Scanning back through my Facebook timeline for 2015, these are some of the pictures I loved looking at again the most. Starting with the friendly camel who was very interested in our car shoot!
Great picture of my son Junaid who turned 15 in 2015 (he was a Millennium Baby). How did I become the son of a teenager already?
Daughter Leena happy to be in the desert. ‘OMG’
Ahmed Al Amri is three-time Drift UAE champion, and an all-round brilliant guy. He is super passionate about what he does, and I think this picture sums that up.
Another wonderful character and great fun guy in the Middle East drift scene is Samer Khadra and I think I captured him just right in this image. Big respect to him also for putting our Motoring Middle East logo on his car for the 2014-2015 season.
Don’t want to have too many car pictures in this compilation, but had to include this because people think I photoshopped in that chopper. Nope! It actually did just fly up from behind that dune as this shot was taken. Pretty awesome hey?
Thanks to ace snapper Wouter Kingma for this pic of me on an Audi drive event. No I wasn’t constipated as some have cruelly suggested!
Took a few goes to get this pic of Mohamed Al Musleh appearing to hold up his Citroen 2CV!
Chilling in Creek Park!
One of my dearest possessions is this 1960s Yashica 635 Twin Lens Reflex camera that belonged to my late father. Of course he never let me use it when I was younger, but I did let Junaid try it out. It was a bit of a shock to him how much you had to fiddle with it and work out the settings before you could actually take a picture!
But he did pretty well I think – this is the picture he took of me with Leena.
This year I got to get all Fast and Furious with Vin Diesel! Okay, not quite, but close enough with my good friend Neville Darukhanawalla. I’ll be your Brian O’Conner any day Nev!
Tom Baker is my favourite Doctor Who (though Peter Capaldi is getting up there) and this guy I snapped at Dubai ComicCon almost had him down perfectly, apart from the fact that he was only about 5ft tall, whereas Tom Baker was a towering personality. Still he was handing out Jelly Babies, so total respect to him anyway! ComicCon review
I didn’t need to meet him or speak to him personally, but it was enough that I was in the same room as the legendary Captain Kirk. Thanks ComicCon for bringing William Shatner over to Dubai, you made this Star Trek fan’s day! ComicCon review
Not really sure why I have included this in my favourite pictures of the year – I’ll let you make up your mind about that! 😉 ComicCon review
I think in the crowd my wife confused this dinosaur for me – easily done I suppose! ComicCon review
Meanwhile, as far as I’m concerned, my Leena won cosplay that day!
My buddy, and Motoring Middle East partner, got assimilated by the Borg! Funny thing is – it didn’t really change him much!
Despite the fact that I’m resolutely not at all handy in the kitchen, I made Pizza with Maserati. Great fun and I was commended for my dough. Doh!
Good friends know what I like and bring me toys from all over the world! This one from Africa. Thanks Noel – now I have both Bond Esprits!
Junaid and I found that London can be quite creepy!
And the wife also found a creepy tunnel near Westminster Bridge. Fortunately Jack the Ripper has been dead a very long time. Phew!
Great to catch up with my best friends from school and college – Kalpesh (left) and Virendra (middle). The years just melted away and we were back to our old silliness in no time! This reunion was missing our other amigo, Hitendra – much missed. Hope to see him soon one day.
Asked by the Science Museum, and still not answered. Although I don’t think ‘Normal’ applies to me.
Never seen anyone pose so much in bumper car than this fella. He reckons he’s in a Rude Merc, innit?!
Flanked by my gorgeous girls!
I knew one day I’d be standing among The Greats.
I take a diecast model Lotus Esprit on my travels. I didn’t actually travel that much in 2015, but this is my favourite shot of the year. You can follow it and check out previous pictures on my Instagram account – @ShahzadSheikh just search for #LittleLotus & #ToyCarTravels.
Where time begins – standing on the Greenwich Mean Line. I kept stepping back and forth over it, thinking it would take years off my age. :p
Love this pic of me and the kids after a ride in the Emirates Cable Car in London.
Muslim Batman and Superman dancing the Bhangra at an Eid Mela in Trafalgur Square in London – more of this in the world please, and less of the shortsighted preconceived prejudices please.
Junaid got his first electric guitar. The plan is he becomes a rock star, gets rich and buys me loads of cars.
Everyone love Charlie Chaplin, including my missus.
Just love this dynamic photo of the family!
Me and Humaira – our Bollywood in the Bagh picture.
Meeting Ben. Big Ben.
Rare to get picture of my dear mum laughing – but Leena will do that to you.
Go home tree – you’re drunk!
Riding the London Eye
Podtastic! Despite the rain, I like how this turned out. Shot on iPhone.
Lost my face at the Cadillac V event at Yas Marina Circuit – anyone know where I left it?
I love hats, and would really like to start wearing them regularly – but then I would be ‘that guy that wears hats all the time’.
I leave the car parked outside overnight and someone steals one of the headlights of the mighty Dodge Challenger Hellcat! 😉
The hallways of my apartment building are hunted on Halloween. Or else that’s just Leena in her Halloween outfit. Love how this picture came out.
We, as Motoring Middle East, had an extremely hectic but amazing 2015 Dubai Motor Show. We covered the show, produced an incredible series of entertaining videos and ran a daily live panel show. This was one of my favourite panels with Thomas Edelmann and Mostafa Aldah – we had a lot of fun with the audience in this one, including this rather large fella that even makes me look small! Read all about it here.
Always great to work with the amazing crew from Case – we produced nine videos over two days at the Dubai Motor Show. Watch them here.
See honey? I told you one day I’d take you to see the Taj Mahal! What? Oh, you meant the real one. Not this small scale replica in Global Village in Dubai? Ah. Okay then, maybe next year! Fingers crossed, Inshallah.
For more pictures and craziness follow me in 2016 on Facebook (Shahzad Sheikh), Instagram (@ShahzadSheikh) and Twitter (@Shahzad_Sheikh).
