Herb Schmitz on shooting the Roman ruins at Leptis Magna, Libya

I had to use small compact camera to do it. Once you get there and people see you with cameras and professional equipment, they get nervous.

I was working for shipping company to take some photographs to make it more interesting for the passengers. I did ship to Libya with my wife, who is American and could not get into Al Khums which leads to Leptis Magna. But it's an amazing place, it's almost equal to the size of Rome, not in size but in quality. It's rather a small population and people are desert people, with Gaddafi on top. You keep cool and hanging there, you get some nice experiences.

I wasn't allowed to take my professional equipment, so I had to shoot on compact. To enter the site I walked with the tourists, so the guide was a bit suspicious and kept asking me not to take photos. Obviously, I did.

This one is a Canon compact camera, which I use for snapshots. You know, shooting from the hip. You have to focus it and you have to expose it, right? And in the end it doesn't really matter what equipment you use providing with a shot which will say what it is.

And Libya has been closed for so many years, it's just open and it's very fresh and interesting. You can hold it and you can fire, nobody will know you're actually shooting.