Egyptian Hat Seller – Gallery Picture

Egyptian Hat Seller in Saqqara- Gallery Picture

Egyptian Hat Seller

This image of an Egyptian hat seller is a response to one of the challenges of photography far from home – to try to capture something different from the standard postcard views of famous sites.

One approach is to include images of the local people as habits, clothes and manners change.

Here I was in Egypt in Saqqara near the ancient city of Memphis and the site of the pyramid  considered the earliest in Egypt.

Like every other well known site in Egypt there were dozens of locals selling souvenirs and trinkets.

As I was actually willing to buy a hat the hat seller caught my attention.

Egyptian Hat Seller Photo Facts

There are a number of approaches to photographing people in their familiar environment.

Often I favour a completely candid approach using either a telephoto lens, or a lens so wide that people assume they’re not in the picture.

However it’s a also possible to chat to people and strike up some sort of rapport.

Obviously the hat seller was keen to sell his hats and that gave me a starting point.

Another was that though his English was much better than my minimalistic Arabic he was pleased that I had some knowledge and experience of living in the region.

We established that being photographed was not offensive and I was able to take a number of pictures.

My objective was to establish the location as well with some imagery from the Pyramid itself.

Photographically I wanted to focus mainly on the hat seller’s eyes while throwing the Pyramid out of focus in the background.

This was best suited to a moderate telephoto viewpoint.

For this shot I used my Canon DSLR handheld with my Tamron 28-75mm lens set on 63mm – a standard portrait length on a crop sensor.

This photo is from my gallery – Images of Egypt.

Widecombe Church

Widecombe Church in Dartmoor – The Cathedral in the Moor

Widecombe Church in Dartmoor

Widecombe Church is often called the Cathedral in the Moor.

Widecombe is a small village in Dartmoor in Devon, England.

It’s famous for the church and its annual Fair.

The song “Widdecombe Fair” is where the phrase “ Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all” comes from.

Widecombe Church Photo Facts.

Over the years I’ve visited Widecombe Church many times and tried to photograph the interior.

The problem of course is the great contrast.

It’s not possible with either film or digital to capture detail in the windows and the shadows of the interior by conventional photography methods.

Digital capture however does offer some help.

For this picture I chose a dull day to try to make sure that contrast was limited without bright sunlight streaming through the windows.

I set up my Canon EOS 5D Mark 11 on my Benro traveller tripod.

I chose one of my custom settings with mirror lock up, self timer and manual aperture and shutter speed.

I used an infra red remote to trigger the shutter.

I composed the photo using LiveView and manual focus.

I used my Tamron 28-75 lens at its widest setting.

I took a series of test shots to establish a basic exposure.

It was soon obvious that I would need to take several exposures at different settings and combine them afterwards.

I chose a small aperture to ensure plenty of depth of field.

All exposures were RAW for maximum detail.

The Canon 5D Mark 11 does have an auto-bracketing setting but I wanted to take more than three exposures at the same shutter speed.

This meant I had to change the shutter speed carefully without nudging the camera.

Merging the photos together post exposure resulted in a photo with a much better contrast range than was possible using film.

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March 2024
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Stock photography by John Rocha at Alamy

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