McKay Photography Academy’s adventure to Egypt! 
 
Egypt – Luxor and Karnak and our private ship

If you missed the first in this series, please see our previous email about the Pyramids and Cairo! 

After a short flight to Luxor, we were met by our guide “Moe”. Moe was with us for the rest of our time in Egypt and is an expert Egyptologist. 

We were now ready to board what would be our home for the next four days. The ship we use is called a Dahabeya. These are built for the very purpose of having a personalized and unique experience on the Nile. Many ships that sail the Nile are 200-300 passengers. Although luxurious, they are far too big for our liking. These ships are not self-powered and are pulled by a tug boat the entire route. This is great because you do not hear an engine nor do you smell any fumes etc. 

Our ship was for just us and was amazing. With three chefs on board, (one pastry chef alone) an amazing crew, a bartender, and exclusively for MPA, a complete sense of “ahhhhh” set in after two very productive but busy days. 
Karnak Temple

After boarding our ship via transfer from a water taxi, we headed to the temple of Karnak. 

HOLY MOLY!! 

How can you really describe walking into a temple that makes Ancient Greece look young!? The answer…. you can’t. You HAVE TO EXPERIENCE this for yourself.

Surrounded by giant statues, hieroglyphics, walls, columns, and more, it is awe-inspiring. More so than the Pyramids in my opinion. 

At each temple and site, our lovely guide “Moe” would take us and show us the highlights, share the history, and his passion was infectious and he made it come alive for us. Then, he would turn us loose to photograph and capture the area with plenty of time to do so. It is the perfect combination of touring a site and being able to photograph.
Our expert Egyptologist “Moe” shares his passion and knowledge. 
Photo Tip 

Cross Light

Notice both images of this 3500-year-old pillar. These are the same pillar but taken from different angles to show how much the angle of lighting makes a difference in impact.  The first image, by using cross light, there is a high-light and shadow side and the cross light increases the sense of texture. 
 
Photo Tip 

Flat Light

Notice the same image just a few minutes later now in the shade. This produced a “flat” light and although still shows the pillar well, it does not have near the impact as the top image.

This is a difference of only a few minutes! 
Karnak Temple
After boarding our ship via transfer from a water taxi, we headed to the temple of Karnak. HOLY MOLY!! How can you really describe walking into a temple that makes Ancient Greece look young!? The answer…. you can’t. You HAVE TO EXPERIENCE this for yourself. Surrounded by giant statues, hieroglyphics, walls, columns, and more, it is awe-inspiring. More so than the Pyramids in my opinion. 

At each temple and site, our lovely guide “Moe” would take us and show us the highlights, share the history, and his passion was infectious and he made it come alive for us. Then, he wound turn us loos to photograph and capture the area with plenty of time to do so. It is the perfect combination of touring a site and being able to photograph.
Photo Tip
Reflective LightHere, the light that is so beautiful in golden tone, is actually being reflected back on the pillars from a wall that the harsh sun was hitting. Many times, even if there is harsh sunlight, look and see where that light is possibly reflecting back to. In this case, it created beautiful soft light to photograph! 
 
Luxor Temple
Admittedly, we were all VERY tired by this point. Having to be up for a 4 am pick up and flight, then to the ship, lunch, and then photograph two temples was a lot. BUT, this is amazing and it can’t be missed!! After Karnak, we headed to Luxor. This is no Vegas Luxor let me tell ya! As we arrived it was starting to be sunset. We got some beautiful light. But I felt the best was yet to come. For those that were up for the challenge, I stayed and led part of our group in a nighttime photography session of Luxor temple.

As the lights came on and the sky turned to the “blue hour”, we were treated to fewer crowds, beautiful lighted temple highlights, and a chance to create dramatic images.
Photo Tip 
For nighttime images such as this, a tripod is a must.  By using a tripod, you can set the ISO to 100 (best quality) adjust your aperture to what you want ( in this case f16), and then simply adjust your shutter speed to be as long as it needs to be to get the right amount of light.  This was a 1 second exposure.