Karabaa in Rubble
It’s even worse. Rubble everywhere. It looks like a war zone.
Ripping out the Heart of Doha . . .
BitJockeys Suggestions: Fishermen and Skyline
OK, I made it more panorama by cropping out the excess sky, and I bumped up the saturation a little, and that is about all I can do, other than sepia, which doesn’t look right at all, and some other general effects that don’t enhance.
BTW, do you notice that the Sheraton – that pyramid shape at about 2/3 way across skyline – has just disappeared? It used to be the most striking building on the skyline and now, it disappears.
Slow Saturday; Yousef’s Take in Fisherman Skyline Photo
I LOVE what Yousef did. It’s a slow Saturday, nothing much going on. If you want a crack at this photo, take it. Play with it. Send it back to me, show us what you’ve done. Keep it clean. 🙂
Yousef:
is that a WOW or what?
So . . . I don’t have all these tools. Go for it. The shot is in the Eid morning photos you will find here so have some fun with it.
Carnage on Karabaa
Running errands today in the heat and humidity gave me a new insight into these last few days of Ramadan. I briefly got annoyed with myself for forgetting to bring water, and then realized ‘oh no!’ I had left the water on purpose so I wouldn’t unthinkingly violate the no-eating/ no-drinking-in-public-during-Ramadan laws. When it is SO hot, and SO humid you sweat! You just ooze moisture! When I got home, I was exhausted. (It might also be a little bit of jet lag) I was so tired, I had to take a nap.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to try to live a semi-normal life and fast during this kind of heat. I cannot imagine how it will be next year. And the year after that. It is brutal.
I knew Karabaa street was going to undergo some changes for the new ‘Heart of Doha’ project, but the reality was shocking. Old landmarks are gone. Just gone.
The Garden Restaurant, where they had the purely vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor and the more elaborate carnivore restaurant upstairs:
This rubble is where the Garden used to be:
When visitors came to Doha, one of the standard stops was always the Yemeni Honey Man (he also sold baskets from the Asiri mountains in Saudi Arabia, gorgeous baskets, in a building I always thought of as the Beehive Building, because of the honey, and also because of the shape of the multiple domes on top of the building:
You can see a tiny remnant of the building in the right corner – all the rest is rubble. All the surrounding buildings are also empty, ready to be demolished:
Here is the parking lot which used to be full – there used to be another restaurant, not a fancy restaurant but a very tasty restaurant called The Welcome – it was torn down, only five years ago, and now the building that replaced it is also being torn down:
All the little shops are just gone, all the little jewelry shops and textile shops, gone:
I wonder how long these old shops will remain?
Misty Afternoon, Beach, Log and Seagulls
One of the best things about being at the beach is being at the beach – just being there, just feeling the sand between your toes, grabbing a beach book (mine was Philippa Gregory’s The Other Queen) and listening to the steady rolling roar of the waves hitting the beach . . .
As I strolled down to my favorite log yesterday, it was weirdly magical – the sun was shining bright, and there was this huge MIST rolling along the beach. It wasn’t cold, it was just magical and weird. I took a few shots of mist and beach and log:
Maybe this is what’s left from the seagull’s fish yesterday?
So I crawled up on the log and was reading my book and I hear a sound . . . and out of the corner of my eye, I could see a seagull land, like 5 feet away. I didn’t want to move too much and scare him, so I took this photo:
Yes, I had to hold the camera upside down, but then, slowly, slowly, I turned right side up, as more and more seagulls landed, groomed, and went to sleep. I guess I must have found the beach hot spot:
I quietly slid off the log to head back to the cabin, telling them not to worry, I meant them no harm. They didn’t flicker a feather:
Doha Roadwork
You think you know your way around, but in Doha, that can all change from day to day due to the roadwork. I was in that position this last week, found myself not wanting to re-do a 2 kilometer detour, so figured I could find my way through the back streets, which I did.
I didn’t know there were still streets in Doha I had never seen, but these were such streets, and oh what fun. I found this unusual and delicate mosque:
While lost, I also discovered a traffic roundabout I had been looking for. Expats have different names for many of the roundabouts, and those names are totally different from the real, local names, like The Mall roundabout, Green Steps roundabout – we know what they are, but those aren’t the real names.
The roundabout I had been looking for was Kotub, but I found it – Qutub – also called Library roundabout. Nearby is supposed to be a take-away place called Felasteen; someone told me they have the best felafel in the city. We used to go to place on Najma called Al Quds, but now he doesn’t do felafel any more, only sweets. We especially liked his bread, thin but with toasted sesame seeds embedded in the bread – oh YUM. We are hoping the Felasteen measures up to the old Al Quds felafel.
Doha Details
An old street between Kharabaa and Al Bidda:
A truck, with a decoration of leaves and grapes across the windshield:
More Doha by Dusk
It’s my favorite time of day, when the sun is setting and the long rays of light bring out colors and hues you don’t see in the harsh, pitiless light of the daylight sun. It is also poignantly transient; you have to shoot fast, and even as you shoot, the light is changing and fading:
Here, the fishermen are more intuited than seen:
The light is almost gone. The Doha Museum of Islamic Art seems to be smiling over the assembled dhows:
Doha Sunset
Last night, we just happened to be out at that magic hour, the time when the lights come on but the sun is not yet down. The residue from the dust storm crated some wonderful sky, and the night was breezy and just a little cooler, just enough to be bearable – even pleasant.
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