MiddleEast | Mahmood Salam

Bouncing around interesting places in a regular manner is what makes Amman an interesting city, although many people around here think that it’s boring at times I personally still find it an appealing place to live in especially when I get to choose the places I go to carefully.

For those who don’t know Amman, I’d say it’s a relatively small city that is characterized by its eight circles.
Around those circles (from one to six to be more specific) many interesting things can be found, I mean you can attend galleries, go to fancy cafes, listen to fairly good music, and get to walk around some old but pretty neat streets.

Having said all that, this is not the case with the modernly built neighborhoods, the picture below was taken in a restaurant in Rabiah/Rabieh(Depends on how you spell it), to be honest I don’t love going there(Rabiah) a lot, there are roughly nothing interesting to look at other than some cafes and restaurants which I guess lack the real soul of Amman.

This article is all about this picture, me and couple of my friends went to this restaurant, and I was really amazed to see those two quotes written there, they are so deep that no one can resist the idea of getting them photographed!

If you are not an Arab, let me tell you that the two personas drawn above (Gibran Khalil Gibran and May Ziade) were very famous poets that had one of the most drastic and abstract love stories in the modern history, this story lasted for around 20 years of time without them meeting physically, they used to exchange ideas on paper back and forth discussing Women rights, love, looking at each other souls and debating about common issues such as Women within the scope of society and the importance of marriage.

I tried my best in translating those two quotes to English so that you can get the beauty of their words despite them being a little bit if not so much pessimistic. Please notice that I’m not a translator by any means and there can always be things missing in translation! and if anybody finds some mistake please let me know.

“You are a human being, you were created to live a lively full life not a half one.
Don’t sit with semi-lovers, and don’t make semi-friends
Don’t live a half-life, and don’t go through a half death
Don’t dream a half-dream, and don’t snag on to a vague hope.”

-Gibran Khalil Gibran

“Before the nails of life oppressively start to rive our dreams, we pity those who die
and consider them as being deprived of the beauty the universe has to offer; but then
when life starts to show its austerity upon our youthfulness, hearts, thoughts, and hopes,
we envy those who have passed away and realize that those were among the chosen and
beloved ones.”

-May Ziade

Check my other photographs here:

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Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/30, ISO 2000

First of all Blessed Eid upon everyone InshAllah(I know I’m too late), I hope that this Eid has brought you all the goodies you wished to have.
Ameen.

My name is Mahmood Salam; I’m an IT Masters undergrad, enthusiast photographer, and a Music lover.

I’m an Iraqi guy who lives in Jordan (Oh yes dear Middle East, lol) I’ve been seriously into photography for the past 3 and a half years now and I’m still feeling that I’m on my day one!

I’m writing this little intro so that you don’t misunderstand me as someone who is claiming to be the next Bresson or what not (if you don’t know who he is click the link and enjoy reading); again I’m doing it with joy in mind that’s it 🙂

This Picture is part of my #Encuentro series
Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/15, ISO 2500

This Picture is part of my #Encuentro series
Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/20, ISO 800

This Picture is part of my #Encuentro series
Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/25, ISO 800

In the recent months there have been a lot of buzz and dozens of reviews circulating and raving about this thing (The Fujifilm x100s), the x100s as many know is the successor to the old big brother x100 which made many photographers around the world get milked as soon as it was released. Yes, they call it Poor man’s Leica or something like that, i don’t feel insulted by that nickname at all !

Great photographers, academics and any other business kind of people say that you are the one in charge of good photos not the camera, and they are kinda true. A good photog will make great pictures with an IPhone or a Hassleblad, the impact of the photo may not change however the image quality itself does though.

The above few lines might seem like a cliché for somebody who is trying to be a preacher kind of guy who doesn’t much care about gear and stuff, unluckily though I’m not that person as I like technology and hence I adore trying new stuff.

I have been using DSLRs for the past two years, before that I was a point and shoot kind of guy who didn’t care much about apertures, shutter speed, ISO and etc… What made me make the switch was probably the same as why many did.

DSLRs usually give superior qualities that any DSLR shooter has to know, but yet like everything in life it has some flaws and shortcomings; the most important of the lot are SIZE, WEIGHT, and BEING TOO IMPOSING all together can kill the joy of quality photos you can squeeze out of them.

On the other side of the equation Mirrorless Market is in its golden era with manufacturers like Sony, Olympus and Panasonic are driving people nuts with their beautifully designed cameras with image quality ranging from mediocre, adequate to AWESOME.

Having said all that: nothing in the Mirrorless emerging market for me was as classy, sexy and tempting as the Fujis were;
First: they come with a big APS-C size sensor (as big as the ones found in cropped sensor DSLRs or even Sony NEX Cameras).
Second: their design is outstanding with that awesome retro-look that makes everybody nostalgic to the era of 60’s and 70’s even if they haven’t lived by then (I’m one of those, btw).

I kept looking around Fuji cameras, have tried xpro1, xe1, x100, x10, x20 and x100s; with the (xpro1, xe1, and x100s) sharing the same sensor I was mostly attracted to the x100s due to the fact that the fixed lens won’t keep my mind around the next best lens, if you know what I mean 😉

Economics-wise the x100s is probably the cheapest out of the three (at least in where I live “Jordan”) and the fact of getting a fixed 35 mm equivalent lens is very convenient for the type of person I am.

Having a fixed lens will force someone to stop and think about everything before clicking the shutter (This is probably one of the metaphors used by many street photographers out there)

An important thing to note about it is its 35 mm equiv. lens with its bright f2 maximum aperture which allows you to shoot in the dimmest of situations that fate can throw on you; you also can get your shutter speed as slow as 1/15 or even 1/8 of a second without introducing too much shake and blurriness(due to its leaf shutter and light lens front weight).

The last and most important reason that made me like “Go and waste your money on this piece of whatever it is” was ”Street Photography” and that was because of its nature of being silent, discreet, unseen, not imposing, not scary and a very friendly camera!

I can go on and on all nighters to tell you about how unnoticeable it is; now I can shoot unseen on streets, inside Malls, even when shopping and walking about without look like a perve!

The question that always bugs me is that what if all those reasons were not present, “would you have gone and got it like a child buying bubble chewing gum?”
-Hmm, I have no clue!

I will try not to be technical and detailed about it(You are free to ask any technical question about it in the comments section though), but I will try to divide my technical short statements into four basic pinpoints that I found important; they are ISO Performance, IQ (Image Quality), AF Performance, and Responsiveness.

I will start by touching on its ISO performance because it is always questioned by us, I see many people and I was one of them think that little cameras don’t do well in Dim lighting conditions; this is really true but its trueness fortunately stops with the x100s.

A plain black and white candid
Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/20, ISO 4000

Nice color moods within this shot
Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/40, ISO 4000

Image Quality (IQ): This is where this thing stands out, the color reproduction, dynamic range, ISO 6400 are all top notch, and I assure you that you can hardly find any cropped sensor DSLR reaching that.

Fujifilm claimed that X-Trans Sensor (which is shared among xpro1, xe1, xm1 and x100s) will surpass Full Frame cameras like Canon 5d mark II and I’ve seen some tests online confirming this claim!

Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/30, ISO 3200

AF Performance: Hmm, this is where things get a little bit tricky simply because we tend to compare these cameras (Mirrorless ones including the x100s) to DSLRs; I should admit that they are not as fast as a pro level DSLR but when compared to entry level ones they are not far off; this is the reason why big players like Canon and Nikon have not gone Mirrorless or haven’t adapted the idea of the technology from Day 1.

You will get frustrated at times by those out of focus shots caused by its completely different autofocusing manner compared to your scary DSLR. The handling and the beautiful crisp shots however will keep giving you enough excuses to get over its little AF quirks.

An off topic bit of information I have to mention is that the Manual focus Overlay mechanism (Similar to those found in Rangefinders) is outstanding especially when you are in the day light as by then setting aperture to small values like f8 and f11 is not a problem.

Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/125, ISO 1250
(This is an auto-focused shot, btw)

Responsiveness: My tip here is GET FAST CARDS, yeah get the fastest card you can have your hands-on it because your slow class 4 or 6 SD cards will not be able to accommodate the files especially if you are like me who shooting (RAW+Jpeg) other than this specific point its performance is fairly good!

Again if you are looking for a sarcastic or a deep technical review you can go to either to Digitalrev (for the first part), or Zack Arias, the Strobist (David Hobby) and many others (For the second part), what I’m giving you here is my experience as an enthusiast who loves to see the world as He is really doing.

Someone may question its aesthetics (It’s a matter of taste for sure); well, aesthetically speaking it makes my DSLR a so damn ugly piece of machinery, as using its physical dials is unlike any other plastic dial on your rather huge cameras.

Leaf Shutter in the x100s adds another charm to the experience, it is what gives the camera that silent nature, while also helping in achieving really fast flash sync speeds of up to 1/1000 sec ( Some say that one can get 1/2000 sec with a pocket wizard)!

Now I will get a little bit poetic; this camera will let you shoot in manners you have never thought of, it will make you think a little bit odd but different about things around, you will unconsciously get prompted to think about new angles, experiences, faces and windows; say it simply it will change a lot of your beliefs as a photographer.

I tried to pull out some details out the shadows and as you can see the beggar is reflected on the mirror, Many people prefer the jpeg of Fujis but I still go for both(RAW+Jpeg) in a no brainer manner !

The word refreshing is what suits it best, it’s like long-pressing an F5 button on your computer keyboard until your memory is filled up, the next time you press that button your computer will think that no arguments have been pushed in the same place before, you get the metaphor, huh?; this may sound like Paradise, of course it is not but again I insist on the word “REFRESHING”.

To wrap it up: when you get a grab on it, a sense of history and modernity mixes together; you feel captivated by its unique and mindful way of representation that invokes the parallax of today and yesterday time inside your mind.

Now enough romance, take a look at some other photos.

I want to reassure you that I will be glad to answer any sort of technical questions you have in your mind.

Notice that the photos you see here are all part of my mini-projects I’m doing (One of them is #Encuentros project mentioned in my previous blog post), hangouts with friends, and other walkabouts documenting life in Amman.
You can also look at other photos taken with the x100s on my Flickr Page(The link is at the end of the post).

Another shot of Masjid Al-Fahyaa right before full sunset 🙂
Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/1000, ISO 200

The intervalometer does help greatly in kinda shots!

Masjid AlFayhaa’ beautiful textures

Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/250, ISO 400

A low to no light photo from top of the roof of the building where I live in!
Aperture f/2.0, Shutter Speed 1/15, ISO 3200

Trying something different, taking the aperture down to f11 while slowing the shutter speed to half a second
Aperture f/11, Shutter Speed 0.5, ISO 200