Butterfly Award!

A big THANK YOU to the lovely Marie of the "To Make a Rhyme" blog for awarding me with this..!

I should share something about myself, and give this award in return to another "cool" blog, and that cool blog is.. "Strange World Journey" .. Stranger, you're COOL!

Let's see, something about myself, eh?

Well, here's something, my earliest memory was of my first visit to Egypt in 1990. I was about 13 months old.

30 Cups of Love - Day 9

This was intended to be black and white, but after shooting it, I loved the atmosphere as it is, B&W would totally ruin it.

How far do you think I'll go with this? I'm betting... 16 days?

30 Cups of Love - Day 8

Love does not grow on trees.. or does it?

30 Cups of Love - Day 7

Day 7!! 

The bokeh in this photo was supposed to be heart shaped, but unfortunately, I couldn't find the heart lens cap that I made a while ago, and I wasn't really in the mood for making a new one.

23 photos to go!

*A note about last night's photo*
The link between the reflection of the moon in the cup and what is written on the page was totally not planned for. I opened the book randomly, and took the shot.
While editing the reflection, and after having zoomed in to fix a few details, I noticed that the beginning of the chapter was actually about the moon! What a lovely coincidence!!

30 Cups of Love - Day 6

 "I had forgotten to draw my curtian, which I usually did, and also to let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk -silver white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn.. "
                                                                             Jane Eyre

30 Cups of Love - Day 5

Day 5!

What you see bellow is exactly how I'd describe as "leaving my comfort zone". I always tend choose very bright light settings and fresh themes for my photos, but today I thought I'd try something very different, and I LOVED the result!! Initially, the shape I wanted to draw was a heart, but controlling the light trail is very difficult, so we (my friend and I) ended up scribbling random shapes in the hopes of creating a fair resemblance of a heart.. and I think we did a good job!

This photo is dedicated to her, for having to put up with me bossing her around today ♥

30 Cups of Love - Day 4

Today's entry..

Using a tripod makes a BIG difference! Even if you don't really need it.. especially if you're shooting indoors and in dim lighting.

30 Cups of Love - Day 3

Day 3's entry, shot yesterday.

Special thanks to Yara, you're the best :)

30 Cups of Love - Day 2

Day 2's entry, shot last Thursday.

The challenge here was trying to prevent bugs from jumping into the teacup!!

30 Cups of Love - Day 1

I've been ignoring photography for far too long (yes, three months to me is 'far too long'!) and when that happens, I usually get myself to commit to a weekly or monthly project, which can be very challenging. 

A friend is working on such project over at her "Strange World Journey" blog, which has been very inspirational. 

This photo was taken four days ago, and, as you can see, it's of my favorite photography prop.

It wasn't my intention to start off the 30 days challenge with this photo, but, since I love challenges, I thought, why not take this up a notch! 30 photos of the same teacup.. uhu! Now that's challenging!

I started this four days ago, and I'm already worried about coming up with a good shot for tomorrow! I wonder what will happen when I'm out of ideas!

Don't expect all the photos to turn out perfectly, after all, it's a challenge!

What in the world....?!

According to Dictionary.com, art is:

"the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance."

  
Now, can anyone please point out to me where the "of more than ordinary significance" element in this picture is? Well, you probably cannot, because, let's be honest, it's nothing more than a piece of crap (excuse my french)

  
BUT! Ladies and gentlemen, apparently the folks at Christie's have a rather, strikingly, different opinion. 
This.. thing, you see before you, was sold at a Christie's auction last Wednesday for (I kid you not!) 30 million dollars...!!!! 
If you click on the photo, it will take you to the Christie's website, posted there is a video of the sale (in case you don't believe me..)
Maybe I'm missing the point here? Maybe I do not have what people call "an artistic eye"? But really! A four year old can smudge paint on a piece of canvas! You don't need to be an "artist" to do that!!

Mark Rothko, the creator of this masterpiece (yes, it was actually described as a masterpiece..!) was a Russian-born, Jewish American painter. I thought that mentioning a bit about the talented artist who smudged this exquisite pathetic excuse of an art piece on a 93 x 76 in. sheet of canvas, is very important. Why is that? Because I have come to a very strong conviction, that art is NOT measured by the qualities of the piece, the meaning behind it, the emotions it captured.. etc. but rather WHO the artist is...  
..and money laundering..

Shoot Them!

I once read somewhere that some famous photographers tend to avoid shooting flowers. Their argument is that flowers are beautiful by themselves, it does not take much talent to create a beautiful flower photograph.

I do not agree.

While it is somewhat true, I believe that a flower shot by a talented and creative photographer can be a piece of art. You cannot create art without talent.

Speaking of flowers and photographs, I will be participating in a joint photography exhibition this Friday (inshallah). The theme is flowers (of course.. why else would I have mentioned flowers?). I submitted 6 photographs and only two will be chosen and printed on canvas. (this photo is not one of them, by the way). I really liked the idea, since I won't have to deal with any of the printing and organizing, such headache it gave me last time!

The exhibition will be held at an art gallery in the Zamalek district.
So if you find yourself free on Friday night at 7pm, stop by! It is on 26A Baghat Ali Street, Zamalek, the place is called Art House. And please, do me a favor, if you do come, don't just stand there watching, introduce yourself! Trust me, I won't bite.

In case you were wondering what happened to me this past month, and why I suddenly disappeared from blogger world, I will tell you that Asya happened. She's my three months old baby sister. Only three months and she's already a spoilt brat! It has been a while since we had a baby in this house, so we're making a big deal out of it.