Ahh. The innocence of childhood!

Adventure is part of the game. Spotted near an unofficial dockyard in Villigili island. Boys play a touch and disqualify game in and around the beach area. Is it always a beach area in my photos? To spice up the game (I think, I couldn't watch for too long) the boys must have moved into this danger zone filled with nails and other pricky stuff. Tricky.
Click to enlarge.

Greetings . . .

From Flickr's explore front page!
Not much of an issue here, except that people keep commenting about the colour. The 'unnatural-ness' of it. I have to admit that in almost all of my photos, the saturation is pushed a little. But I always try to keep it to a believable level.
Thanks, if you are visiting this page from Flickr. I appreciate it.

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Eid Celebrations in the islands

Worms' view. I poke my camera underneath these cute creepers to capture this scene. My flip LCD camera helps me experiment with unusual angles and viewpoints. How I wish pro DSLRs had this feature in them.

Page Ranking Maldives with Google. Fun.

Statistics may fluctuate. Here is a snapshot from last night.
1. http://www.visitmaldives.com/ PageRank: 6/10
2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahmedzahid/ PageRank: 6/10
3. http://haveeru.com.mv/ PageRank: 5/10
4. http://www.dhivehinet.net.mv/ PageRank: 5/10
5. http://www.dhivehiobserver.com/ PageRank: 5/10
6. http://www.gnatoll.com/ PageRank: 4/10
7. http://www.mvblogs.org PageRank: 3/10
8. http://www.crowntoursmaldives.com/index.php PageRank: 2/10


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Chalk drawings from Julian Beever. Amazing.
http://www.thepuzzlefactory.com/2006_chalk.cfm

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Learn to spot a liar by watching their eyes.
http://www.memorymentor.com/eye_movements.htm

Snob baby

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Dragon hunters in action

Friday is for friends . . .

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Restaurant at the chic Bandos Island Resort, Maldives. Dinner starts in an hours' time, Hence the lack of human activity. This is my favourite time to shoot buildings... as I get such beautiful contrasts of natural and artificial light. My friend is busy, closeby with the pro camera, so I exposed with self timer and used the ground as stand. Thought you maybe curious about the unusual angle.

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She's Fooling Around
I’ve been dating Donna for a year. She’s gorgeous -- the kind of girl a guy can’t take his eyes off of, so I guess I should have known what I was up against. Well, the week of our anniversary I got a call from a guy who says that he and Donna have been dating for the past two months. Continue from Askmen: http://www.askmen.com/dating/doclove_300/351_relationship_expert.html

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The world’s ugliest animals, ranked.
http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/result.php?back=&cat=uglyanimal

I t ' s - B r i g h t - T o d a y !

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Water fun series in BnW.
Flirting with danger. Needless to say..., I have lost many cameras to water damage.

An ad-hoc tea is quickly prepared in this traditional house during one of our trips. With Coke, crackers and other miscellaneous fried stuff. The islanders are quite hospitable to visitors.

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This one's to Felix. Wherever you are.

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Attack of the clones. Amazing photoshop work here.
http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=11869&display=photoshop

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How to hide files in JPEG's... Here is a tutorial on how to hide files in Jpg's.
http://www.thetechtray.net/videos/rar/

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"... and while you are at it, please watch my back!"

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Rain walking. Parents rush to school with umbrellas for their children during rain, in a non-rainy season. Rarely taken seriously, rain is assumed as just a come and go thing in this tropical country. People tend to get on with lives, more or less unaffected.

It is raining outside, but I will start the day with a little brightness... from my archives. Spotted from a trip to far north, I always notice these flowers in mosques and cemeteries.
Is this Plumeria? I am sorry, but none of my guy friends seem interested in flowers.

Found on Flickr Explore. Posted for posterity.

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More great finds:

The 2007 dog poop calendar.
http://www.pugcafe.com/catalog/monthly-doos---2007-dog-poop-calendar.htm

Eva Longoria from October's Maxim Magazine.
http://hateon.blogspot.com/2006/10/eva-longoria-in-german-maxim.html

Foto von heute.

Wave Maker

No entry.

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Great reads from the Internet:
Scam baiting tips. http://www.419eater.com/html/baiting.htm
And my favourite winner here. Hilarious. http://www.419eater.com/html/mariam_abacha.htm

Seven worst fonts--and the people who use them.

Ugly fonts, cutesy fonts, unreadable fonts, bad fonts . . .
1. Comic Sans MS
2. Bradley Hand ITC
3. Curlz MT
4. Papyrus
5. Vivaldi
6. Kristen ITC
7. Viner Hand ITC
Read about them here: http://lmnop.blogs.com/lauren/2006/10/americas_most_f.html

Three aunties pose with the admirable you know who, during a busy outdoor evening event. Hence the wet armpit. My grandma had 11 children, and all of them went on to have their own large families. Now the result is an island that is overrun with cousins. Aargh!

Heavy downpour during a tropical thunder storm.
From the comfort of my home. This is my feeble attempt at catching individual blobs of rain water. Except for the thunder part, I quite like the sound of heavy rain on my roof. And the resulting wetness on the tropical trees outside my backyard.

If humans disappeared from the earth today - what would happen?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,351113,00.jpg

Spotted at Thaa Atoll, during Eid celebrations. The overall atmosphere was euphoric. I also noticed the games and events were being held competitively against teams. Teams of men against women. Pure fun. This was from a couple of years back. Today however, most of the fun part of island life is spoilt, with the arrival of party politics. Nowadays people are divided along the lines of their political beliefs. Time is mostly spent on making fun, of each other. And fighting.

National Geographic Photos

Came across this site featuring the best of National Geographic pictures for the year 2005-2006. Thought you might want to have a look. Brilliant. http://www.adidap.com/2006/10/02/best-15-national-geographic-pictures-of-05-06/

Hopper's QnA

Q: JPhilipson says: Hey Ahmed, When you take pictures of people do you ask them? I would love to take more pictures with people in them but am too shy to ask. What do you do?

A: 1. I use a small point and shoot, with a flip LCD (which can play a lot of tricks on unsuspecting people). 2. I hang around with friendly people. 3. I let my subjects experiment and get familiar with my camera... so? The resulting images are photos of a lot of people and faces. Photos that I love and cherish.
And the question? Nope, I don't ask. I Shoot first, ask later.

The umbrella. Grows in swampy and wet areas of the islands. The tree is of a tuber nature. I keep thinking of giant white carrots. A basic foodstuff in my grandparents days, when imported rice and flour were difficult to come by. Nowadays the islanders don't favour this tree much... for some reason. About the umbrella? I have seen people using this leaf during thunder showers, a few times..., but almost always in urgent cases.

Thanks for the comment Saptha. Sorry for the delay in this entry.

My encounter with the cross section. This is the frame work for the fiber glass mould (outer covering) during the first stages of boat building. It seems the builders had almost completed the whole boat, including the missing front end, when a tropical storm with high winds ripped off the front... along with the housing hangar. Notice the original size of the house? I spotted this scene whilst it was being repaired. From Meedhoo Island, Addu. Two days ago.

Trailing great photographers

This is SSH of Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/people/ssh/), in action today... close to my home.
I didn't have a camera so I requested another great photographer, Ibrahim Firaq (http://www.flickr.com/people/ibrahimfiraq) to get this photo.

Skinning the Red Snapper

The real work starts immediately after landing. Especially after a night of good fishing, work can run really late into the night. Morning in this case. We landed with a catch of 8 or 10 big ones, around midnight. The skinning itself was done on the beach, not far from home... under the light of a bonfire. From here it is the processing part, and later, cooking for a late night dinner.

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...followed by a late night feast. Dinner consists of Rice and curry (of many varieties) and papadum. The yellow dish in the centre is a pudding, eaten as dessert.

Windsurf competetion. Postcards of activities.

Under vast jungles of concrete, deep inside the city... bare bodied men find room for breathing space. Rare. This is an overview of the capital city of Maldives, in the warm late afternoon sun. A few people brave the tiresomeness of city life to find companionship in games with their friends.

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Abstract Nature Series

View over coral reef islands ~ Local sailors memorise these complex shapes along with depths, all from sea level... (they rarely get to fly) in order to navigate in the tricky atoll interiors. Although it is deceptively beautiful, coral reefs pose great danger to travellers. It is common to see guiding place markers near reef entrances.

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Budding flower from a multiple pod ~ Ahivah. A fruit used for medicinal purposes in the islands. The size averages 2 inches. All of these flowers must bloom for the fruit to form perfectly. The base of flowers interestingly form a hexagonal shape, which reminds me of honeycombs. I am searching for the English name.

100 sayings of classical wisdom

# Confucius say, if you want pretty nurse, you got to be patient
# Confucius say, passionate kiss like spider web, soon lead to undoing of fly
# Confucius say, better to be pissed off than pissed on
# Confucius say, man with hand in pocket feel cocky all day long
# Confucius say, couple on seven day honeymoon make whole week

Read the rest via http://mapage.noos.fr/matushansky/confucius.html

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Cameras receiving the most clicks
in the last five days.

1. Canon PowerShot G7

2. Canon EOS 400D

3. Canon PowerShot SD800 IS

4. Canon PowerShot SD900

5. Nikon D80

6. Canon PowerShot S3 IS

7. Canon PowerShot A710 IS

8. Canon EOS 30D 9. Canon PowerShot A640

10. Canon EOS 350D
Source: http://www.dpreview.com/

Watering the water melon.
From Thoddoo Island..., famous for agriculture, farmers at work during the prime season. Water melons are popular with locals during Ramadan fasting month.

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An extremely wealthy 80-year-old...
...arrived for his annual check-up and smiled when the doctor enquired about his health.
"Never better," he announced proudly.
"I've taken an 18-year-old bride, and she's pregnant. What do you think of that?" The doctor considered this for a moment, then said, "I once knew a guy who was an avid hunter. One day he slept in, and in the subsequent rush, he dashed out with his umbrella instead of his rifle."
"Go on, doc," said the old-timer
"Deep in the woods, he faced a huge, angry bear, raised his umbrella, pointed it at the bear, and squeezed the handle. And do you know what happened?" Dumbfounded, the old codger shook his head.
"The bear fell dead in front of him."
"That's impossible," exclaimed the old man in disbelief.
"Someone else must have been doing the shooting." Sighing, the doctor gave his patient a friendly pat on the back. "That's what I'm getting at."

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My time by the river of opportunity...