Grace...

Mom is finally back home right now, but that doesn't mean the end of the story. In fact, I think the struggle had just began now to elevate her spirit and make her cope what life throws at her, specially with boring hours of dialysis.
We are hoping now that the dialysis process is a temporary procedure until Creatinine is reduced to some level. All we can do for now is to pray for her and, of course, be on her side as much as possible. The other challenge from our side is to cope with life's schedules and rush with an added responsibility like this. We've been managing for the past 3 weeks by having leaving from work and changing shifts among family members, but at a certain point, I believe Mom has to be alone at home, probably with the maid only to help her out.

One of the greatest challenges for me right now is to try and work on with my camera after being mostly idle in the past weeks. Not completely idle, but I was aiming at various things without thinking just to try out my camera and not stop using it. Mainly I was aiming at geometrical shapes in flowers, specially those sent to Mom in the hospital. I won't bother you with the technical details here, but most of the images here were taken with 50mm lens plus some extension tube(s) beside using one or two speedlites (580EXII and 430EXII).

Blooming Alone

Sanfte Aufbau

Zentrum Aufbau

The Dark Side of Beauty

Introvert Petals

Lumini

Vortex

Floral Fractal

Mother's Heart

Die Sanfte Ringe

New Toys:

With the rush of the events lately I've ordered some new toys for my camera that I've barely touched or experienced something with. I hope in the coming days I will do this accordingly.

Source: B&H

One of the simplest "toys" here is a step down ring which is aimed at fitting filters on lenses with different diameters. My ring here is a step down from 62mm to 58mm (62-58mm) which I got specifically for my Tamron lens (70-300mm). Most of the lenses that I'm using have a diameter of 58mm and hence most of my filters (polarizer and IR for example) are ordered accordingly to this diameter. In order to make these filters somehow complete and fit all, this step down ring can do the job. The only problem here is that it sometimes gets stuck in between or stuck into the filter read itself. Typical problem (and I'm planning to get special wrenches to detach filters from lenses).

Source: B&H

The other toy is an eyepiece from Polaroid which acts as an extension at a right angle. It is supposed to be quite useful for shooting at waist level but I didn't test it for long. One of the hardships in this piece is how to fit it into my camera. It comes with plenty of adapters for various cameras (specially EOS cameras) but unfortunately, there is no direct adapter for EOS 7D camera and I had to make several tests. I could hardly fit one of the adapters into my 7D and I'm not sure it is quite useful for shooting at waist level but probably more useful to shoot on sides (i.e. to be on the side of the camera and look into the eyepiece). I will leave this for time to sort out its benefits.

Source: B&H

Maybe the most important toy for me right now (and didn't try it yet!) is the Ubertronix Strike Finder trigger. Some years back I got a cumbersome circuit to trigger the flashes by sound (and needed the PC cable to connect it to the flash but never got this cable). This trigger now is all-in-one type: sound, motion, laser and lightning. The difference here though is the fact that it is a camera trigger (and it comes with N3 cable to be connected in the place of the cable remote into the camera). Without trying it all seems good, but with one thing: the short cables and sensors. I want to try this as soon as possible but yet I didn't formulate any ideas on how to do so. The trigger box contains a jack port saying "flash/camera" thus I do believe I can connect it to flashes (speedlites) by special cables too and it's not limited to cameras only. Among other models, this brand was the only one probably to support Canon EOS 7D. In a twist of options, it has the Laser gate, i.e. triggering the camera with the change in Laser reception as I understand it while other brands depend on infrared gate which triggers the camera only when an object crosses in between a transmitter and a receptor. I'm not sure though how I'm going to use the trigger for Laser but according to the instructions it works as well for infrared just that way, as well as for lightning photography. Too bad the lightning season is over right now!

Thoughts:

In the passing weeks, with Mom's sickness and up till this moment, I had some weird urge in geometrical wisdom and started to read whatever comes my way from Wikipedia; specially the schläfli symbol. There were many stuff that were complicated of course and my mind couldn't digest but reading about simple stuff could spark some imagination. Reading about mathematics and geometry can never be in vain - it is up to you of course!
I'm trying in the meantime to look at the problem with Mom's health as a test for something; probably to change my attitude toward the world, probably to test my capabilities of challenging the world with increasing responsibilities and yet keeping up with my own projects and photography. Mom cared for us as a mother would do, and her memories still race in my mind at the moment; memories of some time when I was 10 years old or less and how she used to dress me for school. Despite the health problem is upon her, but it is our test, her children. Probably God wants to see how we do care for her and I'm lying my hope in succeeding in this test. After all, I arrived to the realization of the fact that at some time, at some moment in time, there should be that point of departure between her and me as it is the case always with every living thing. My only prayers go to make this point in time just far away; far enough in time to make me stronger to bear it. I've realized as well the fact that just wishing to depart life before her so I wouldn't have to see her leave me alone in this world is a mere selfish thought. Mothers can't bear the departure of their kids from her sight - it is me who has to bear it all instead...