Capturing Local Life in Egypt

On December 11, 2018December 11, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Egypt6 Comments

One of the things that we do during our travels is to try and capture images of local life and not just photographs of historic sites that we see. We often take tours where we drive through various areas of cities on our way to our intended destination and often these glimpses into the real lives of the people who live there are as fascinating as the tourist locations that we visit. It started with our trip to India many years ago where we took photographs of the stores, houses, and people who lived throughout Chennai. We have continued to do so during all of our trips, especially those where the lifestyle of the people where we are visiting is different than our own.

It is an interesting way to get a sense of a culture that you might not get otherwise. Clearly, any country is diverse and no single picture can capture the entire society, but it is often a window into things that you won’t find in any travel books or brochures. Taking photographs from a traveling vehicle isn’t always easy and you often have just a second to try and capture the image that you see as you drive by. Because we are taking the photographs from a car traveling through a neighborhood, the people in the pictures have no idea that their photograph is being taken. That allows us to take photographs that capture real life, unfiltered.

We were on several tours during our time in Egypt as we visited cities like Cairo, Luxor, Edfu, and Aswan. On each of these tours, we were able to catch different images of local life from these very different cities. Because we saw such a wide variety of people going about their daily lives, it did give us a sense of the overall society. Do you ever take candid photos as you travel from one location to another that aren’t about the destination, but the journey?

Getting Up Close in Panama

On December 4, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Central America5 Comments

When we travel, we almost always have two lenses for our camera with us. One that is a general, versatile, lens that can cover most photographs that we take of tourist sites that we visit. The other is a zoom lens that we use to either get a closer view of cityscapes or especially to capture animals in the wild. Having a zoom lens is a great way to see animals up close without having to put yourself in danger or actually get that close to the animal your trying to capture on film. If you don’t have a zoom lens or even a DSLR camera, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get great zoom shots. If you get yourself a good pair of binoculars, you can actually take pretty good zoom shots with your cell phone. We first learned this trick when we were in Ecuador and our guide took photos for us on our phone using his binoculars. The same was true when we were in Panama and our guide once again helped us take photographs through one of the lenses of the binoculars. How ever you get them, getting those close up shots are always interesting.

We Didn’t Have to Climb the Tree to See the Three-Toed Sloth

Cell Phone Camera and Binoculars – We Didn’t Get the Camera Firmly Against the Lens

Same Photo with the Cell Phone and Binoculars with the Camera Firmly Against the Binocular Lens

Traveling in Winter

On November 30, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Photo Challenge3 Comments

We love traveling at every time of the year and that includes the winter season as well. When it comes to traveling at this time of year there are several considerations. Whether traveling by plane or traveling by car, weather conditions can change quickly and you need to be aware of road conditions. Obviously snow and freezing rain can cause havoc with air travel and it doesn’t even have to be where you are flying out of. Flights being cancelled in one part of the country can lead to flights being delayed or cancelled throughout the rest of the country. It doesn’t have to snow to cause delays, sometimes just the freezing cold can be enough to cause a delay as planes de-ice prior to take off, causing flights to spend extra time on the tarmac. When traveling during the winter, it is even more important to make sure that you don’t choose flights with short layovers that don’t provide any buffer if your flight does take off late. Finally, we all want to pack light these days, but cold temperatures during winter don’t make that as easy as normal. It is important to use layers and perhaps wash clothes during your trip so that don’t have to take a suitcase full of sweaters. Fortunately there are many brands of clothing that provide lightweight clothing that keep you warm without being bulky. We definitely took advantage of clothing made with those materials during our trip to Iceland in February a couple of years ago. Here are a few photos for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Cold, that just might have you reaching for a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate.