I traveled to Jordan back in January 2020, shortly before the outburst of the Covid pandemic situation. Lucky me, right? ;) I was thrilled to be there because I was traveling with a group of about 20 friends and people I knew, all passionate about photography, it was an awaited photo-trip. Moreover, this was my first visit to a country in the Middle-East region. As a student I had a friend from Jordan and my notion of the kingdom was quite positive and romantic. My role in this trip was to be of any possible help from photographic perspective to any of the travelers as I was hired to do that by the Bulgarian travel agency, Delta Tours.
Thus, Aqaba, the only coastal city in Jordan, became our home for the next few days. We traveled a lot in this amazing country yet we found time to walk the city streets, meet the sunrise, sail with a boat with glass bottom, eat some amazingly delicious foods, etc.
Now let me show you some of my photos with my point of view...
After we checked in the hotel, it was absolutely logical for us to go on a night walk and feel the city at these calm hours. After a short walk we went to the beach on Red Sea. The view was spectacular, so I took out my camera and tripod and made this long-exposure photo:
What is the most interesting about this frame is that you could see here lights of three countries, from right to left: Jordan, Israel and Egypt, as their borders come to a point exactly here in the gulf. I was really impressed to find out that fact!
Event in the darkness I could tell that the architecture is great. A lot of new construction as well:
Also parks and monuments, another of my favorite long exposures:
We were obligated to attend to the sunrise and it was beautiful, of course and as I have already shared most of the photos from that morning in a previous post, I am only going to show you now the city beach at about 6:00 AM in the morning, calm as you aren't going to see it this empty in the usual hours ;) Two photographers are enjoying the views and a local guy is coming to offer us an early ride with a glass-bottom boat ;)
Sun light diffracting beautifully over the nearby mosque:
The city market is a must-see! It was colorful, tempting and lively there. Jordanians definitely know how to make you speak to them and invite you into their stores, all offering delicious tea and sometimes even pastries just so you get closer. They are exceptionally good traders obviously ;)
Spices..
I tried some of those pastries... mmmmmmmmm...
One of our adventures was to sail around the city on a big boat with glass bottom. We went to the port with a cabriolet-Double-Decker, and of course, the inevitable selfies... :)
This is how the city looks from the sea:
One of the small glass-bottom boats you could get in at the city beach, sometimes their captains drift in the water and despite their size, always loud music aboard:
All the boats there offer Shisha, of course I tried few as they offer huge variety of tastes. Onboard, it looks magical:
I am not going to bother you with much more photos from that boat trip, but let me just share with you that the party was excellent, we had a lot of fun that day, not only due to the amazing nature, weather and company, but the crew made us feel fantastic with their friendly attitude, so we danced and laughed a lot ;)
It was a different vision indeed :)
Finally, I want to share with you how much I was positively impressed by this amazing city and its people! If I ever have the chance again, I won't hesitate but return to it for more memories and photographs.
Thanks a lot for your time, I hope you've enjoyed my story!
Copyright: Damian Hadjiyvanov, Light Captured
Check out my photo site: https://hadjiyvanov.com/
For licensing my photos, please drop me a message on Discord: lightcaptured#2698
Have a great photo! :P