Camel Races

A couple of weeks ago I was reading Facebook one Friday morning and a little post (ad) came up for a photo contest for people in Kuwait. The deadline was in 5 days and the theme was beautiful Kuwait. The prize was a new DSLR camera.

I have desperately needed a new, DSLR camera. I only have my phone and a Sony point and shoot, which REALLY sucks when you are a former photographer. I have been able to get some nice shots with my point and shoot when I've tried, but I really need something better.

My next 5 days were already super busy, so I jumped off the couch and headed outside to see what I might be able to get before church, since it was sunrise. Not much. It can be hard to find "beautiful" in Kuwait.

I immediately began to regret signing up for the professional development conference on Saturday and not the camel races, which were SURE to get better pictures. Then I hatched a plan- maybe I could do both. The conference started early so I could attend most of it, or at least half of it before the races. Long story short- the races were totally booked but then they called me back and said someone had canceled so I was able to make it to the races.

The races were a lot of fun, but I just didn't get the shots I wanted. I had images in my head that I wanted to make but couldn't. They have little remote controlled jockeys on the back on the camels and they drive in trucks behind/next to the camels and control the jockeys from there. I wanted to ride in a dang car with the remote control people!!!! and I wanted to be at the start of the race and behind the scenes and hanging out with all the camel guys!!!!

It's really hard to attend events that you want to photograph when you no longer work for a paper. Had I been working for a paper I would have got access to the areas I wanted and I would have got better shots. (Partly because I would have had a paper issued DSLR AND the access. *sigh*)

They had camels there to let people take a short little ride on. The starting point of the race is... who knows where, but not near the end where we were. We only got to the see the end of the race as the camels crossed the finish line. I may not have got the shots I wanted, but it was still fun and I'm glad I got to go.

As far as the photo contest goes--- I didn't win. :( I'm super bummed about it because I REALLY wanted a camera. Here are the photos I entered, followed by the camel race photos. The first three are the contest photos: the colorful hotel (always like that, not just a Christmas thing), the Iranian bread maker, and the camel guys.