New...

Well, here I am. On the island trying to find my way with my camera. It is really hard to live in such a situation without thinking about doing abstract. I'm trying to put a story in every picture I take. However, the cold weather here is no game to play with. Unlike Ireland, cold means... cold! This situation is making it hard for me to walk around with a tripod and backpack wearing jacket or working with the camera wearing gloves. For this reason, I had to take it as it is, and I already walked around in the neighborhood for little exploration with a t-shirt and without tripod; as a consequence, raising the ISO is something frequently done.

Bent Not Broken
Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/2.8, 800^-1sec, ISO 100.

Technically, I was mainly switching between Manual and Av modes. With such a breeze, shooting plants proved really difficult, specially without a tripod. My choice of lenses varied, but majorly between my relatively-new 50mm and the macro 100mm, and few shots with Rokinon's 8mm. Bent Not Broken was a shot taken from different angles and  different aspects, but I'm keeping the bulk of the work for when I get back home. I've cropped it in a square frame as there was much space around the bent stem that, for me, made no sense. Square framing is good for the eyes as I believe!

Passive
Rokinon 8mm, f/8,
50^-1sec, ISO 100.

To tell the truth, shots like Passive isn't really up to my liking but the sun was seducing me to some drama with black and white. The framing was hard a bit but that was fixed with some cropping. Yet, I do feel the image a bit crowded and not really attractive. The shot is taken in brackets, but here the B&W version is done from a single shot. I had to use lot of Curves to enhance the contrast, and also lot of layer masks with that to control the zones of effect. There is still some work to be done back home when I try the colors and the HDR rendering. I'm trying so hard to put feeling to my images but it is indeed so hard, and I just can't figure it out!

Agrow
Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/2.8,
250^-1sec, ISO 100.

You might be wonder why I'm concentrating on B&W and not colored images. Well, I think I'm keeping the fun for the end and to see my chances with HDR rendering. Also, I do feel the B&Ws are more expressive that way and spell out more drama.
There are plenty of other shots but I didn't not process much, and there were shots from around The Days Inn, the hotel where I stayed when I first arrived. As for the time being, I have to prepare for some panoramas work soon in this amazing place. I think I will, also, convert these panoramas to B&W, and they shall be stitched in small sizes of course, if done correctly, for this blog purposes. I'd leave the bulk of the heavy work to be done later back at home.

Now, there is so much going on in my head and I'm not sure where to head next, but there are some ideas in my mind to shorten my stay in here, but it's still under consideration. What's next? hmm...