hi,
thanks for the comments. Here are some observations:
a. i didn't know about FB having rights over my photos. I will now either put them in ultra-small resolution or start to put stuff in flickr instead.
b. I think part of the reason why i wasn't hustled was because i looked like one of their minority tribe, either the hazarian or tajik. Being of chinese descent, I looked like of their own, albeit more modernly dressed.
c. The other reason is that there is a lack of foreigners there, so people didn't know how to react, in this aspect, a smile was generally all i needed to take a photo. Some were so shy that they said no, there were several fantastic photos which i wanted to take but couldn't. Having said this, taking photos of women in burkas is still a no-no.
d. The country is awashed with ak-47, while my two nights there were uneventful. I heard that every night brings the excitement and possibility of 81/82mm mortars from the Taliban. Kabul works on a concentric layer of security. Even though I did not have personal security guard while visiting the customers and partners, i was made conscious of the layers of security present.
e. In terms of photo taking, i am undecided about the trade off between additional filter factor (+1 stop) and picture quality. The photos looked a bit flat being pushed 2 stops to 1600 iso. The sky still looked bleak despite having a yellow filter.
f. On my next trip, I will perhaps use Tri-X or even Plus-X pushed to 800, or even a mixture of different rolls at different ISO. Perhaps 800 seem to be a better ISO choice than 1600. In terms of gear, I wanted to bring a XA4 as a back up but forgot to pack it. Luckily, everything worked on the recently CLA'd Olympus 35SP.
g. The extreme bright day and the shadow of the bazaar (with a difference of 5 to 7 stops) made me alternate between the auto-exposure of the 35SP and manual exposure. While AE solves this problem, i can't and won't know the DOF/Aperture selected, which has resulted in motion-blur in some of the photos.
h. I shot 6 rolls, only 3 rolls were deemed ready to be shared. The rest weren't keepers at all. I still have a long way in terms of framing and composition in street photography.
i. I am going again in the next few months. contact me separately if you have additional questions.
raytoei
