Qatar Battalion Cover Wins Award

First off sorry I havent written anything or posted anything since Chicago. School has been crazy and work has been packed and since spring break I also got to help launch a movement at College Station called “I am Second”. Take a look at the website that is designed specifically for Texas A&M, its really awesome.

I am Second – TAMU

Last year I designed a cover for the special edition of the Battalion over Texas A&M Qatar for the frontpage. Recently it won an national award for design  and you can see that underneath. I spent about 20 hours the week after the trip piecing together a collage of photography from the trip. I took over 2,000 photographs while I was there. I wanted to show more than just a few photographs on the front of the battalion, so this is what I came up with. I also was inspired by a front cover magazine shot of my fellow friend and photographer, Spencer Selvidge. All in all, I was so excited this cover got such acknowledgment.

Last year the Battalion Newspaper wrote a story written about my experience over there, here is the link to it.

Qatar Newspaper Story

Also if you want to see some photography from that trip take a lot at my photo post.

My Qatar Photography

Last Day in Qatar

Well the last day started off with of course an amazing breakfast. This time I tried a real rambutan (native fruit) and of course the crepes. From there we headed out to the main campus where we spoke to a class and took questions about school and life.

We then all piled into the bus and drove out to a traffic exhibition. This was very interesting and one of the more random things we did. Really instead about talking to people at the booths about traffic I stood and talked to man who served for the Qatar Air Force for about 40 minutes.

After that we went to grab lunch at a Lebanese restaurant. At the end of the dinner I left the group and went back to campus to meet up with the marketing and communication division to photograph some different events and people around campus. This was cool because I could just walk around and meet people and photograph.

I then met up with the group and went out to a bowling alley where we met up with some students from the Qatar campus and bowled. It was a blast.

We then left and went back to the souiq to do some last minute shopping and dinner. From then on we hung out with friends and went back to the hotel to pack everything.

The time I have spent in Doha has changed me and was a blessing in itself. I got to experience so many new things and I got to see old friends and make new ones. It was truly amazing.  I just want to thank everyone once again for your prayers and encouragement. Keep watching my blog, I’ll be posting weekly hopefully if not twice a week but yeah…thanks everyone and keep watching.

Our Plane Leaves Tomorrow at 3:45 in the Morning. (2 post today keeping scrolliing down)

Wow so today started off once a again with a heavenly breakfast and a trip to the Islamic Art Museum. Now this place was incredibly awesome. The outside has a simple yet elegant design but once you walk in you realize that this is a historic masterpiece created by the I.M. Pei, who was brought out of retirement to build this.

We walked around for hours and saw incredible sculptures, bronze castings, precious gems, and old parchments. I have been blessed to have gone to many museums in America and in Europe but this was a culture I had not seen their artwork expressed. Two words: rich and intricate.

After we saw the museum, we went and ate a Lebanese restaurant. It was amazing. I left the group for  a while to go back to the TAMUQ campus and do some photography for the marketing division.

After that we went to the basketball game which was incredible (check the post below for pics) and then ate pizza for dinner with the students which was so enjoyable. We then went out with the some of the students and drank tea with milk on a hill overlooking the colorful and beautiful lights of downtown Doha. These moments were incredible to me because they were surreal, I am sitting the middle east drinking tea with Aggies in Qatar looking at one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Wow, that was a grand moment. We then hopped onto a boat for a ride that drove us on the gulf to see the downtown better.

Well once again thank you all for reading my posts. It really is cool to see so many people checking this daily.  Thank you all.

Fightin Texas A&M in Qatar Basketball

So today I had the absolute pleasure of watching my first TAMUQ basketball game. It was really cool seeing Amer play back in his own country, cool because we met last fall for a photo shoot in college station when he was studying abroad.

Anyway the environment and atmosphere of this place was great. Granted its not your super huge stadium with roaring crowds but there is a level of respect and love for the game that I found today watching them play.

From the beginning of the game when Coach Collins broke out the team and til the end of the Student Mens team v. Faculty game, the crowd was great.

Thamer is a manager for the basketball team, he bought his suit and boots from Miami.

I Swam in the Persian Gulf. WHOOP!!!

So today was packed but also amazing. We started off with the wonderful breakfast again which included: rambutan fruit, meat shared, mango juice, chocolate croissants and dragon-fruit crepes. So good…..

After that we all piled into the bus and started off on our tour of Doha. Our first stop was  the zig zag towers that are being built on a new island in Qatar. These structures were incredible and very hard to understand. We left the area to go Central Market. Not the central market ya’ll are thinking of but the ones were they sell camels and all different kinds of fruits. All the fruits and vegetables were placed on stands similar to the Dallas Farmers Market except 20x bigger. Everyone walked around bought whatever they wanted for an equivalent to one American dollar. I tried the sugarcane, which was delicious.

From there we travelled to the building that Qatar built for when they hosted the Asian games. Those too were remarkable. We travelled awhile before we ended up at Texas. (side note, all the students in education city call the A&M campus “Texas”, I think this is ironic because we refer to t.u. as texas but here in Qatar it is a good thing and really they say its the only university that matters in Texas. WHOOP!) So from there we ate lunch provided by Limas and then headed out to the sand dunes to go on our safari.

The safari started off with us riding in land cruisers over dunes at about 120 kilometers or less. This was awesome but then we turned on a dune and faced the Persian Gulf. It was rather breath taking. AND I GOT TO SWIM IN IT. Our group walked down to a set a tents that was set up for us to relax at. And we all got into the cold and salty water. (Yes Grandma I got sand for you). We swam for awhile and then walked in to a hot Arabian dinner. I got to talk to Wail and Amer for dinner which was great. We talked about Syria, their hometown, and other things about us. It was an incredible night. After our hot tea, we got back into the land cruiser and watched the Persian Gulf fade into the distance. We were so far out from Doha that we could literally see Saudi Arabia across the lagoon on the way back from our swim and dinner.

Overall today was incredible, please check out some more of the pictures I have on flickr and thank you all for your support and for reading this.

Camel Rider Photo: In response to my  brother Kevin and Kristen, Matthew and Sophie request to put up a photo of myself. They are all awesome.

Texas A&M-QATAR and the Souq

This campus is absolutely amazing. Instead of hundred year old oak trees we see on campus  there are numerous palm trees. From the very beginning, when I walked onto this campus, I have been amazed. Every corner is unique and beautiful. The architecture is very modern and colorful.

We walked in today to the “blue donut” (I think I heard a local call it that) and a feast lay before us. Students came flocking to us, saying “Howdy”.

It really was an incredible experience. I probably can’t name one food that I ate because they were all Qatari dishes. One thing I did eat was a wine leaf wrapped meat of some sort. Which was very strong but still delicious.

After that we took a campus tour, and literally ever room/meeting hall took my breath away. The planning that had to go into this building had to have been remarkable. Every hallway our group turned we were welcomed with a friendly college station “Howdy”. We finished up the tour and then headed out to the were the students live.

So that was only the first half of the day. I just got back and I am falling asleep so I am going to just post up some photos.

Alright I am going to bed. Thank you everyone for the hundreds and hundreds of views. I appreciate it. Thank you for the prayers and thank you for the encouragment. Day 1 down 3 more to go. I think tommrow is crazy packed. Yeah…..sleep.

Breakfast in Doha

Well Mark Gold and I woke up in our room this morning to a beautiful sunrise over Doha. We changed and came down to probably the best breakfast I have had in years. They had everything from fruit sushi to different kinds of local meats and chocolate croissants.

I walked outside on the beach and took a few shots.

Well above is a shot from the 5th floor of our hotel. We are all about to leave to head to the campus in about ten minutes, so I am going to go grab my camera and hopefully I post some more pics up later today. Thanks for reading everyone.

Dubai and The Flight

Well we just landed in Dubai and the sun set rather quickly. This place is so huge. While I sat in plane I wrote in my journal. This is what I wrote.

“As I sit in the plane second row in the economy section (massive chair, individual touch screens and outstanding service). I am relaxed. Ever since the beginning of the  flight the service has been out of this world. From moist towelettes, to free toiletry kits, to my lamb with curry dinner with chocolate moouse. I’m the only one up right now with the light on so I think I am going to catch some sleep. Earlier I saw Slumdog Millionaire one of the 720 movies I could choose from. The touch TV also included video games, camera video of the flight outside, and TV shows. It is unreal. Well the lights have gone completely down and  in a cool way at that. They stated dimming the lights to a warm orange hue and after time worked it down to black darkness. As if I was outside watching a sunset.Then all of the sudden you could see the stars. YES STARS. The lights went completely out and numerous and sporadic whites small LED lights lit the ceiling. This airlines has it right.”

I was talking to Brandon who was sitting right next to me and we were just in awe. “A&M is so incredibly great, for putting us on this trip.”

Well we are waiting for the next flight to go out from Dubai to Doha. Everything is going great and even though we all appear tired from out 26 hr. from door to door traveling, we are all exited and ready to meet this new part of the aggie body.

Packing For the Middle East

So tomorrow I head out to Dubai and then to Doha in Qatar. Texas A&M is sending me to go photograph their campus in Qatar as well as some professors and Qatari culture while I’m over there. I absolutely cannot wait.

So you might be asking,  how this is possible?  Well, this is what I did.

“Towards the beginning of this school year I started off my job as the Photo Editor for the Aggieland Yearbook down here at A&M. I started to brainstorm on what kind of stories and photo essays I would like to put in the book. After coming up with a few good ideas I came up with one incredible idea. This incredible idea would be a photo essay over Qatar students and their campus. Initially I thought of how I could get those pictures form people already over there but I as I talked to more people I found out that it might possible for me to photograph this story and university. My heart behind this project was to show Aggies here in Texas that Aggies in the Middle East are still Aggies and are incredible people at that. Unfortunately I feel that students here in Texas see Middle Eastern cultures and the people that live over there and immediately they prejudge them.

When I came up with this idea I got very excited and started trying to find ways on how I could get over to Qatar to photograph. I talked to Red McGehee, who is the president of my organization Brotherhood of Christian Aggies, and he said he went on a student leadership exchange last year. This trip sounded like the perfect opportunity. I could go over with students from here and meet plenty of new students over there.

About that time my boss called me into his office and told me about a photography project with Qatar students who are in College Station. I got extremely excited and immediately decided to pursue this. I loved meeting with these students and photographing them for more than 20hrs. I have learned so much from them already but even better yet I have become friends with them. From that moment on I knew I had to get to Qatar.

Since then an opportunity arose that would send me to the Qatar. I got accepted as one of the students chosen to go on the Student Leadership Exchange.”

So today as you can see I did a little bit of packing and reading and talking to family. I hope that all of you enjoy reading my blog and checking out my photographs while I’m in Qatar in the Middle East this week.  Please, if you would, pray for me that Christ will open my eyes and keep me protected. Everyone thank you for reading this.

This is how I took the first shot. Equipment: Canon 5D mark ii with Spencer Selvidge's 24-105 lens held up on a gorillapod on our pull-up bar and a Hong Kong wireless trigger that hooks up to my umbrella and 580 Flash.