So a shot from my iPhone this week with no fancy flash work. I did splash out on an exotic location though! For the next few days, I’m in Hurghada, Egypt on the shore of the Red Sea for a little mini break. I’m nearly two full days in and have another two full days left, returning home late Wednesday. I used a little pocket Gorillapod to hold the iPhone, attached it to a large ashtray thingy and set a 10-second timer before dashing behind the surfboard. I picked my moment as the sun was going down so that I didn’t have 50 other tourists crowding the scene. It does the job and keeps me on track to get 52 of these self-portraits in roughly a year.

I made the last-minute decision to leave the fancy Olympus camera at home as I was getting close to the point of packing more gadgets than clothes which I feared would give me some unwanted attention going through airport security. This turned out to be the right call as the gadgets I did have were enough to get some questions from a man with a large automatic weapon on arrival! I fear any more gear would have earnt me more intense interrogation techniques 😂😬.

I’m definitely enjoying the warm sunshine even if it doesn’t love me (I have a very sunburnt back despite the factor 4 million suncream I’ve bathed myself in at almost hourly intervals). The hotel is nice, the food good and the cocktails abundant. I miss having people to talk with but I’m beginning to adapt and I’ve been relaxing by listening to music, reading a book and watching the odd film either by the pool, on the beach or up in my room. I took a short walk out of the hotel today and took a few snaps which I shared on Instagram. Tomorrow I have a boat trip planned with some snorkelling but other than that I intend to keep putting my feet up and within strolling distance of the bar. Lazy but required.