Post-Languorem…

Well, good things are never complete they say here. I guess it's true. I've stopped most of my activities for few days and thus not much material (photos or experiments) were done because of my sickness last week, with temperature soaring close to 40°C. I guess this is the tax I had to pay for the good change in weather and the coming of fall. I just can't wait for winter to be finally here!
Anyway, before all of that I did try some experiments on the go, if I can call them so, I will try to talk about them a bit here.

Quran: 18/9.

Impact oval diffuser.
Source: B&H

This shot is a remnant from August's project which was about books, but unfortunately, I could not apply the idea and work on it until the past 2 weeks or so. Anyway, the trick which I had in my mind did not work quite well here and I had to use two speedlites instead of just one. My main idea here was to strike the book with flash and make it reflect off toward the face, but many factors here did not help (face angle, paper not reflective enough, angle of the book... etc). Thus, I needed to use another speedlite (430EX II here) with an oval diffuser. I've changed the position of this one a lot until I've settled down placing it in front of my brother to the right a bit and lowering the power just enough to give a sense of reflection from the book a bit.
Now, generally speaking, the shot has many problems in composition; Majorly, the black space which I've used for my watermark but originally it has no use and adds nothing to to the image (unless maybe it can be used by stock customers to write something). My brother's shirt was problematic too but we solved that by throwing a black cloth on his shoulders  to cover it, but now looking at it, probably I should have cropped that portion too just under the chin (vertically). So, it was just an experiment and an idea that I had long ago and didn't want to let it go just like that without trying at least.

Lumicon H-Alpha Night Sky Filter.
Source: B&H

Now we come to the "funny" part; Well, if I can call it so. I was, and still, testing my filters for some time and trying to figure out more creative ways to use them. Specifically, my relatively new filter: Night Sky H-Alpha filter from Lumicon. To my understanding, so far, this filter is actually wider in range of wavelengths it passes than infrared filters (it passes infrared, and reds). However, the difference might not be so great actually. Just 10nm or 20nm more than my B+W 092 infrared filter, which has a threshold of 650nm (the H-Alpha filter has a threshold around 630nm according to some transmission charts). The H-Alpha filter though is said to reduce the night sky noise and light pollution; I have yet to test that for myself though. Now the fun...

The Surprised Ghost!
Sigma 70-300mm @70mm, f/5, 1/4s, ISO400 + H-alpha filter.

Again, my victim is my brother here. I did a minor calibration with my camera for the white balance and I was roaming the house with H-alpha filter on my Sigma lens, when I noticed my brother on his way out (all that on LiveView) and how his body looks bluish against a reddish background. Not sure though what causes such extreme contrast and difference; is it the heat? I doubt. However, In order to increase the shutter speed just a bit and stop the shake, I've used the on-camera flash quickly. This did stabilize the image a bit but not completely, as there are still some shake marks (the head and his right shoulder on the left). The reddish tint of the background was reduced as well by this stroke of flash. Despite calibrating the WB in camera, this is almost useless because in Photoshop (more precisely, Adobe Camera RAW) this range cannot be defined and special camera "profile" which I've made before for Infrared photography has to be used to stretched the WB range while processing. Now, though, it is time to think of more interesting things to shoot at with this filter; things more dramatic.

Finale

Here it is, just a quick wrap for whatever I was doing before getting sick. And despite having some ideas that are almost ready to be applied yet I can't have the time to do them nor the hand to help me with as they require so, and needless to say, a proper place. But I'll keep that for later.
Meanwhile, as I'm still looking for a good subject for my Arabic blog, I've received an enlightening email from the Jordanian Arabic Language Assembly replying to my months-old email, asking for a proper definition for "anaglyph" in Arabic. Notice that my English spellchecker still does not define "anaglyph" as a proper word! However, according to my description and their research, they did finally put on a word into the system and in case I need to, I'd be using it in the future! Now that, I call achievement.
As days pass by, I'm trying to find more peace of mind around me here. Passion for Ireland is ignited again. Would I be traveling to there for a 4^th time? I'm not quite sure yet. Winter is in and this is not typically the time for my travels, usually. The weather is cooling down slowly and can't wait till I feel that cold breeze in early mornings. I'm seriously growing sick of the weather, and other things…