Thursday, May 30, 2013

Webbology...

Another week now without any success with my camera. But hey! at least I've tried my best with it! Well, maybe I will explain a bit about it later. In the meantime, I'm still coping with my disturbed sleeping schedule which drives me to more naps in the office (yes, in the office). On the other hand, I had my own trials with Geltani a bit, but I'm wondering when it is the proper time to publish this work?

Emergency
The family had to face some hard time last Thursday when Mom is said to have low blood pressure and shortly went into coma, or she might just have slept as she said, during the dialysis process. The doctors wanted her to be transported to the hospital ASAP but she told them that her son (me) is waiting outside. Thus, I had to drive her myself to there amid some crazy traffic. They got her into the observation room for a while and it wasn't till my sister arrived that I could leave the place. Later on, my sister called and said that everything is alright and they wanted to check her in for 2 or 3 more days but Mom and my sister refused and they got back home that same day. Talk about exhaustion all day and not being able to think of something to do. In fact, I tried to sleep most of that day, while headache stroke me later at night. Wondering how to even enjoy my weekend amid this turbulence.
The load had increased even more, with Mom preferring me to drive her to the dialysis center in an early time instead of my (freak) sister who used to go out late into the traffic jam and drives Mom's nerves into a panic status. And of course, I'm the one who picks her later from the dialysis center 4 to 5 hours later. I do have a family that I can depend on as it seems. Then everyone is wondering: why do you like to do things alone?

Dine-In
Saturday, it was the time for the dinner invitation that I've set up for the group members and some friends.  I can't hide my surprise and disappointment here, for the 19 guests who were initially invited, only 7 showed up. Imagine booking a whole restaurant for that night, to find yourself with such small number of people. I did take some photos but they are less than 10 probably and I didn't even bother processing them.
The invitation of ladies into this was another comical matter. Despite the fact that we used to gather in meetings and occasional gatherings in specific events (like the last week before Ramadhan), yet they found it embarrassing to gather with the guys in a restaurant to have dinner, even though it was possible (and I did) to separate the seats to accommodate males and females separately. When she heard the story, the owner of the restaurant laughed and wondered about such a strange mentality.

Lingua Geltani
On the Geltani front I've decided to change the previous statement for occupations from (-ji) and (-jin) suffices to something a bit far away from Japanese. The masculine occupation title would be (-árí) wile the feminine would be (-ází). The Geltani character is the same still but for the feminine title it would be flipped upside down.

-árí

-ází


Been working some time as well on the possessive articles (my, our, ...etc), and they were a bit tricky for me actually and in the end I had to formulate special characters and wording with loose connection to the original pronouns. At this point, found myself changing the plural as well (which was a repetition of the last syllable). Possessive articles come at the end of the words just like in Arabic (and a bunch of other languages as well), but their characters are not related to the transformation from Arabic orthography as I've planned Geltani in general.

Click to Enlarge


As for the reformulation of the plural, it is generally looked up again because of the fact that some words would up with nasalization and it might be hard a bit to repeat a nasal sound at the end, thus I thought it might be better just to stick to the regular method: adding a fixed suffix, with special rule for words with nasalized ends:
  • If the word ends with consonant (without counting the regular schwa) or if the word ends with a vowel, then the plural is -(a)no.
  • If the word ends with a nasal, then the plural is -wo
And these were the basic rules that actually affected the make of possessive pronouns in the beginning. The character for plurals is not changed and it is the same for both cases, as it is supposed to be a logographic script and has nothing or let's say just a bit of connection to the spoken sounds. How ironic that I'm doing all of this without even fixing the final vocal values for syllables! I think this is a mistake, and probably a big one, but my work pace is slow and nothing to published so far. Thus, I have the freedom to change anything for the time being. All the news about Geltani come from this blog, I presume. On the other hand, I shall work a bit more on syllables for foreign words as I've stated before because some characters and their strokes seem to be not suitable or misleading (for me). Shall see about that later.

Laser Point
I've finally got me a laser pointer to do some experiments with the trigger. My initial happiness with the toy was not complete when I, out of curiosity, scrolled open the pointer to see what type of batteries it uses. BANG! Two out of three batteries jumped out of their place and got lost under the car's cushion. Took me some days to find a replacement in some watches stores (yes, I was that busy and that much tired).
I've looked up settings for laser triggers on the internet and they seem quite easy like what I had in my mind. However, doing the setup for my own simple idea, was not something simple at all!
I didn't take pictures for the setting I was trying to use, but generally my idea was to catch a flying sugar cube over a mug. Thus, the pointed (after some really hard work here) was fixed pointing to the trigger, with the laser line passing over the mug. The good news? The set did work indeed and the laser pointer with the trigger did indeed trigger the camera. Bad news? Here we go:
  • I've used a paper clip to press the button of the pointer and keep the laser beam on at all times. Later, however, seems it is either the battery or maybe for the sake of safety, the beam became fainter and fainter, till finally switched off. To turn it on again I had to remove the clip and wait for some time and put it back again (and adjust the position of the pointer all over again to fall on the trigger's sensor). 
  • All my trials didn't catch a flying cube. I've changed the height of the laser beam and made it higher but to no avail. Not sure if the problem was the high shutter speed (reached 8000-1sec) or is it the delay in triggering. I have to add here that because of the long wire connecting the trigger to the camera, it probably does propose a significant delay in the process when the signal has to travel.
  • The place was hot and I was sweating waterfalls!
  • Lighting from the speedlites were just enough and I didn't want that type of lighting actually but this is the best I could do. It is such situation that makes me wish for a 3rd speedlite.
On the other hand, I was still struggling with the make of a silhouette image for my brothers. Despite the fact the Redbull contest is over already, but I had the idea alive in my mind still. I was planning to take pictures of different poses and all in silhouettes. Yet, working with family members is always something I don't like because no one is really reliant. Well, I guess I have to forget about the idea and just do something else more (useful) for the time being. Probably make a silhouette profile of Mom? Just an idea.

Webbology
With me being like a grounded boy now and not having the ability to work much around my camera, beside of course the empty mind and the flying ideas out of this head because, as it seems, my brain has lost its field of gravity - because of all these matters, I've had the internet to look for solutions and inspirations as the only thing that might spark something in me.
I've found some plenty of websites with tips and so on, typical, but few of them did really help me through and just loved to share them here.

1. Creativity Games: This website will be used a lot in the near future. It has a random word generator and some other stuff related to words (and I think it expands further than just words, but I didn't go deeper). From time to time I would seek this website for some random words (8 to 12 words usually) and just stare them and try to make some connection between few words which, hopefully, later would be translated as an idea to photograph. There was some old website that I used long time to write poetry but unfortunately it's not available anymore and in that old website you would type some words and in some way by some algorithm the computer makes you connect words together. Anyway, this new website is completely automatic if I should say and the words are completely random. Beside the single word generator, many words can be produced at once (up to 8 words a time) and there are plenty of creativity games (duh! hence the website's name!) that ask you to force a connection between some words. Quite useful for writing processes I presume, or maybe for business as well.

Screen Shot (with the damn ads pixelized!)
Click to Enlarge

2. RANDOM.ORG: This website offers many random things. However, my interest was in random numbers. Why? These random numbers in combination with random words from the above mentioned website, makes me reduce the range of thoughts into some specific words only and from there I try to imagine some photographic project. For example, if I collected 12 random words from the website mentioned above, I would write them down in a specific pattern (let's say in 4 rows with 3 words in each), then ask RANDOM.ORG to give me random digits from 1 to 12. After collecting 3 random numbers (of course this is my choice, otherwise it's free!) I would go on the words from the list with these orders (the order can be vertically arranged or horizontally as well) and jot down these words and try to make up something out of them. I'm not expecting success in every session of course yet it is some way to start and to break the boredom around!

Screen Shot with the generator on the right side
Click to Enlarge

Brainstorming trial with the help of Random.org and CreativityGames.com
Click to Enlarge

3. LightingDiagrams: Generally, I was looking for something that would help me imagine the effect of lighting on location. Anyway, this website was cool enough to provide the ability to make a diagram (but without the effect of lighting on subjects). From there, after making the essential diagram, it can be exported then to some formats like JPG or PNG. Quite useful! And I was doing it all by myself in Photoshop!

Screen Shot
Click to Enlarge

Finale
Trying to break the routine around me and force myself into things I want and like to do, despite the limitations in my physical status. All of that is driving me to even lesser sleeping time and more exhaustion. It feels like if my world is falling apart and I, myself, am the only thing standing. Many people I had to stop thinking of depending on even. Partner and Love? That was forgotten long time ago and I guess no back to that anymore...
As for now, all what I'm going to do is rest a bit, and listen to some Greek Music, and keep dreaming of some vacation...





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