The Great Sphinx of Giza

You will rarely see this view of the Sphinx because tourists are not permitted to go right in front of the paws. In the late 90’s I traveled to Egypt with a friend of mine who happened to be good friends with a well-known Egyptian Egyptologist. This man was kind enough to arrange for us to get this shot. The original picture was taken during the day, so for something different I reduced the exposure on the Sphinx and composited the Milky Way in the sky, replacing the solid blue color. I then lowered the saturation and added contrast as if this ancient mythical creature were illuminated by moonlight. I took the picture of the Sphinx with a Mamiya 7 medium format film camera and a 43mm wide angle lens (equivalent to about a 20mm lens in the 35mm digital format). I used Fujichrome Velvia 50. The Mikly Way was taken with a Canon 1Dx Mark II and a 14mm lens a few years ago.