My next photography tour in two weeks is to Egypt. The last time I was there I was still shooting film, and with all of the tools we now have at our disposal -- like HDR, ultra wide angle lenses, Photoshop, focus stacking, panoramas, etc. -- I'm sure my pictures will be better than before on every level. Still, I love many of the images I took in 1997, and this is one of them. I replaced the sky for drama, but the low angled sunlight on the Sphinx beautifully brings to life the rich texture, the sculpted contours, and the enigmatic stare of this ancient monument. You can still see bullet holes in the face that were fired by Napolean's soldiers in 1798 following his invasion of Egypt with 400 ships and 54,000 men. The sheer size of the Sphinx takes your breath away, and I felt privileged to stand in front of it. I look forward to that experience again. I shot this with a Mamiya RZ 67 medium format film camera with a 250mm lens (equivalent to a 135mm lens in a full frame digital format), a tripod, and I used Fujichrome 100 slide film. Back then, I used a Sekonic hand held light meter to determine the correct exposure.
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