Infra Selfie…

A week has passed of Ramadhan already. Things are going fast, and I'm trying to cope with the new timings. So far my body is doing nice job but it requires more sleep as usual. Anyway, this is the story of my life I presume.
Meanwhile, my timing seems compressed, specially that Ramadhan this year comes in the beginning of summer, which leaves me with few hours at night to do all I can do before trying to sleep (again) to get up next morning for another course of... misery. However, I had some time to do some stuff at least…

Infra Selfie

I've been trying this for 2 weeks; shooting myself (i.e. taking a selfie not with a gun) while using the infrared filter. My infrared filter is B+W with threshold of 650nm, which makes it penetrable by Reds beside infrared. Anyway, this is suitable so far for some shooting using Speedlites.  They are good sources for infrared rays by the way.

In my previous trials, I used some low f-numbers, and hence a shallow depth of field and a blurry image most of the time. I had to lower the f-number (around f/5.3) to allow more light to get in while shooting the 2 speedlites (580EX II and 430EX II) at full power. Narrowing the aperture yielded no image at all!
This time, however, I changed positions and I got the speedlites as close as possible to my face; it is dangerous somewhat - you can feel the heat wave rushing on your skin after each flash strike. At this point, I've set the f-number to f/8 (and I would go to f/10 if I had the chance to). The results were sort of acceptable. I know some people who liked these shots! Future model? Nah... not with this belly.

While processing the set of images, I was reluctant to fix the white balance as I usually do with infrared images. Mostly, I would just use the Infrared profile specifically made for such images and fix the saturation and contrast starting from there without adjusting the white balance. This kind of filter gives a pleasant hue and shade of Reds. Just for the sake of it, I did try to adjust the white balance as on the image above (and that would shift the colors to almost black and white image).
I faced some problems in processing like banding because of the excessive saturation at some point, but at the end I got to find some good shots. My dream now lies in shooting selfies using the Kodak gel filter or something like it, which has a threshold of 1000nm (more opaque to visible spectrum). That would require more flash power! If my face almost got burned for using speedlites at close distance to my face, imagine what kind of setting should be used if I used such filter of 1000nm threshold? Of course, with rising the ISO level too…

Syllabary

I've been working slowly with my Geltani project but at least I did something. Simon Ager, author of Omniglot, seems interested in this script, and thus I'm going to prepare a template for it in order to be displayed on Omniglot. Even though he did send me some ready-made templates to be used, but they don't fit into the scheme of Geltani (Geltani is Chinese-like script). Moreover, the templates he sent me were for alphabetical scripts, while Geltani contains a syllabary system along with the characters (somewhat mimicking the Katakana system to Japanese).

Scan of the syllabary
Click to enlarge.

I've managed so far to adjust and fix some issues with the syllabary system and I think I'm satisfied with it right now. The plan now is to make crops out of this scheme and put every character in a table. It's going to take a really long time I suppose! Probably the best way to do this is to make a document file and then save it as HTML.
What is left now is to re-check the phonetic values for some characters; something I was planning to do all the week but couldn't!

Finale

A lot in my brain right now; sketches, photos, designs. I don't know from where I should start. In the meantime, I've continuing my previous work with re-making old panoramas (specially those from my 2010 trip to Ireland, Co. Tipperary) to try to find more projections.
There is a pending trip to take place in September, to Oman, which would last for around 4 days doing photography projects there with the group, and I'm thinking already of having a real vacation after this trip. Not to Ireland this time, I don't think so, but it's just an idea and I have to think about it fast.
My mind and time is occupied as I'm doing an Arabic blog post about macro photography for Arabic readers - dedicated to beginners. I was hoping to post this one Wednesday but seems the amount of information included and the images needed there would need another week of working out. The only time I work on this Arabic article is when I'm, well, at work. Beside that, I'm trying to do some of the doodles and sketches that I've planned before. Not many pleasant results so far! I didn't like my own work…
So much here and so much there. I feel like breaking everything and just leave it all behind me here. This mind is cuffed to many things. I think not much is left for me here already…

Ag Éirí
(rising)