photography

Dreaming of Zanzibar – The Spice Tour

Posted by Nesh on April 20, 2014

Posted in: myself, photography, Tanzania, travel. Tagged: Digital Photography, history, Photography, Spice Tour, travels, Zanzibar. Leave a Comment

This post is the fifth in a set of publications which will describe the last trip I did in East Africa, back in August, leading me to Zanzibar and back again.
With constant swarms of tourists throughout the year, it is not surprising to know that Zanzibar has plenty of tours and trips for everyone. From nature trips to food tours, without forgetting the “Freddy Mercury Tour” ( He was born in Zanzibar, where he lived his first years), there are countless opportunities to experience the island.
Being short of time, I asked for recommendations to my new local friends who promptly suggested two tours in particular: the popular spice tour and the trip to the Jozani-Chwaka Bay monkey reserve.
The spice tour, the first one I did, was advertised as a way to get to know the local spices, the history of the spice trade and of the infamous slave trade, having been the third pillar of its economy.

One of the guides showing a natural makeup

Dreaming of Zanzibar – Visiting the Town

Posted by Nesh on April 15, 2014

Posted in: life, myself, photography, Tanzania, travel. Tagged: East Africa, Fruits, Markets, people, Photography, Tropical, Zanzibar. Leave a Comment

This post is the forth in a set of publications which will describe the last trip I did in East Africa, back in August, leading me to Zanzibar and back again.
Zanzibar, despite being part of the United Republic of Tanzania, is really different from any other place I have visited in East Africa. It has a mix of cultures which at times makes you wonder whether you are in Africa, the Middle East or India. Different religions are professed here and their influences can be seen in the architecture, the clothing and the food.
In my opinion, the true beauty of Zanzibar lies in its streets, its markets and the people. Even after getting used to East African markets, Zanzibar managed to surprise me: the variety of spices, aromas, vegetables, fruits, objects and pieces of art was astonishing. Before heading back home, I had stockpiled a quite remarkable array of spices and massage oils, including 2 coconuts (yeah, I am crazy).

In Zanzibar, as in the rest of East Africa, you get to meet a lot of people. It’s very easy, especially if you don’t mind talking to strangers.
In fact, being a white (a mzungu, as they say) gives you a lot of chances to talk to people; of course, many might see it as an economical opportunity but, given a bit of effort, it often turns into a quite interesting conversation. By showing to people that you actually want to get to know them and learn about their culture makes a huge difference from being the common exploitable tourist.
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Dreaming of Zanzibar – The Dream Coming True!

Posted by Nesh on March 27, 2014

Posted in: myself, photography, Tanzania, travel. Tagged: East Africa, Photography, sunset, Zanzibar. Leave a Comment

This post is the third in a set of publications which will describe the last trip I did in East Africa, back in August, leading me to Zanzibar and back again. Read the second post here.
The next morning was, as usual, an early one. The ferry to Zanzibar would leave at around 16.00, so I thought to quickly get a glimpse of Dar Es Salaam before the departure.
Dar Es Salaam, with its almost omnipresent sand, gave me a feeling of how I imagine a city in the Middle East.
After having visited the Village Museum and eaten chips mayai for lunch (omelette with French fries in it; it might not sound much but I find it great!), I was ready to finally catch the ferry to Zanzibar!
On the ferry, gazing at the seemingly endless body of water between Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar, I could finally relax: “I am almost there!”
If I wanted to make this moment dramatic, I would probably compare myself to some sailor who, after months of navigation, yells ‘Tierra! Tierra!’ when he sees land, but, to be honest, the ferry took not more than 2 hours. But I definitely felt happy; that kind of happiness that puts a smile on your face without having to do it manually.
After having travelled more than 1500 km (this website says ‘1570.407’), in about 4 days, I was finally there. I was in Zanzibar!

The sunset made everything look paradisiacal and the fact that most of the locals were dressed up for the Eid festival (the end of the Ramadan) greatly improved my first impression.
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Dreaming of Zanzibar – Tanzania and Kilimanjaro

Posted by Nesh on March 18, 2014

Posted in: life, myself, photography, Tanzania, travel. Tagged: Alle falde del Kilimanjaro, Arusha, border, D5000, Dar Es Salaam, Digital Photography, East Africa, Kenia, Kilimanjaro, landscapes, Masai, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, travels. Leave a Comment

This post is the second in a set of publications which will describe the last trip I did in East Africa, back in August, leading me to Zanzibar and back again. Read the first post here.
After a good nights sleep, I was ready to catch the bus to Dar Es Salaam.
The bus leaves every day at 6.45am and arrives at around 8pm, quite a long journey.
The beginning of the trip wasn’t too exciting, the view was very similar and rather dull, I took this time to sleep a bit more (I am not a morning person).
After the short nap, I woke up to a very different landscape: dry lands with light brown hills. The land of the Masai.
Not long after, we had to get off the bus as we had reached the border Kenya-Tanzania (I find border checkpoints in East Africa very unsettling, so I searched for a picture to give you an idea: border checkpoint in Namanga). After all the paperwork has been completed, we returned to the bus heading to Arusha.
Arusha, capital of the Arusha region, is a mandatory stop for hikers, mainly for being very close to the Arusha National Park, the Mt. Meru Forest Reserve and, more importantly, to the Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park, home of the famous Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The Mt. Kilimanjaro

A Lyon!

Posted by Nesh on September 8, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography. Tagged: blog, city tour, France, French language, gallo-romain, International student, Lyon, Natural, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, traboule, travels. Leave a Comment

Hello everyone,
after few weeks of being here and getting to know the people and the places, I finally settled in Lyon and now I forced myself to update the blog. Even if I have been rather busy lately, that shouldn’t be a reason for me to stop posting.
So, the first will be from the city tour the University has planned for the foreign students in the French language course.

Vue sur Lyon

Dreaming of Zanzibar – The beginning: bus from Kampala to Nairobi, Kenya.

Posted by Nesh on August 20, 2013

Posted in: Kenya, life, myself, photography, travel. Tagged: Easy Africa, kampala, Masai Market, Nairobi, Nikon D5000, Photography, Village Market, Zanzibar. 1 comment

This post is the first of a set of publications which will describe the last trip I did in East Africa, back in August, leading me to Zanzibar and back again.
My stay in Uganda was, as expected, going to end and leaving East Africa without visiting Kenya and Tanzania was surely not an option.
The initial plan was to go to Nairobi (the capital of Kenya) first, head South to Dar Es Salaam (the capital of Tanzania) then cross the Dar Es Salaam Bay by ferry to reach Zanzibar and then return to Kampala in a similar fashion. But, as you will read, the trip, mainly the return, did not go as planned.
Once having discussed with my boss the precise dates of my trip, planned the locations and contacted my hosts, it was time for my camera, my backpack and me to start the long trip by leaving Kampala to get to the first destination: Nairobi.
The route from Kampala to Nairobi by bus is quite frequented making it rather comfortable and safe; the only exception being, as usual, the border where it is required to cross it by foot and stand in a long queue at both the emigration and immigration office, even in the middle of the night.
Left Kampala at 8pm and arrived at 8am on a rather comfortable bus helped dealing with the new busy and chaotic city. Nairobi has the look of a very East African city, with areas being extremely different from each other: from muddy slums to extremely modern malls.

Village Market in Nairobi

Experimenting with the Full Moon

Posted by Nesh on August 6, 2013

Posted in: myself, photography. Tagged: Astronomy, Digital Photography, Full moon, Moon, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, Solar System, stacking. Leave a Comment

The other weekend, during a full moon, I tried several approaches to get the best of our dreamy satellite.
I got suggested several techniques, but stacking was the most interesting one.
Stacking is a technique used for improving the quality/detail of an object, usually during night time (due to the low light conditions); used for instance with stars, galaxies and, of course, the moon.
It requires taking a certain amount of pictures, I used 50 for the full moon, and stacking them together using a specific software. I used Lynkeos, as I am currently on OS X, but RegiStax is often quoted as being among the best freeware for such purpose.

Full moon shot using double exposure.

Although taking over 100 pictures, with different settings and exposure, the result I got wasn’t exactly what I wanted/expected, so I just ended up using a double exposure. Essentially taking a picture for the foreground (the clouds, in this case) and one picture for the moon and then stacking them together. This fixes the issue related to the fact that the time required to get a correct exposure of the moon is different (lower) than the one required for the foreground.

/Nesh

Murchison Falls – Chimp Tracking

Posted by Nesh on August 6, 2013

Posted in: myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, ape, chimp, chimpanzee, Digital Photography, monkey, Murchison Falls National Park, Nature, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, travels, uganda, wildlife. Leave a Comment

Sleepy faces. Slow movements. Few words. A common scene from an early morning. A nice breakfast put us all back on our feet, ready for chimp tracking.
For the tracking, we had to go into the thick forest, moving slowly and staying together in a group. This is necessary in order to not be considered a threat by the chimpanzees; scattering around would give them a feeling of being surrounded, frightening them.

It took us a good hour (or so) before we could see a chimp. Until then we could hear them calling each other (chimps have a sort of language; there are up to 30-40 sounds used for indicating different actions, i.e. food, anger, danger…).
The first one, was a rather sleepy one; he stayed most of the time laid down on a large branch and chilling under the sunlight, turning around at times.
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Murchison Falls – Boat ride on the Nile

Posted by Nesh on August 5, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, Lake Victoria, Murchison Falls, Murchison Falls National Park, Nile, uganda. Leave a Comment

After the refreshing lunch break, it was time to finally head to the falls.
To reach the bottom of the waterfalls, we had to take a boat ride on the Nile. Truly great! There were hippos, crocodiles (some really close by!) and loads of birds. Too bad I lost most of the pictures from that tour;
Pro-Tip: Never ever delete stuff from the camera if you aren’t 100% sure you made a copy somewhere else.
I managed to save some pictures, but most of them are just present in my mind.

Red-throated Bee-eater

The boat ride brought us just right under the Murchison falls. Now just a long climb was between us and the top.
/Nesh

Murchison Falls – Lunch break on the Nile

Posted by Nesh on July 25, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, bush pigs, kampala, Murchison Falls, Murchison Falls National Park, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Nile, safari, uganda, wildlife. 2 comments

And as you can understand from the pattern I use in the titles, the game drive ended without us being able to see any lion.
Our guides also went to get a ranger for tracking the felines, but luck wasn’t on our side this time. Once we got to the place where they were supposed to be staying, we just found lonely bushes and grass, without any sort of cat.
After an hour, we just gave up as it was time to catch the ferry which would bring us to the other side of the river Nile for lunch.

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Nesh around The World

Pieces of life