to aqaba

Just click on the picture above, to view full album

Taken with the Canon powershot G9, with its 35-210mm Lens (no converters)

My job of photography

Being my latest interest and hobby, I’ve been indulging myself in the world of photography more and more, over the past few months. Reading lessons online, goofing around with my new point-and-shoot camera and playing with some image-processing software.
And it seems that I’m not the only one who enjoys looking at my photos, because I was given a job of taking 1000 (one thousand, in words) photos of Jordan, and mainly Amman, for an Arab stock photography website.
I’ve decided to take the challenge heads on, with my –seemingly under equipped- hardware, and called forth upon –for the sake of software- all my computer skills.
I’ve taken some 150 photos so far, and hopefully I will be done with the majority by the end of Ramadan. And I must say that I like most of the photos that I’ve decided to submit, and can only hope that the other party will be satisfied with all of them.

Here are some low-resolution photos that I will be submitting.
PS: all these photos were taken in downtown Amman around 5 am






Legal note: these images are under the protection of copy-protection, legal authorization, all other legal crap in addition to a couple of voodoo spells that shall descend on those who steal my photos. :P

My pictures I

Getting my first own camera on 31st of May 2008, and up to the date of 31st of July 2008 I took more than 3200 pictures.
Removing Duds, repeats...etc, I was able to minimize the pictures kept, down to 1400 pictures.
I choose the ones that I like the most, and uploaded them to picasa, mainly so that my father would be able to see them, as he works and lives in the UAE.

Hope you like them dad

My pictures I

My trip to Dana - the sequel

........but going back to the camp was easy and took hardly any time.
After taking an hour -or two- of rest, and eating the -so little- food brought by Y-san, we decided to ascend the mountain, to watch the sun as it sets.
Going up the mountain was an easy adventure, had we not been tired from the "cave trail" dungeon. :)
But we climbed the mountain in short time, and were able to witness a very beautiful sunset, seldom do we have the chance to witness such a sunset in the city.



Descending the mountain using the longer, yet easier path, was -to my surprise- not the treat that ascending it, was to us.
Three of the guys were -for some unknown reason- psyched up enough to raise up their pace, and beat us to the camp, the ones who were left behind "suffered tortures of the damned sir, tortures of the damned", allow me to quote the old film.
The path down, was a long and tiring one, with no water or food at hand. (It's not like we NEEDED any food, but some cold water would've been nice, and some juice too, maybe some jelly....what was I talking about??)
And with Y-san hurting her leg, and barely being able to walk, we moved at a low velocity, being unable to help her in anyway. And the darkness falling on us wasn't helping, either.
After walking for so long, without seeing a sign of the camp, the courageous little me decided to go on an "exploring expedition", equipped with no more than a binoculars, a sony ericsson W800i (relatively good lighting) and a precious Canon G9, too valuable -to the courageous little one- to be used anyway. The courageous little one started running, holding the binoculars in one hand, and the precious G9 in the other, and even thought he strayed away from the road, and -soon enough- found himself " within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost." like a great poet once said, 700 years ago. So the little courageous one decided to return to his little party that he left behind, and so he hasted towards them, and after "hasting" for a considerable time, he didn't see any trace of them, so he called them using his cellular phone, only to find that they've actually arrived at the camp, a little earlier. Now the little courageous found himself to be alone, in the night, lost, in a natural reserve that's "supposed" to have wolves and hyenas. The little courageous one is no more courageous, for fear is now within him like a tree having it's roots so deep in earth.
The little no-more-courageous one called his friends once more for guidance and moral support, but his friends being as insensitive as he expected them to be, decided to see what are the chances of a little not-so-courageous one surviving through such hardships.........

anyway, the camp was actually near, and the little not-courageous-but-able-to-run one was able to run all the way there, encouraged by the scary voices that you would only hear when you are alone, lost and with no sense of direction. :D



if there is a third part, it should be expected soon

My trip to Dana

Interior tourism isn't a real attraction to Jordanians, due to the fact that many of them believe that Jordan is a god-forsaken country with nothing but sand, and no good scenery, what-so-ever.
But a recent trip to "Dana reserve" proved me that this wasn't as true as I thought it to be, me being one of those people who believed so.
The seemingly-strange choice of "Dana" was made after hours of thinking, negotiating and making fun of really crappy ideas, while trying to choose a place to which we could go in a goodbye-trip, for our italian friend that is leaving jordan for good, and she wanted to see that place since she's never been to it before.
So we packed ourselves -seven people- and gathered at my house, to begin a trip that would leave us many memories, all of which are happy ones.
We left to Tafileh city -in the south- in a public transportation bus, from the "South Buses Compound", the trip that lasted for 2 hours and a half was not at all tiring, especially that we weren't over-packed, and our bags and belongings caused us to trouble.
Lunch and finding a bus -that would drive us to Dana- didn't take much time, we were able to see the tents -in which we are to sleep- around 2:00 PM.



The weather was nice, we were lively and ready to rumble, and our real trip was about to begin. The tents were spacious, to a certain extent, and the facilities were "Surprisingly" clean, I didn't expect to find such clean baths and showers so deep in the middle of the wilderness, were we able to call it "wilderness". :)

We decided to take what's called "The Caves Trail", we were given a map and a short briefing about climbing the mountain full of small caves, and topped by a cave called "The Church", were it was a Christian church sometime.
I liked climbing the rocks, and found myself surprisingly good, being a person who's been nothing but careless towards having a healthy body. But what I liked more are the new numbers I saw on my camera.....

Photography meaningless blabber (skip if not interested):
[Since it was probably the first time I was daring enough to take my lovely Canon G9 out of my "world" and into the real world, I was able to take pictures with really high shutter speeds, many of them were taken at 1/1250 seconds, and one of them was as high as a 1/2000 seconds, since the "program mode" thought there was enough light to go hyper-speed, causing my heart to throb at similar speed :D
photography blabber ends]

Reaching the top and "The church" was no easy mission, though. Two of us rested at a cave nearby, while the remaining five went on with defying the sun, the rocks, and the human stupidity that caused us to bring very little water :(

The following paragraph is written in a "weird" English, which is normally my version of the old Enlgish:
"....and thus began our journey, seeking the head of the mountain that layeth ahead of us. But think no little of such journey, for huge rocks have stood in our way, causing some of my company to fall back , and be satisfied with the climbing that hath been accomplished, such climbing be as impressive as it could be.
Yet, a number of us that can be counted on one hand, hath decided that such a challenge shalt not go over-looked, without a trial."

Before going on, I would like to say that the previous paragraph hath...HAS only been written for poetic reasons, and for the personal joy of the writer, and a certain person who enjoys this style. The trip wasn't as hard as described, so I had to mention this, for the sake of integrity, and integrity alone....

Here is a picture of us at "The Church"
Further post(s) regarding this trip are to follow.....

My birthday

Is it only me who thinks that birthdays are somehow futile?
What’s the point of celebrating that one had survived yet one more year?
I believe we lost the right to be proud of such an “achievement”, having such easy lives. Talking about life hundreds or thousands of years ago, that was a tough life indeed, and you would have every right to be proud of staying alive, with all the wild animals, famines, and plagues and such. Those still remain till today, but I –myself- haven’t put much effort in being alive, and have very little to be proud of.
But –because it’s my birthday- I’m in no mood to speak of such gloomy topics, let’s keep it light and delight.
Come to think about it, what ARE birthdays about, indeed? Between receiving messages from people who I hardly know, being hit on by bisexuals on the internet, being dragged –in the middle of the night- to a late drink and some clumsy search, I realized that it all comes down to spending time with the ones who love us, be they family, friends or lovers. Maybe, just maybe, that’s what birthdays are all about!!!

perhaps they aren't so futile after all.. don't you think?

My quiet noon

Sitting in the -ridiculously- comfortable chair, the immortal music just crawls gently into my ears.
The beautiful breeze caressing my skin in the most tender way, as my fingers dance gracefully with the pages of the precious book.
I feel enlightened, elevated and blessed. I'm in peace with myself, the world and people.
I try to ask for more, but find nothing to complain about.
I close my eyes and hug the darkness. As a devilish smile takes over my face, I wonder.... "am I dead?"