Finally I have managed to complete the post processing of the photographs that I took in Cairo three weeks.  It was a great trip to a truly historic city which is full of life and very welcoming people.

My Cairo gallery has three main themes; Islamic Cairo, Old (Coptic) Cairo and the Pyramids at Giza.  There are a couple of other images taken from my hotel room on 20th floor looking south down the Nile.

Islamic Cairo was full on minarets, mosques, mausoleums and market stall which provide a very hectic atmosphere in the streets.  After this experience, I was in the much calmer Old Cairo on Sunday visiting the Coptic churches.  Unfortunately, the Jewish synagogue didn’t allow photography inside but it was beautiful.

No trip to Cairo could be complete without a trip out to the Pyramids in Giza.  As always, if you get taxi from the hotel it is always much more expensive – the journey back to central Cairo was half the price.  Even early in the morning (8am when it opens), there are lots of tourists at the Pyramids.  Added to this, it was extremely hazy which made photography more challenging.

I definitely want to go back to Egypt as I would like to take a trip on the Nile and visit some of the other cities; Alexandria, Suez, Luxor and Aswan spring to mind.

I have been taking some images around the City of London for one of our friends to use on their company website which has just been re-launched.  I also took portraits of their staff which isn’t my normal style of photography but was good fun.

I am all packaged and checked in for my flight to Cairo tomorrow.

I think that I have done enough planning and hope to get some great photographs of the various aspects of the city.  The weather looks like it is going to be good … sunny and hot (about 30 Celsius) – luckily not too hot, I hope.

It is going to be a fairly short trip but very busy if I am going to get everything I have planned done.  Of course, I will be going to see the pyramids in Gaza but will be trying to get a new perspective on them.  I also hope to go on a river trip on the Nile either early or late in the day.  There will certainly be a lot of walking around Islamic and Old Cairo.

I will be on Twitter while I am away so anyone who is interested can follow me.

On my Twitter feed this morning, I found this interesting blog by Gleb Budman of Backblaze titled Backing up photos while travelling | Backblaze Blog.  He describes the dilemma that I am sure all photographers have encountered at some point during the lives, unless they don’t travel.  How do you backup your photos without having to carry a laptop with you?

I have to thank a good friend and pro photographer Steve Davey for helping me to solve this.  When I was on one of his photo tours, he had a small device which is nothing more than a hard disk drive and multi-card reader (CF or SD).  You just insert the memory card and it backups it up to its hard drive … yes that is it!

Seeing this, I just had to have one (or similar) so I bought the Vosonic VP8870 which has the added advantage of of have a small screen which you can view your photos on – even RAW images.  It doesn’t stop me travelling without a laptop but now I always have a minimum of 2 copies of my photos (on the Vosonic and my laptop) and besides I need to get to my email.

So thanks again Steve and if anyone wants a great photographic adventure then check out Steve’s photo tours.