The Mosque is Open......but not

Imogen and I took a long intended trip down to Abu Dhabi at the weekend to see the new Grand Mosque which I have driven past many times but never been in to have a look at. Now with it being start of Ramadan last Saturday I was aware enough to ring ahead and check it would be open and that it was OK to take photographs and was pleased to hear it would be so we arose at 7.30am and headed off.

However, suprise suprise, we got there to find a 'problem'. It seems that, as promised, the Mosque was indeed open but......nobody was allowed in. When I pointed out that this therefore meant they were closed he insisted that I was wrong, they were open as plainly demonstrated by the doors all being open, but it was just that nobody was allowed in......not even Muslims.

Go figure.

Anyway, undettered we came to an agreement that I could take pictures of the mosque provided I stayed on teh block paving (which is classified as the car park) and didn't step on to the marble floor tiles (classified as the Mosque). And so here are a few shots taken this weekend:

These were taken with the new toy which I might have mentioned once or twice to a few of you, the new D700. Now for those I haven't bored silly so far the camera has a whole range of fantastic features (which I won't bother listing here) other than the main one for HDR which is 9 shot bracketing from +5EV through to -5EV. Bored of camera talk yet?

Well, what this basically means is that I can now shoot 9 shots every time I shoot knowing there is a very good chance I will have enough to use for HDR. For example here are the nine shots that when into making up the pillars shot:

Now I will admit right away that of these nine the HDR software really only needs 3 or 4 of these shots in order to work, but with the 9 shot bracketting don't need to even think about it, just shoot them off and select them when I get home. If you're interested I'll explain more at the next shutterbugs.