Dusty Wyndow Blog

SMA Awards Trophies. By Nath Halawani It felt somewhat refreshing to be there with both highlights of having been nominated at the awards earlier at the prequal, and being an event photographer, with that shiny Media access tag on my chest. Last night was the night the Social Media Awards held their first awards ceremony on April 29th evening at the Phoenicia hotel, Beirut. Mustapha Hamoui, has the looks of a future PM. By Nath Halawani Hide 'n seek Just as a relatively large number of attendees, I got invited to the ceremony, and therefore didn't have to pay for the ticket. My invitation was through Lebanon Eguide , a start-up online social venue for travel and leisure around Lebanon and recently, the middle east. Upon registration at the doors, I met Rana and then found me a chair to leave my two bags at. I had my gorgeous D7000 with the all-time favorite 35/1.8 (for those who are not into photography, this is the combo gear that produces the beautiful pictures ...

There definitely were a guitar, a trumpet and a saxophone, yet they were played differently, in a way I had never witnessed ever before. That night was the first time I attended an experimental music concert, such a concert where you get tested on all levels in terms of accepting, questioning, admiring or rejecting the tunes emanating from that bouquet of artists. I was literally blown away and torn apart by the way that guitarist handled his instrument. Sharif Sehnaoui had the guts and experience as well to place a credit card between the threads, stick a metallic baton in between, and run a brush over them: This was too horrible for an eye to watch. This, to me, was simply my "how to ruin a good guitar in six easy steps". Mazen Kerbaj That poor trumpet got its share of the tearing apart and the unbelievable as well. To me, and as common as might be, a trumpet is to be handled with care, diligently played in order to arouse thy senses and expand your momentarily rea...

I've been looking around for a digital copy of the Forward Forum booklet, the recruitment forum that took place last weekend in BIEL, Beirut. I attended for the sake of getting a copy of that booklet, a role I played ever since I was in college, and of course to meet my peers and exhibiting companies. I usually get the booklet and share it among friends, and whoever needs it and for some reason couldn't be there. Here's an extract of the organizers' webpage : "After last year's tremendous success and on behalf of CAREERS & E Square –Events & Exhibitions , it gives us great pleasure to invite you to the thirteenth edition of the International Forum for Orientation & Recruitment, FORWARD 2013 and to the third edition of, BUSINESS 2013 which will be both held at BIEL- Lebanon from Thursday, 18th till Sunday, 21st April 2013 and from 4:00 pm till 10:00 pm ." The forum takes place every year, mostly in BIEL, at the beginning of spring sea...

I wrote this on my way back from Erbil: "Here I am sitting in my plane seat next to a giant human being, waiting for this loud seating dispute between the waiter and a passenger to end before we take off. Yes, the body odor of a sweaty Iraqi is exactly what I had been dreaming of the last two nights to be having on my flight to Beirut. I really miss Beirut, though it's been only three days away. Kurdistan National Flag. Courtesy of Nath Halawani Lots of substantial updates took place in my absence. The new PM is the savior we've been all waiting for, it seems. The weather has took another crazy turn the wrong lane. Yesterday it rained as if it were a stormy January night, today it seems it gotten back to miami-like weather: high levels of humidity made sure the hair of every single girl on the shores of Lebanon got a nice unexpected curl. My trip to Iraq is a business-related trip that cost my company somewhere over 5000$, 1200$ of which went only to the hotel ro...

The view out my window Now, where else would you find a sleepless blogger on his business trip discussing the reasons on why he's not asleep and getting ready to the next day's busy schedule? It must be the sudden weather change. I'm sneezing and coughing like crazy ever since I got here. That first moment I stepped foot on Erbil's ground, it kinda took me back to my time in KSA: heavily hot weather, direct burning sunlight and a very dusty atmosphere. A great catalyst for a serious health breakdown, exactly what I'm going through right now. Oh yeah, and the air conditioner is so great I woke up breathless. On the other hand, that fish we had for dinner? Well, um, here's the story. The fish is called "Maskouf" (مسكوف), a traditional, very famous Kurdish dish that is only found in Erbil, where the fish is cooked for over an hour and a half. I wasn't even surprised to find out that, just like in Mina, Tripoli (my hometown), you get to pick y...

*We Own The Light*, Courtesy of Night Collective At first I thought there will only be 6,7, or 10 of us maximum. We were a convoy at that night. Yes indeed, that was my first time out with the Night Collective team of photographers. They gather every now and then and spend the night somewhere for the sake of night photography. The wonderful part is wherever they go, their outcome is always fascinating. Having been constantly watching their trips, they surely raised the bar of night photography, well, to me at least. " Night collective convoy ", courtesy of Alain Khoury More than 25 amazing photographers gathered at several meeting points along the road from Beirut to Nahr Ibrahim. We started out two cars from Beirut, Sin el Fil. The growing number of participating cars grabbed my attention; I knew we weren't a few, not at all. We were about 11 cars at least, according to Gaby , one of the event's organizers. I threw my Tripod in the back of Rami's c...