Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque

I gained many wonderful Islamic friends while I was in Saudi Arabia, and several of them told me if I could ever go to Abu Dhabi I must take photos of the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque.  At the time it seemed unlikely, so I just filed that information away.

But when I arrived in Abu Dhabi to work, one of the first things I saw in a magazine was a full-page ad for a photo competition at the mosque. Sheik Zayed was the founder of modern Abu Dhabi and the UAE - he was a visionary man who took the massive influx of oil money and used it for the good of his people and his nation. He is revered and beloved, for good reason. One of the many structures he commissioned, as a gift to the nation, is the Grand Mosque.

So with little preparation or research, I visited the mosque half a dozen times in April to see what photos I could get to enter in the competition, which ended 5 May. I whittled it down, made my selections, prepared the final image files and uploaded them on 1 May. And didn't hear or so anything else about it until last week!

I'd pretty much assumed none of my images were selected (I was correct) and that they just didn't publicize the result. Turns out they just hadn't gotten around to it yet. At the beginning of last week I got an email inviting me to attend the awards ceremony downtown. It was a fairly simple proceeding, and I'm glad to have gone. It started 20 minutes late because the dignitary VIP guest presenter wasn't there yet, the intro video took 15 minutes, the actual awards took 15 minutes, and that was it!

No surprise to me, I didn't win anything. The winners were mostly Filipino photographers, and there were 2 Emirati women and 4 men who also won. I have no complaints about the images selected - one of them was a very unique approach - but you know about beauty and the eye of the beholder.
My images are in my style, and were my vision of the place, and it wasn't what they were looking for. I am pleased with my results.

I've been busy, and forgot that I'd not shared these, so without further ado, here are my submitted photos of Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque:

(note - I don't know what's up with the white interference over the dome in the shot above. I've loaded 4 different versions of this shot, and they all show up in here with that blotch - sorry! I'll keep trying to get it clean! mwg)

(note - I don't know what's up with the white interference over the dome in the shot above. I've loaded 4 different versions of this shot, and they all show up in here with that blotch - sorry! I'll keep trying to get it clean! mwg)

#AbuDhabi, #UAE, #SheikZayedGrandMosque, #uaeexpat

A Holiday in Austria

{AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wrote this over the past few days, but couldn't load any images into the page while on the road. I'm back in Abu Dhabi and can get this finished up now!]

 I am in Linz, Austria for a few days.  Part of this week is an Islamic holiday (Eid Mubarek to all my Muslim friends!) and the UAE government made the entire week a national holiday. Coincidentally, our daughter and son-in-law, Shannon and David, just moved to Linz. David recently and successfully defended his PhD thesis, and will complete a post-doc here at Johannes Keppler University. Congratulations David! So it seemed like a good time for a quick trip to Austria!

below: A picturesque side street in Vienna.  There are overhead wires everywhere, for lights or to power the numerous trams.

below: Courtyard of the Air BnB Shannon and David stayed at in Vienna. Lovely, shaded, and cool, from an era when designers and builders knew how to use the elements to their best advantage.

It is beautiful and green here! Such a lovely difference from the Middle East. I've been in the UAE for 6 months now, and have started many times to write a post but something always stops me - uncertainty. Issues and questions of employment, the work to be done, and the, hmmm, let's say business practices of one of the companies I'm dealing with, have made it difficult to keep looking forward. So it's nice to be here for a short break from all that nonsense.

below: St. Stephen's Cathedral, or Stephansdom in German. The original structure was completed in 1160, but construction continued until 1511.  It is an awe-inspiring Gothic structure

 below: old and new in Wien

We spent the first day of my trip walking around Vienna - oh my, history on every corner! It's like walking through a giant movie set trying to showcase the best of European architecture, and every hundred meters is a historical sign about a Kaiser, a prince, a king, or a composer did something here. Classical music as we know it today was developed and nurtured here - Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. And it seems like every few blocks there is a cathedral, each insanely complex and beautiful.

below: at a back corner of the Opera House, and a lovely tree-lined avenue

I'm staying in a student hotel adjacent to the university campus, on the 11th of 12 floors - I have a great view of the hills and trees north of the city through my window, which doubles as the air conditioning. Which is needed because it has been unseasonably warm this week. This weekend fall will begin with rain and a temperature drop, but for now the highs are upper 80sF (near 30C).

 

 

On Monday we walked around Linz. It's about the size of Little Rock, Arkansas, and nestled in lovely green mountains with the Danube River flowing through the center of town. There is an impressive public transit system of trams and buses that can get you across town easily and inexpensively. And again, history everywhere. Churches everywhere. And it is mid-September and unseasonably warm this week, so shorts and T-shirts and tank tops are out. Next week fall is forecast, with a big temperature drop and rain. The trees will be gorgeous soon!

below: the Danube River, or Donau in German

Last nighthawk we ate in a garden and enjoyed authentic Wiener Schnitzel. Wien is the German word for Vienna, so it is literally schnitzel of Vienna! No, it isn't a sausage or hot dog. Schnitzel is veal or pork, tenderized and pounded thin, then battered and fried. Served with new potatoes and a haus bier (house beer) it was a great meal to finish the day!

below: at the bier garten, a lovely open green space restaurant with trees and shade, and this one enclosed by a building. We tried to stay out of the open spaces because smoking is widely practiced here, and it twitches some of our noses pretty fierce!

 below: authentic Wiener Schnitzel!

below: this lady just finished filling her metal water bottle from this fountain, took a drink, then pedaled off! Don't you wish you could do that?

I just had a nice breakfast in my hotel dining room. Dozens of people were eating and chatting, and two ladies were refreshing the buffet, when two elderly women came in and called out a cheery greeting in German to the room. They were trailed by their large German shepherd, who seemed quite at ease here. No one batted an eye at this! How delightful?!

below: the city feels like a big park - it is immaculately clean, beautifully landscaped, and wonderfully green! Especially for a desert rat.

 below: fun with light and shadow

This has been my first non-work trip abroad without Dana, and it has been unusual to do so, but she couldn't make the trip now. It was her generous suggestion and insistence that I come. Thank you sweetheart - it's been wonderful to be here with Shannon and David! Next time we'll all be here together!

Best to all, more soon! Mark

#Austria, #ViennaAustria, #LinzAustria, #AustrianTourist, #WeinerSchnitzel

One day on the Scottish Road

In September last year, Dana and I met in Scotland for a wonderful two-week visit to places we’d always wanted to see! I’ve had a lot of disruptive activity since then, and have strayed from telling and showing about the trip, so I figured it’s time to get back to that. More on Abu Dhabi soon, but just for fun here is a sunset photo I took this evening from my balcony:

Just for fun I’ll take you through one day of our trip, in pictures. September 21 started bright and early! We didn’t, but the day apparently did. We typically don’t get rolling til mid to late morning. That’s just how we roll and I have no sympathy for those people who force themselves out of bed before daylight so they can enjoy all the available sunlight. Part of a trip, for us, is to relax and rest and just enjoy time together – we don’t have to be GOING every minute of every day.  So for you guys who don't stop often to smell the flowers, here’s a pretty little thing I caught off a bit the road. 

So sometime mid-morning we set off from Fort Augustus, which sits at the southern end of Loch Ness (more on that next time!) for an expected lovely drive to the Isle of Skye on Scotland’s east coast.  It really doesn’t matter which way you go in the Scottish Highlands, it will be lovely, green, and beautiful which every way you look! Our trip today was to see two castles. On our way out of town we came to a one-lane bridge and this scene – worth stopping for a look!

One of our favorite movies is “Highlander,” about an immortal who spans centuries, and he starts out in the first castle on our schedule, Aileen Donan (a’ len do’ nen).  This is a 13^th century structure that was destroyed, but in the 1930s was rebuilt by the local townfolk. The owners still live in this place, so it is part home part museum part display, but no pictures are allowed inside.

It is also part ancient and part new, with electricity and running water. Nonetheless, it is a beautiful place, strategically located at the heads of three lochs.  We spent a long time enjoying the sights, and then had a great afternoon meal in the café. Unlike the national museums, which are free, this is private property and well worth the fare!

We continued west on the A87 highway til we ran out of mainland, and crossed a monumental bridge to the Isle of Skye.  It looks much like the rest of Scotland – lush, green, mountainous, and today it was cloudy! The second castle we wished to see was about as far away on this island as you could be, and the further we went the darker and cloudier it got.  But it was still a great drive together.

We finally reached Dunvegan Castle right before the downpour. Another private property, this castle is the home of Clan Macleod, and the family still live in the place, so no photos inside, and by the time we left it was dark and pouring rain, so we didn't really look around that much after the interior tour.

When we left there was only one way to go – a long drive back the way we’d come. But on the way out we spotted a cemetery, and with the rain and clouds like they were I wanted to see what kind of images I could get. The answer was: somber.  Like most of Europe, Scotland is littered with war cemeteries from the great wars. Every little town has one. This one was derelict and the gate was jammed, so I couldn’t enter. Instead I shot over the stone wall where I could, sometimes holding the camera over my head. The monument below was for a Campbell.

We headed back for Fort Augustus, and I’d finally put the camera away, but coming up a long, lonely stretch of highway well past sunset I thought I’d try one more shot. I think it turned out to be a good end to a cloudy day on the road. Safe to say, we love Scotland!

All images are the copyrighted property of Stone Ridge Photographers, 2015. All rights reserved.

#Aileen Donan, #Dunvegan, #Castle, #Scotland, #Highlands

New Job, New Location

Hello all, I know it’s been a long time since I last posted. It’s been a busy several months, so let me bring you up to date.

As you may have surmised from previous readings I’ve spent the past 3 years working as a technical writer in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia for Saudi Aramco – the Kingdom’s oil company. For a variety of reasons it was becoming clear that it was time for a change. Then an opportunity showed up right after Thanksgiving when a friend emailed me a job listing and insisted I look at it because it was meant for me.

I looked, I agreed, and that set into motion events that led me to leave Saudi Aramco early in February, spend a lovely month at home with Dana, and then arrive last week in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, right after the worst thunderstorm ever here.

An auspicious start, right?  At least I saw a rainbow afterward, something I never saw in Saudi Arabia, so I’ll take that as a good sign.  For the past week I’ve been getting started at work, also a technical writing job. I’ll be creating flight manual documentation for the UAE Air Force C-130s, an airplane I spent many years flying. It should be very interesting work!

For now, I’m staying in the very nice Crowne Plaza hotel on Yas Island, just a few miles from my work. Staying in a resort hotel has its up and down sides but all in all it beats the heck out of the place I spent my first 1.5 years in Saudi Arabia, so I’ll try to make do. I’m about 20 miles from the main city of Abu Dhabi.

The day after I arrived I needed to get in some activity after my long flights, so I went for a walk toward the mall and Ferrari World. I haven’t been inside the place, but it is somewhat eye catching, and appears to be part museum and part adult amusement park - with roller coaster! More on this later, I'm sure.

In Saudi a group of us built and flew quadcopters and raced them for fun – pretty cool hobby! The second day after I arrived here one of my team members invited me to go with him to Dubai for an international quad racing event. 

 

A most-of-the-day trip to one of the biggest cities in the Gulf area was not really how I thought I’d start off here, and the “race” was kind of a bust (although most of the finalists went home with some serious prize money, so great for them!) but I had fun, got to see some very cool quad flying, and got some great iPhone shots of the place. Note, this is the very southern part of Dubai, and these beautiful tall residential buildings are not the any of the giant ones in the main city. Hopefully I'll be able get some photos of them while I'm here.

 

I’ve been asked what it’s like to be in Abu Dhabi, and while it’s too early to give you a really good answer on that, let me describe a short outing yesterday afternoon. I went for a walk, about 1.5 miles round trip from my hotel, and these are a few things I saw.  Boys and girls and men and women in normal swimming attire at the pool.  An Arabic couple lounging by the pool – him in white robe (thobe) and head cover (Keffiyeh), her in black gown (abayah) and face veil (hijab).  In addition there are dozens of physically impaired men and women here for a hand-powered race, and they have some of the coolest machines I've ever seen - like recumbent racing bicycles but with a hand-crank.  

I saw these car brands going by on the street: Honda, Hyundai, Chevrolet, Toyota, Dodge, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Ferrari, Jaguar, Bentley, Maserati, and McLaren, to name a few. Just normal traffic.

I saw an auto race taking place at the Yas Marine Circuit Formula 1 racetrack across the street – not a formula 1 race, but they use the track for everything they can think of, including the hand-powered race.  I didn’t attend the race, but from an overpass I could watch and listen as what I can guess were modified street cars raced around a short segment of the track.   

The overpass I was on crossed over a segment of the raceway to reach a giant luxury hotel right in the middle of the race track grounds. This place is beyond words to describe here – I will provide some images soon. But accessible from the hotel grounds, also within the raceway compound, is a marina where I saw everything from a 15-foot skiff with dual outboard Mercury engines, to motor yachts that would cost more than your house just to operate for a month, to a lovely two mast schooner, to a UK flagged, 110-ft (estimated) ocean faring yacht that my whole house would fit into.

On the walk back I passed an Arabic family going the other way – all in normal everyday clothes, and a 6 year old boy in a brilliantly colored American flat shirt!  Welcome to Abu Dhabi!   

One of the coolest things about being here is that, unlike in Saudi Arabia, my wonderful bride will get to join me sometimes, and that will be a blast! More to come soon, best to all, Mark

#worlddroneprixdubai, #yasmarinacircuit, #ferrariworld, #yasisland