Egypt #3 Photography - M1key - Michal Huniewicz
Take Off!
All right, we're taking off from the rainy London!
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The Sahara
Approaching Egypt after a not too long flight.
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Approaching Egypt
Lorries on their way to the Fayum Oasis.
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Prepare for Landing
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Landing
We drove out of Cairo specifically to play with the drone, as operating a drone in Egypt is a no-no (what a shame).
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Sands
We've now symbolically landed in the hot sands of the Sahara.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/1600s.
Let's Go
Let's move on to Cairo.
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Cats
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Pigeon Feathers
Man using a fan made of pigeon feathers.
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Oli
My friend Olivia, who will be the star of the next gallery, coming up soon. Together, we went to Luxor.
ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.4, 1/1000s.
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
Beneath the cliffs at Deir el Baharti, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut stands. It's being renovated by the Polish Academy of Sciences, and I wasn't sure if I liked it. It looked like something out of socialist Warsaw, especially from afar. It does look much better from up close.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/4.0, 1/750s.
Deir el-Bahari
Tombs riddle the cliffs of the Theban Necropolis. We were forbidden to go there due to high August temperatures.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/1500s.
Nie Wchodzić
As my patience for the Egyptian touts was wearing thin, this guy risked his life by trying to charge us for this picture.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/950s.
Ancient Buses
I was told that tourism in this area has never really recovered after the Luxor Massacre. In 1997, 62 people, most of whom were tourists, were gunned down here, when an Islamist organisation Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya attempted to undermine the Nonviolence Initiative. They hoped repression would follow that would in turn strengthen support for anti-government forces.
The killing took 45 minutes, and a note praising Islam was found inside a disembowelled body. A 5-year-old child was killed as well as 4 couples of honeymoon.
What happened afterwards was not what the terrorists wanted - Egyptian people got seriously fed up with them, to the point that no one really wants to own up for the massacre now. [
1]
Today, there are soldiers all over the place, with APCs and machine guns, and tourists from Sharm el-Sheikh arrive in armed transports.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/1600s.
Colossi of Memnon
It really is a sorry sight. It's mostly soldiers, touts, and you.
In the photo, Oli looking at the Colossi of Memnon, ancient Egyptian statues restored in Roman times. They originally guarded a temple, but not much is left of it these days. [
2] There's a legend that these statues make occasional sounds at dawn (as evidenced by graffitis made by tourists centuries ago).
ISO 200, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/480s.
Honey Bee
At the Luxor Temple, that's a honey bee; together with the sedge on the left this means King of the South and King of the North, as this temple was built by Ramses II; under his reign, the territory of Egypt spread as far as Armenia!
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Obelisk
This is the entrance to the temple. The missing obelisk is in Paris. [
2]
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Aladdin Pants
Oli wearing gift from me - Aladdin pants, which she destroyed soon after I left Egypt.
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Alexander the Great
I was told this architectural detail between the wall and the ceiling (or the ceiling itself) was added by Alexander the Great.
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Church of Luxor
Here, a vault from the times when the Christians turned the temple into a church - you can still see human figures.
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Columns
16 m high columns.
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Court of Amonhotep III
Court of Amonhotep III.
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Avenue of Sphinxes
Luxor and Karnak temples were originally connected by the Avenue of Sphinxes (painted in bright colours). There might have been as many as 1350 of them. [
3]
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Hadrian
Hadrian! The man was everywhere. We met him in Scotland and in Jerusalem and now here. He had a chapel dedicated to himself added here, outside of the main temple, somewhat more respectfully than those who tweaked the temple design itself.
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Mosque
Speaking of which: the Muslims just built a mosque in the middle of the ancient Egyptian temple.
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Mihrab
They even made a hole in the original wall to accommodate a mihrab.
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Shrine
It's called Abu Haggag Mosque, and I got some stares there, but I was being shown around by a local man, so it was OK.
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Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics inside the mosque. Let's hope the ISIS boys don't see this...
ISO 1600, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/60s.
Hot Air Balloon
We got 3 hours of sleep so we could do this hot air balloon tour. Out of five or six balloons, only ours took off. Here, before sunrise, Theban Necropolis from above. Soon, the temperature would increase by about 30 C. On the right, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, to the left, the Valley of the Queens.
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Town
Underneath, Egyptian buildings and fields.
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Palm Trees
The pilot seemed to be skilled to me. You have little control over the direction of your balloon, but you control the altitude. He got us some nice close ups.
ISO 800, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/60s.
Chaos
Typically Middle Eastern chaos beneath our feet. I believe you pay no property taxes here until the building is finished. So they are never finished.
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From Above
People looked at us and waved.
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Swimming Pool
We crossed the Nile. I think the wind was blowing in the opposite to preferred direction, and we flew further away from the Necropolis.
Did you know most of the Nile flows in Sudan?
ISO 200, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/60s.
Desert
Fields and towns gradually turned into a desert. It was time to land.
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Got It
We were intercepted by the balloon team who milked our wallets dry! One more for the team, guys!
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Balloon
The balloon was a beast, it did not seem to want to land.
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Landed
Like a hunted whale (I read Moby Dick recently), it eventually gave in.
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Motors
It was disassembled, and loaded onto a lorry.
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Karnak
While Oli and I visited the Karnak temple, a tout with a speech impediment would not leave us alone. All temples in ancient Egypt had an element of the primeval waters of the goddess Nun, in the form of the sacred lake (where symbolically all life came from). [
5]
ISO 200, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/340s.
Great Hall
The Karnak Temple hypostyle hall is so big it could accommodate both St. Paul's and St. Peter's basilicas! It's precisely aligned - if you followed its main alley across the Nile, you'd end up on the stairs of the Hatshepsut mortuary temple (she's portrayed with a beard there as those were not easy times for women). Keep going and you'll end up straight in KV20 - her royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/280s.
Stars
I simply love these Egyptian starred ceilings. They were originally painted blue and gold. The same ceilings will be found in some of the tombs in the Theban Necropolis.
ISO 640, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/60s.
Chapelle Rouge
The Red Chapel of Hatshepsut, reconstructed using original materials.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/850s.
Shadow
This area is said to be the second largest ancient religious site after
Angkor Wat.
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White Chapel of Senusret I
Restored in early 20th century, White Chapel of Senusret I. The reliefs here are of exceptionally high quality.
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Lamp
The last funeral, as it were, of Egyptian Pharaohs took place here in Luxor in 1881, when 40 royal mummies were shipped in barges to the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Nile is where it all began for the Judeo-Christian religions, as that's where Moses was adopted from. [
4]
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Hands
The waterscape here changes at a rate of 250 m per 1000 years. [
5] It could be that Karnak has once been built on an island.
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Tomb
These photos show a strange Islamic tomb outside of Karnak.
ISO 200, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/600s.
Bye
That's it for now from Egypt. Thanks for checking out the photos. There are two more galleries coming out soon that take us back to Cairo.
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