Lingua Arabica…

Another post that I'm kind of struggling to keep up with, and this time because of my gum infection that had been paralyzing my right side of the face. I'm taking a course of antibiotics at the time of writing this so I'm hoping these would work, if not, then I'd be forced to check with a dentist for some drilling course (pun intended).
Anyway, I've figured at this point that I've reached the activities and shots that I've made in December 2022. Since there had been a various shots (mainly by the phone) and a little work with my DSLR, I've decided to make this post about my DSLR activity, and mainly about a single project that I've mentioned before in previous posts, and that is the Arabic Language Day which takes place on December 18ᵗʰ of every year. I might make a random post later for all these shots taken with the mobile, we'll see. 

Arabic Day

The beginning was quite a struggle with the idea (as usual) then it came to me maybe I can do something quickly (because I was running out of time) with light painting techniques. Again, though, another problem prevailed: Where? For such a job, I'd need a completely dark room with some... room! Even though I was planning ahead on using my Sigma 12-24mm lens for flexibility and not to have much distortion, but it was almost impossible to find one room in the house that would be fitting. Finally, I've settled on my mother's room despite the not-so-cozy setting, but I thought "I don't have to move my body, but merely my hand and hopefully the zoom would fix the perspective."

Scrambled ع

As expected, my first trials were troublesome, and this is normal as I don't know much about the technique itself and the place itself is not that adequate. At some test shots, some parts of the furniture were lit as I was moving the LED light in the air trying to write the Arabic letter "ع". Some of these test shots, though not perfect, but do have something about them, like Scrambled ع, where a tiny trace of my hand showed. It goes without saying that I had to wear a black outfit to avoid unwanted reflected light coming out in the image.

Shining ع

One of the problems in the room as well, beside the furniture (which can be seen in Shining ع) is the opening under the door which let in some light from the outside. Ironically, I managed to use this line of light (seen in Scrambled ع) as a reference to fix the tilt of the image (spent considerable time trying to fix the tilt on-camera yet it never works that way for me).

عَـرَبِـيْ
(Arabic)

After doing some trials with the letter, I've tried to do few trials writing a full word, like (عربي) — "Arabic". It was challenging specifically because the LED light (or torch) which I was using didn't have a simple ON/OFF switch, but it changes modes of lighting with every press and then turns off. Thus, I had to use both hands here to move the light, and cover it with the other when I need to stop "writing"; Just how it goes with the Arabic script! The trials were mediocre as in the one shown on the side, but finally I've managed to create some good ones, and finally put all my trials in one picture, specifically to be posted on Instagram (back on that day).

The Arabic Day

In the collection image, it can be seen some flare in some of these images (specifically the word عربي at the bottom) and this is because I've remembered to use one of those flare filters on the lens. I got these filters from a friend and they don't quite fit the lens so I have to improvise something to fit them on the lens every time I need to use them!
The original The Arabic Day was bluish actually (that's the original color of the LED light) but then tinted the image with golden color (#FFD700). This was the basic one but then it occurred to me: Why not make different ones for different languages? And so it was! I've created 9 more images, each with different colors reflecting the flags of the countries/languages. Thanks to Google Translate for providing the translation here even though it did screw up few stuff already!

Now this is a simple experiment with light painting and I had some thought about it. It looks pretty interesting to do though hard when doing it alone. However, two main hardships lie awaiting here: Location, and Lights. As for the location, I've explained some aspects about it above. As for the lights, the issue here is about having a number of choices (shapes and sizes) and colors to be creative. For this reason, I believe working with light painting should be planned properly with a clear vision ahead of what the final result would "approximately" be like. At the moment, all I have in my arsenal of lights is merely those for use when the power goes off! However, I do have candles as well and I'm wondering if I can do something with them, though they wouldn't provide necessarily a creative variety in shapes or colors!

Finale

I think I should consider myself lucky to finish this blog post in time. The pain caused by the gum infection and the tired body (still) was so much to bear with. It's like I don't ever get enough sleep.
Meanwhile, and before I get struck by the infection, I did two strolls outside for random shooting; the best I can do in winter I guess. I did this in the past few years (starting from around 2020 with the lock down back then). Typically, I would be shooting with some filter, but this time I've decided to go "normal" and I've strolled twice using the Sigma 12-24mm lens, which proved to be hard somehow (hard in terms of getting inspiration along the way). Anyway, that's a talk for another day.

Amid all this fuss with my camera and whatever I'm trying to do, my life seems to be a complete mess. I'm looking back at these stuff that I was indeed planning to do or promised myself to do after retirement, and I've realized almost nothing was done. House problems and the relation with the mother have been dwindling, like an adult forcing itself on a swing so hard, and all I can do to keep it from going worse is to keep myself alone in my room. I guess now I know how it feels to raise a teenager, without me being a father still. I don't know where am I heading but I like to entertain myself with those things they call "positive vibes" even though deep inside I stopped believing in them. They say destiny is or should be my own making and when I look around me, I just don't know what to do and what those people (who proclaimed themselves as "life coaches") are saying. I'm just here, receiving the bad mood and the attitude of others and just to keep things from going worse, I have to be silent for most of the time. I say "most of the time" because there had been some lashing out, and even those, I'm trying to not repeat. If I complain about it, I know I will get the blame, so I'm sparing myself the useless talk with anyone, and just go to bed to sleep, in hope it may be my last…

Arabic Day…

Well, I'm here, after finishing all the procedures for the retirement (with few things left to sort through). One would think at this point that I'm going to have a pleasant time with myself and have more time to work on whatever projects or hobbies I have in mind; But things are not so just yet.
I'm writing these lines right now with pains coming and going and seems it's some colon issues. Been having some carbon pills and they did some good job but yet some work need to be done! I just hope it's not a complicated matter other than simply "color gases". 

Anyway, in this post I would like to talk about few things I've done lately (well, not things but a "thing" mainly) in correspondence to The Arabic Language International Day, which was on December 18th. 

Lingua Arabica

I was lucky to have a memory that aided me this year to remember this day. December 18th, The Arabic Language International Day. This day is considered the international day for the language because on such a day, the UN admitted Arabic as an official language in the institution beside 5 (or 4?) others.
In the past years, I didn't do much (since knowing the fact that there is a day dedicated to Arabic) but merely posting about it on the media with some logos or anything I could find. This year, though, I already planned to do something, despite my currently-low inspirational fit and the frequent fatigue. But this was a start, as along the way, it inspired me to do something else (which I will state later).

I've spent quite some time to get inspiration, and tried hard with some "games" online to brainstorm some ideas out, as well as surfing Pinterest to be inspired. I've noted things down and I've already had some handful of ideas, but then I picked one to work with. I'm thinking about the rest of the ideas that I've recorded already; I might work on them later if possible, when I get the time (and the health) to do them!

Trial with 8mm fisheye lens

The idea that I was inspired with is something I've seen on Pinterest, which was about an eye with the pupil or iris being shaped into specific shapes. In the beginning, and because I was not quite in the mood to work with my macro toys, I've thought maybe shooting with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens would be a suitable choice; Like, shooting in close distance (about 30cm) and then crop the image to focus on the eye. But I was completely, absolutely, wrong!

Another one with in-camera flash!

It was fun though and I even worked a bit with in-camera flash (i.e. the built-in flash) and seems it works well as well providing that I would change the power of the flash to balance it with the ambient light. I think typically we tend not to think about using any type of flash when going wide, or extra wide, but it is something worth trying in the future I guess.
Anyway, from these few shots it was clear that there is no escape of dealing with a bit of macro. Maybe not "real" macro but nevertheless, something to get me close a bit to the eye. And in case you are wondering why I don't just take a picture of someone else's eye, well, the answer is obvious by now I guess; I have no one to work with.

One of the shots done with 50mm + 12mm tube, cropped.

Thus, I got my 50mm and a 12mm extension tube. Such combination is not aimed for a real macro job as it doesn't reach even 0.5X magnification (by crude calculations). But it was just about enough to break the closest focusing distance of 45cm for such a lens. Now, I don't know at what distance does it focus with this extension tube but it was surely enough to include some adequate portion of the eye and part of the face (which was cropped later).
I've made a number of shots for the eye with this combination of lens and tube, but seems the last 2 or so were the sharpest on closer check-up on PC. So, the one shown above became the base for my work with this little project. 

ع
The final image.

Of course, on RAW level, there were so much to be done and many sliders to move and click, but all was somewhat a routine. The heavy load of work and meat was mainly in Photoshop itself to mimic the pupil and replace it with the letter (ع). The work with this effect did take a lot of time and trial-and-error attempts mainly because I didn't know what I was looking for here. Finally I've settled down on a specific font (mimicking the Farsi or Nastaliq style) for its swift curves. Worth noting also that I picked the color of the pupil from the original image (after editing the RAW) so that it won't be pitched black and closer to reality. I also copied the flare from the original shot and pasted it (with little modifications) on the edited version.
I would say the rest of the work in photoshop focused on color corrections and adding emphasis on the pupil by shading the surrounding areas (using reflected gradient), besides, of course, sharpening. 

I've posted the image on Instagram with a lengthy caption to make the post informative a bit beside being artistic.

This little project (but lengthy in processing) inspired me to expand it a bit further and make a whole set of such images to include all 28 letters (a bit more than 28 in fact) but yet I have to test further fonts to see which one might work better, as well as turning the image in a simpler format.

On a side note, I worked also on another "design" for this occasion (i.e. the Arabic Language International Day) but I don't feel so proud about it, since it is so simple…

اقْـرَأْ
(read)

Originally, the idea for Read was to do some art by hand using the Verse 1 of Chapter 96 from Quran (the first verse to be revealed from Quran). However, my calligraphic talent is so mediocre that I just forgot about it and turned out to do the whole thing digitally. I picked the background from some old shot for Quran, taken back in 2012, and the rest is a plain text (with a bit of struggle here since my Photoshop does not support proper Arabic text, so I had to deal with it as a path-work). The whole image was tinted with so-called Islamic Green (Hex: #009000).
I wouldn't say I like the whole thing as it is completely different than what I had in mind originally but at least I did something I guess instead of letting things sink deep at the back of my head and just get forgotten there. Who knows, I might visit this design and do it as I intended to originally. However, one thing I've realized from all of this experience, and that is: I do need to install more artistic Arabic fonts!

Finale

So, this is something done quickly for the Arabic Language Day, and I'm still cooking some ideas at the back of my head; Like creating a set of letters with a similar design for the stocks. I'm also planning to do some post for my Arabic blog concerning the process of creating (ع) but I'm not quite sure about it yet as it would require a number of technical and lengthy talk. Still flipping the idea…
On the other hand, I'm still going on here and there to do some chores regarding the finalization of my retirement and the pension, but this should be almost done around the time of typing this; Almost. I'm so eager to take my morning walks this winter after missing them out in November and December. However, I'm thinking of early morning walks before the sun is above the horizon, with H-alpha filter on the lens; Just a fun game to see how things turn out. Unfortunately, I'm confined in time because of my mother and some of her health issues that bounds me to her in the morning in order to get her ready for the dialysis (or the trip to the dialysis center). But all in all, I think this is doable, it just needs some time.

With retirement, comes some kind of a rush of ideas or desires to work with the camera even though the ideas are lacking. Thus, I'm spending time right now to brainstorm from time to time in order to get some ideas. Ironically, most of the ideas that get into my head are those involving people so I just erase them right away from my head. And yes, I won't be really hiring a real person to do such ideas because, well, they are not for business and it doesn't sound a good idea to invest money in something for nothing in return in general. So, I would have to rely on selfies, whenever such visiting ideas permit so. I have to mention also that astrology had been occupying some of my time now as I'm investigating this realm and testing theories.

All in all, retirement time seems to be, or would be, some busy time more than the time when I was employed, but I'm still not sure if I still can time-manage the whole thing or not, but I would have to for sure, sooner or later. Along with that, I need to put my hopes in-check, as some of them do sound a bit unrealistic, for now, or later…

 

Huaweific IV…

I'm typing this post in a short notice of time. I was really going to skip this blog post and call it off to have my "own" vacation, but then I re-considered. Maybe I will give myself a longer vacation from blogging for my birthday, on August 17^th. For now, I wanted to post some of the things that I've taken just in time and like one or two days before the deadline of Huawei's contest which happened to be on July 31^st and not the 29^th. That was some sort of good news to me actually and I did have the time to consider some ideas. Luckily, I did a punch of ideas just in time, even though they were not what I had in mind, but they sprang out of my mind at the spur of the moment.
I've been taking some random shots around me in hope to make some good abstracts, like this one for wafer sticks (my favorite!) but at the time of the upload, it did sound a bit normal and nothing much about it. Still, my eyes were open for any chance out there. The bathroom never failed me...

Where To

However, this shot from the bathroom, Where To, was a bit problematic to do because of my phone's lens limitations. Might have done it with considerable ease in framing the scene with my DSLR. Anyway, the idea was to make a B&W image so I've picked the Monochrome option on my phone camera. With some special arrangement with my monopod, I've managed to stabilize the phone on the monopod and hold it by hand around my shoulder's level to shoot the sandals on the bathroom's floor. Working in the dark though was not my cuppa tea! However, this was not the real catch yet.

Anxiety (remake)

The real catch was getting my brother to model for me once more (as usual) and I was lucky also to have some nephews visiting to help me out. I had some various ideas in fact but the ones that were suitable to be done at that moment was the idea of a re-make for a shot that I've made with my DSLR some months back, Anxiety. However, the situation is different here as I'm limited in editing options as well as the lighting options. Again, I had to work in a dark room here but with 3 nephews to help me out with my brother, and instead of using collage to cover the face with hands, I used the hands of my nephews (and brother himself) to cover the face. The not-so-good point here though is that my brother was like if he was looking away from the camera and did not direct his eye to the correct angle. For lighting here, I've used a hand-held LED torch or panel (small panel) which probably should have been diffused using some paper but all work was done in a haste and didn't have the time to think about such solutions. Unlike Where To, the remake of Anxiety was converted to B&W in the phone while editing and not while shooting.

At Night

I did have another idea which I still wanted to do with my brother before releasing him from my clutches and that was to have a half-lit selfie with a somewhat devilish smile. Things turned out unexpectedly wrong and funny, and horrific, all in the same time! You can see that clearly in At Night. What happened here is that I've set the phone on Light Painting mode (something similar to long exposure technique) and I was going, indeed, to paint my brother's face with the LED torch. But because of the shake in the monopod as well as my brother's movements a bit things turned awry. Instead of re-doing it, I've actually quite loved it that way and I did upload it already to Huawei's contest!
In fact, this is one of the things that I like about shooting with the phone (specifically my Huawei, don't know about other brands) despite the limitations in many things. The long exposure technique. There are various modes under this category in the phone's camera and each one of them does provide a specific look to the motion and the image in general (thanks to AI I would say). Moreover, you are able to see the results forming in front of you as you are shooting (as it happened with At Night). The negative side is, again though, the limitations; Such as not controlling the time (like when working with the intervalometer on DSLRs) but the user has to press a button or tab the screen to turn start and finish the shoot. There might be some special apps to help with that but it would have been better if they were on the phone by default as well.

Sweeping Time

Just before leaving the dark room, after shooting the two shots of  my brother above, I've noticed the new wall clock which was shining in the dark. It was a clear call to shoot! And, of course, I couldn't refuse. I think at this shot, Sweeping Time, the power of AI revealed itself. Because I do not think that my phone does indeed have an image stabilizer like DSLRs or Mirrorless cameras do, or like some expensive lenses do (does it?). During the 10 minutes (or close to that) shoot, the monopod was literally jumping up and down like a spring because of the air current from the AC above, or because my steps even though I tried my best to stay away from it and walk slowly on the floor. Yet, the image was usable and stable beyond my understanding. It was dark indeed, but I could see the monopod shaking up and down! In the post-processing phase for this image, there were some annoyances reflected off the glass facade of the clock (ahem, mine) so I had to use the mediocre capabilities of Pixlr on my mobile to edit those and eliminate as much as I can. Still not satisfied about it though. To reduce the confusion, so to say, I've applied a splash filter or more technically selective coloring on the image keeping only the green tones and eliminating some of the other colors (though in tiny amounts) reflecting off the glass. I'm really happy with this experience!

Now, these are the major photos that I've uploaded lately to the contest, beside some others done before (posted in the previous posts here). There had been some shots that I would consider just simple and not special actually, so I'd leave them out for now. Now this stress is over, let's bring another stress and think of something to do with my DSLR, and my time in general!

Finale

Well, I'm glad I was able to do it in time. I was really rushed in time. I think though that I will be taking a vacation from blogging for the next 2 (or 3?) weeks to come, specifically for my upcoming birthday. We'll see. In hope that I might produce and make something with either my DSLR or phone. My time currently have been occupied pretty much with Duolingo, beside some chores at home. Since Duolingo started the Arabic language course, I've been hooked to it to correct and help learners. Probably I should be a language teacher one day as a second profession (though I don't bear any certificates for that!). I really got some words of praise for my work with explaining and posting some long articles detailing words and some tips on grammar (all about Standard Arabic or MSA). Some users also are more eager to connect directly outside Duolingo through some of the social media platforms but I'm not sure I do have the time for this right now as I'm occupied already with many things. I do want to help out, yet I feel awkward and cuffed. All I can do for the time being is post some articles and helping tips, as well as helping others who are wondering about some sentences in the course (and many of them do bear some mistakes from Duolingo's system itself in fact). On the other hand, Duolingo does not offer a proper social media platform to connect people, but barely a public forum. I hope the moderator or admins do consider upgrading such capabilities (unless they are available only for paid members, this is something I don't know about actually). This made me think really whether I would be a good language teacher or not, giving my short fuse and losing the handle often. Anyway, it is just some ideas and an imagination for the time being. The real question for me now is, whether can I make it this year and travel, or not.

Mowaššaħiration!

Woah! What a relief! After passing more than half of Ramadhan going to work everyday, I am now relieved as I did start my little vacation for the last 10 days of the month of Ramadhan, which will be followed of course by Eid Al-Fitr (i.e. the feast). So we have here some good 2 weeks or a bit more even which I'm trying to fill it with everything I can grab; Sleeping, camera work, sleeping, gaming, sleeping, and of course typing something for this blog - Too bad I can't find any room for my conlanging activities though. Yet, I'm still posting weekly on my Ayvarith's Instagram page (every Friday), but honestly, I do miss working with the rest of the conlangs and scripts that I've used to create. I think though that it is a good thing to focus on one conlang for some time to develop it further. Anyway, as the time goes by, I'm slowly setting up my camera and working with the sky (no results so far) as well as doing some of the projects that I've been planning to do for a long time now.

Mowaššaħ-ired

Well, a fancy subtitle, parallel to "inspired." If the reader is not familiar with what "Mowaššaħ" is, well it is just a form of singing that developed and made popular in Andalusia during the Islamic/Arabian rule over the Iberian peninsula. I'm a fan of this folk art in general, specially when such songs are performed by Sabah Fakhri [صباح فخري].
One of these songs (or Mowaššaħát) sparked in me the idea of some photo that I wanted to perform for some time now (months in fact), and it took me a while to get that mood to work with it and even to decide about the look that I wanted. To be honest, I didn't decide about the look that I wanted UNTIL I've started setting up the lights and camera! But first, let me get you into the mood with me in this, with the Mowaššaħ itself:



I hope the recording is good enough though. Most of these recordings date back to the 90s and before. I think it is also proper to put the lyrics down so it would reflect on the image later on as I go through its details:

I Yearn with eagerness to some lands - Where in I've seen the beauty of Salma

I've drank therein intoxicated water - From the hand of the cold drink bearer

The inspiration here comes from the first verse of the first line only. Even though, personally, listening to this music time after time gets me somewhat in an intoxicated mood. As I've mentioned before, I didn't really realize how would go about preparing or shooting this one, but I had 2 major images in my head: a globe, and a face (my face of course since I have no one to help and because it reflects something in me).

أحن شوقاً
Yearn with Eagerness

As I started putting the gear in another room to try and figure out what to do, I realized then that I would be sitting looking at this globe miniature. However, I wanted movement, and that yields that I must use a slow shutter, and a slow shutter yields the fact that I drag the shutter (or use the 2nd-curtain sync mode). Ridiculously, this option cannot be activated with my speedlites UNLESS the speedlite is connected to the camera AND no wireless option is turned on. Unlike the HSS mode (i.e. high-speed mode), where I can connect a speedlite to the camera and control another speedlite via wireless to shoot in HSS, this is not the case with 2nd-curtain sync. For those who do not really know what is 2nd-curtain sync: If you take a regular shot using a speedlite for a moving object with a relatively slow shutter speed, the movement would appear backward, and hence the 2nd-curtain option would be required to trigger the flash JUST before closing the shutter at the end of the exposure (of course we are talking here in terms of milli- and microseconds). Why would I need it for the globe? Well, I was turning this by hand and if the speedlite was triggered at the beginning of the exposure, my hand could be there obscuring the view (because the speedlite light would freeze the motion at the moment it strikes the body while the shutter is open). However, trying hard to make it all in a single shot, my trials were in vain. The globe itself didn't even budge with an air blower! I could move it by hand, but it was hard to move it with air, however strong it was (almost flipped the miniature itself but the globe itself didn't move!). So, it was time to break it down to chunks, and collect them together in post-processing.

The first chunk was to record the globe as it rotates separately, and then shoot myself for another chunk and merge the two. That also didn't work because the motion blur of the globe was not so obvious; I was using the ambient and flash light together here (and even used ND filter but then removed it) to fix the situation, but probably the shutter speed should have been a bit faster? slower? I really couldn't say. So, I ended up shooting several shots for the globe on various positions and then simply blending them together in post-process, in hope that that would give out a motion sense! Looking at it now, I don't think it is so though, except, maybe, for some apparent shake on the edges of the sphere (in the full size image) which mark some motion is there. This shake, I believe, is not a real motion shake, but merely an artifact from overlapping various frames; I believe.

100% Crop for one side of the globe in the original image.
Click to enlarge.

Left to say, I've tried to add some "dreamy" look to the whole image in post-processing (using specific techniques in editing). I would be using the Clarity slider if it was one image only, but with such a blend, it would be hard kind of balance all together across the frames. I did in fact use the Clarity slider for one frame, and that's the one including me, to reduce the rigidness of my face! After finishing the whole blend, I've added a golden tint to the whole image; Something which I've tried to introduce using the white balance in-camera but it didn't work quite well (the effect was hard to notice so to say).

Finale

Here we go; One project down and some few others left! And I need to work around them ASAP before my vacation is over and be back to the daily routine the fatigue. In fact, I wanted to talk about another image which I've created this week in this blog post, but I've preferred to keep it for another post (otherwise this thing would be way too long here!).
Meanwhile, I'm trying to have the time with myself, isolating myself from the rest of the world because apparently I'm not on the same page as the world is. It's hard to explain or maybe it is hard for ME to explain but it is like the feeling how you feel when you think about something being a complete waste of time and effort, and no use in trying to fix it. This is close to what I feel in the current days. The thought of resigning and just get some time for myself is a frequent visitor to my mind, but yet I do realize the serious consequences of such decision. And this is what keeps me walking; Just walking…
Well, for the time being, let me just get rid of those ideas that I'm bound to work with my camera for the time being, and let's hope I do catch something interesting in the sky other than the simple stars that I usually catch now... now that would be such a great breakthrough!

Another boring "deep sky" shot (stack of shots in fact) with lot of artifacts.
Shot on May 28^th, using Hα filter (converted to B&W).

Fakhroid Muse…

Well, schools are back here and traffic jams as well of course. The typical "normal" life I usually lead is here. What is not normal for me now is the fact that I'm not traveling this year anywhere. No plans so far.
My friends urged me to follow them to Germany for Photokina event (even if not from the very first day of the opening) but anyway I couldn't just skip everything on my shoulders and fly away; beside the budget that I'm trying to manage. According to news, our club did pretty well and the most astonishing part is the fact that we are the first "club" to participate in the history of the expo, and the first Arabian party to participate as well! Unfortunately, I don't have a proper coverage to post right now but I might try to get some for later.
Meanwhile, after ensuring that everything is going fine with the group, I asked for pardon from the founder to withdraw for a while from all the activities in the group, mainly to touch my camera more and create something.

Muse

My hands and mind are eager to work with some panorama, but the lack of locations in mind still put a block on my way. To find some rest, I decided to try to work on something at home and try hard to push my imagination further. For this reason, I've started to attend the theaters for a while, but the most significant effect took place via music, and specifically, Arabic classical music.



I've been fascinated lately with his voice: Sabáħ Fakhry [صباح فخري]. Even though I do remember watching him on TV when I was just a kid but I wasn't much into this art back then of course, and my mentality had changed drastically since then of course. His voice and the lyrics of the Syrian folk songs as well as the traditional classical Arabic Mowaššaħát do make a mesmerizing mix; specially the song posted above, with the title Send Me A Letter. I will type the lyrics at the end of this post if dear non-Arab reader wishes to know what the song is about.
Listening to Sabáħ would eventually form some ideas and created a sort of muse inside my head, but still lot of work is required to perfect this sense. My first trial is sloppy but I will post it here anyway, since this is all I could do for now; and probably I will try to make it better next time if I get any new "museful" input! 

إن كنت هويت ونسيتني
(if you have loved and forgot about me)
Sigma 70-300mm @120mm, 250^-1sec, f/29, ISO100

In the beginning, I was thinking of something with a romantic look, but my mind doesn't wander much into that arena. I wanted to point out a break of heart, some emotional breakdown of some sort, and after doing some tiny brainstorming, I arrived at the idea of reflecting a line from the lyrics off a broken mirror; the envelopes and drops of color (mimicking blood) came out later to fill some of the emptiness which was abundant around the writing. The hard time was delivered for breaking the mirror, placing the mirror, and placing the speedlite properly.
I decided to work here with my converted camera, and with a calibration from the WB disk, the colors were almost back to normal (some bits of color fixing was required later). The shot above is in fact a tone-mapped HDR slide, which after all, probably, wouldn't differ much from editing a single RAW file in a proper manner, but it was an experiment I loved to make. Later on, it was time to take "real" Infrared shots with this converted Canon EOS 7D…

 (IR) إن كنت هويت ونسيتني
(if you have loved and forgot about me)
Sigma 70-300mm @120mm, 250^-1sec, f/11, ISO100

Now, because of applying the infrared filter on the Sigma lens, I had to decrease the f-number a bit to allow more light in and make the exposure faster (even though the camera was on tripod). The fact that the camera is converted would still, at such high f-number such as f/29, require a second or so for exposing with the infrared filter on (threshold=650nm). The drop in the f-number proved drastic in terms of depth of field here as the envelopes and the cracks as well got blurred quite easily while focusing (using AF function) on the reflection of the writing itself. Processing the image later was quite easy but fixing the tilt (unlike the first version) made some out-of-ratio crop (i.e. 3:2) and produced quite a space on the left side. The first image was cropped as well but according to the ratio (3:2) and the tilt was not fixed there.
Now, generally speaking, it was sloppy idea as I said before and I had some imagination for it to be taken with a candle and some quill and ink. However, seems, to me, that such depiction is quite "soft" and doesn't reflect the meanings behind a broken heart.



Listening again and again to Sabáħ Fakhry has some hallucinating effect to my mind, if I dare say. For my break from the group's activity, I'm thinking of getting inspired constantly from his songs (though lot of them are actually traditional and Syrian folk). Thus, I might as well continue to think of something to create out of the lyrics of his songs, or at least the first song posted above. Sounds weird that despite the fact that I'm an Arab, I'm indeed discovering my own culture like I've never seen it before, and even deeper a bit to the limit of reading about Arabic musical culture and Maqams, beside calligraphy (which is a passion as well). Sad to realize that we have a rich culture, abandoned by its people…

Finale

Well, I won't go strolling about life matters for now and all my ups and downs and mood swings. As I've mentioned above, I'm going to put the lyrics for the song above (first Youtube post). The language is colloquial Syrian Arabic, and in translating I'll try to stick to the meaning as much as possible (and of course no rhyme). Notice that some lines and verses are repeated all over and over again and that's why one song takes such a long time. Each repetition is supposedly done in a different vocal style or Maqam. The lyrics are as the following (but without an order of stanzas or lines):

Send me a letter and let me rest*
if though it is a blame
but don't abandon me

Your absence has been long
and I'm waiting
and your heart is in rejoice

If you have loved
and forgot about me
and been cruel to me
without consideration
Just send me a letter
and let me rest*

Been patience with you
and tasted bitterness
and sent to you news and news
just to find that
you have forgot about me
along the days
and you were satisfied
to let me through the pains
but send me a letter and let me rest*

I have a God who knows me well
Who will bring justice
for the heat of my sighs
I cannot say you are the culprit
I'll be patient with my sorrows always
just send me a letter and let me rest*

* "rest" as opposite to worrying about something or someone.

Well, I hope dear reader enjoyed some of the music for this post. I'll just hope that I'll create more work and get inspired more to work on some of these projects!

Ultra-Success…

Some good news for this week though short, as I was coping with sleeplessness and the wrecking sleeping pattern. I've been trying my best to do some chores that I've planned for myself, though I had to skip shooting the Monodrama event this year (and other members in the group had to cancel as well later on). Summer is coming, so I better plan some indoors activity for the time being.

Childhood Memories

Last week, on Tuesday specifically, a new exhibition was inaugurated for the work of Mohammed Sheikh Al-Faresi; An artist who used to present a TV show in 1980s about arts, and which I was quite fond of. Visiting this exhibition was important for me, even though I didn't pay much attention to artwork in other fields other than photography, as it was part of my childhood memories.

My favorite artwork in the exhibiition

His artwork is essentially based on Arabic calligraphy, entwined with other elements, majorly geometrical shapes. Some of these paintings did have 3D feel to it. I've found myself attracted to the black theme in general, and red comes next. Probably, typically, Arabic calligraphy is done with these 2 colors mostly.  However, in his artwork here, the calligraphy is a merge of random letters with no concrete words or sentence.

In my journey here, and allow me to call it a Journey Into My Childhood Memories,  I tried to document paintings that captured my attention the most, and in fact all the artwork here was appealing, but I was looking for something that was special to me. I also tried to capture some paintings from different angles in hope that I would combine them to make 3D images later on. I did also take a general video clip from the whole set of paintings in the exhibition.
My companion in this journey was the relatively-new Voigtländer 20mm lens, which has no auto-focus function. That was problematic a bit for my work specially when shooting video with my Canon EOS 7D. Never shot a video with a manual lens before, well not that long that is. However, the quality might be off a bit because of a slight out-of-focus render; I tried my best to focus on a single point manually and then walk as I take a video and keep my distance almost constant. Up till the moment of writing this passage, I'm still not finished with processing these shots, for reasons that I will explain below. My schedule was fully booked with tasks, meetings, naps, and testing.

A journey through the exhibition.

Ultra

After testing my Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5 lens for doing a simple panorama last week, it was time to do a "real" panorama processing. Even though I was deprived of sleep that day, but I decided to head out after work while the sun was still high up and planned in a haste to do a panorama using this lens, my converted camera, and my UV-pass filter. The first location that occurred to me was the coast line; a spot which I've done a nocturnal panorama before (and eventually later on, got published in a luxurious coffee table book).

UV Columnae

Namely, this would be my first ultraviolet panorama ever! Despite some problems, things went smoothly, but it gave me some idea about what to expect and what to watch for next time I work with ultraviolet filter. Being in a haste, you can see that the panorama was not perfectly centered. Yet, I'm still trying out some other projections and style; just trying to digging for time. Anyway, some notes about this process are:

1. The stitch was fair, despite the broken lines. Those broken lines or stitching errors, however, were not related to parallax-error, but rather to the fact that shadows were moving at that time of the day (the shooting process took some time), and some control points were not possible to generate between some slides. That caused broken and bent lines which were hard to adjust and would require more working time to fix properly.
2. Focusing: Voigtländer lens has no marker for infrared focusing, there typically no lens (as far as I know) has a marker for UV focusing. This is important since we are shooting at beams out of the visible range of the spectrum, in which lenses are usually made and calibrated. I used here the hyperfocus principle as if I was shooting regular light (at f/11) and the sharpness seems fair. However, I have to read more about focusing in UV photography.
3. As it was a test, I used Av mode to set the exposure automatically (while I fix the aperture). I worked without LiveView (because it would stop the metering mechanism), while setting my metering to Evaluative; I thought this would be the most proper for the situation we have here where light and shade are intermixed. However, that imposed great discrepancies in the exposure value between slides (and HDR technique is out of question). This suggests that next time a deliberate in-camera metering for various areas and averaging the exposure manually while using the manual mode is more like it, to avoid these averaging problems. 
4. In digital processing the RAW files before stitching, I've used the Infrared profile already installed in my ACR to adjust the white balance for these Ultraviolet shots (pointing to green foliage and copying the change to all slides). However, I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it or there is some concrete and systematic way to set the white balance. Again, have to read further!
5. This said, Voigtländer's usage for panorama making will be limited to this case; using UV filter. Yet, I need to test my Kodak gel filter with the converted camera to get a feel of how things would look like.

This said, I still need to test my converted camera in panoramas without even using any filter. Images taken that way would also cast some unexpected tints to the scene. Dropping HDR into the formula, and everything will be complicated. Yet, for the time being, I do not think of using HDR techniques when using filters on lenses. It's a dream to be delayed until time permits for slow motion again!

Finale

These were the two major event this week, and the rest was spent processing and trying to find time to sleep. There is a plan to go to Dubai by May with the group to attend a specific exhibition. Thus, I might not post much here until I get back home. Meanwhile, I'm busy organizing whatever I can with the group, and I'm thinking of doing some documentation to the situation there. I have to say that I'm pushing myself to do this, as my budget is under pressure in the current time.
I'm trying hard here to invest my weekend in working with my camera but seems I can't do this anymore. I have a strong urge to leave this house, but still unable to do so without proper means, and capabilities. The only thing that makes me calm down is playing games and playing music as loud as possible. Hard times are passing, and my self identity is at stake. Not sure how I'm going to snooze my worries or panic attacks, but it is apparent that I need some long rest. Yet, no vision for a possible vacation in the air this year…

Dull Times...

Another dull week, with few serious work on any front. Summer just began and I wish it's over already. It does sound sometimes as if all my problems start with summer. Anyway, work is minimum, and by work I mean my camera, not my "job". I don't have much respect for this place right now actually.
On the other hand, I'm slowly starting to figure the headache of the Irish visa (again). Things should be sorted out as soon as possible though, and first of all, I have to set a plan for the dates of traveling and such. Thank God the passport is valid till next year and I don't have to do anything about this. If they keep a record of visitors to the Republic, probably granting my visa would be a piece of cake... ah well.

Macro

It was a day in which I brought my camera to my workplace to take shots of the beautiful garbage containers that were left beside my workplace for months now. After taking these shots, I've decided to check out the garden on the side of the building, which was colorful and blooming just some months ago - when we had some "weather". Even though it's filled with dead blooms and plants now, it could be a good target for some abstract work as well.

لب (Core)
Canon EF 50mm + 30mm ET, f/7.1,
100^-1sec, ISO640.

Because this was not planned initially, I didn't bring a tripod with me, and I guess this is obvious if you check the ISO in the specs of لب (Core). After many disastrous trials, accompanied for handshake AND slight breeze, I decided to go even beyond ISO400. The sun was fine but in such a macro level (with the hep of extension tubes of course) and such a shake, a compromise had to be made. And truth be told, I'm not sure how it became f/7.1 either! It was supposed to be fixed on f/8; seems I've nudged the dial without noticing!
I'm quite satisfied with the details in لب (Core) despite the out of focus regions which might somehow plague the scene a bit. The geometry of the details inside the dead core is to my eyes satisfaction, and the overall resolution is quite good even after cropping, so that even the fine hair on the side were pleasantly sharp at 100% view. Let's call it, a "strike of luck"! Cropping though did take some time to be decided, and yet I'm still not satisfied about it. Probably the law of thirds inside the square was due and the heart of the core should have been placed in one of the "power points".

تلك (That One)
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm ET, f/3.5,
320^-1sec, ISO400.

Seeing how long are the stems carrying these dead blooms, I changed the extension tube from 30mm to 12mm. The next shot I was planning needed some perception of depth, as I was planning to shoot the stem from above. The problem here though, I must use extension tubes to allow for close distance focus (50mm's closest focusing distance is about 45cm, or about 0.18 in.). However, I think that تلك (That One) needed more than just close focusing distance. It needs more angle of view to show some curvature in a clear way (and I'm not going to use the old 18-55mm here). The situation literally left me puzzled. However, with some sharpness to a distance object (thanks to AF!), probably the depth is depicted somehow. What was left was simply squaring and adjusting to the law of thirds.

البركان الناعم (Soft Volcano)
Canon EF 50mm + 30mm ET, f/6.3,
100^-1sec, ISO400.

Back to the 30mm extension tube. This time, my eyes captured a small "volcano" formation inside a dead core, just like the first shot above in fact, but this time, the point was protruding more. In البركان الناعم (Soft Volcano) the aperture was set mainly by "sense" and not by using any rules of thumb that are usually taken in macro photography. It is almost a rule that in macro shots, the aperture should not be any less than f/8. Anyway, as I was trying to make a compromise between the shutter speed and the ISO with the aperture (I was using Av mode, without tripod, without flash), f/6.3 seemed reasonable. The final result is a perplexing combination of out- and in-focus areas which makes it hard to specify exactly where is the plane of focus, as it has rendered the shot somewhat in 3D; to my eyes at least. There were several shots in fact, because I was using the burst mode (which I like to use in times of shake!), but this one seemed the finest. The protruding point from the core was not sharp enough though, unfortunately. Again, it was squared and fitted into one of the "power points" according to the law of thirds.

I'm not sure why I did name these shots specifically in Arabic in the first place, but to some sense, it did sound more "plausible". The squaring of all of these shots sounded "natural" to me since there are lot of unwanted details and the area of interest is pretty small compared to the whole frame; a whole rectangle wouldn't look "elegant" so to say, besides, it would have added more space than planned to the shot. It is also a better choice, as it seems, to rounded objects like these dead cores!

Kill It!

With minimum photographic activity, I'm still going on with Black and White exploration with old photos. Nothing special for this week in fact, except for an interesting encounter with an old panorama taken from the Arab Organization Headquarter (February, 2013), namely the Tiempos Andaluzas.

Tiempos Andaluzas

In this panorama, as you can see, there were lot of reflections because of the polished floor and, naturally, the glass facades everywhere. To me it was one major point in the weakness of the whole panorama; if these reflections were combined with symmetry, the situation might have been different at least. However, when converting to B&W (and adding a red tint), some of these reflections were simply "killed;" in the sense of being camouflaged with the surroundings. This helped a bit here and puts forward a new venture of thought and considerations when processing panoramas. B&W render could be a savior at some point beside being a touch of art!

Comparison between the colored and the B&W versions.
Notice the black arrows on the colored version.
Click to Enlarge

As you can see, not all reflections could be eliminated, naturally, but this was a good start. Moreover, the veins of the marble floor were emphasized further because of the tint. The original tint was pretty red. However, with going on with processing, the general tone changed to (dark) sepia somewhat, but I don't think it's that bad after all. I think some tint does help on pronouncing some details in white areas more than white does at times.

Finale

Well, I was supposed to talk a little about some work with Geltani conlang, and supposedly do a recording, but I'm canceling this for now as I had some technical problems concerning recording these events. I've done a primary check up for translating the UDHR and I have to say, it does sound a jaw twisting venture; not only a tongue twister! However, I'd rather train myself on producing these sounds rather than changing the value assigned. The main work though remains on putting key rules (to myself) for producing the glyphs for words, as well as adding some touches to the grammar and words manipulation. This is important because the conlang is largely based on Arabic, and Arabic script is an abjadic script, which means we might have more than one word with the same letters, but different in vowels. Vowels (short ones that is) are not recorded in Geltani.
I've been doing my homework, and sent some email asking for help with the Arabic phonology which I'm trying to understand. However, no reply as of yet. Seems I'm not good at getting responses anyway! This matter, which I reckoned to be a simple task, swept through a learning curve of phonetics and anatomy of the mouth just to understand how I speak!

After successfully sending and printing two of my photos, I've decided to add them to printing gallery on my website; which is something I didn't update in a while! The two photos are almost of the same size (around A2 with the margin) and would cost around 35K.D. here. Still thinking of easy ways to send these prints for benefit outside but having a strong currency and the lack of means to transfer money easily, makes this project a failure for the time being. PayPal wouldn't let me receive money with my current location and credit card.

Print Screen of two pages from my website after update.

My life is getting busier now and I had to stop fasting for the time being, in hope that it would empower me to do the hanging tasks on my schedule. It's not a language or a camera matter only, but a complete sweep through my life and the capability to organize it. Just to think of all the preparations I have to do just before traveling gives me a shiver in the spine really, but remembering that it is something that I must do, makes me calm down a little. I'm starting to get careless and careless about everything around me, day by day...

Mechanics...

Writing this post at the last moment before posting. Well, that's natural. My week wasn't productive much, feeling deteriorated because of summer. I've been trying though to do something in macro level and I did come up with something but it wasn't much to consider. I'm not sure I will be doing much the next week either, except of writing articles for my other blog.
On the other hand, my gift of prints to some friends in the US finally arrived and were received. I'm so happy that the prints were even above their expectations. Instead of framing and hanging them in the office as they said they were planning, they decided it is too good to have it in the office, and instead they will hang it at home! Big smile on this face; such a feeling needed in a long time! In the meantime, I'm not sure what to exactly do with my black and white prints of the same images. I might try to offer them for sale on Instagram - though I'm sure no interest would be yielded.

The Prints (Colored Version)

Mechanics

As I've stated above, the activity is dormant this week, and I'm not expecting any raise in the level of work with my camera in the coming few days. However, just out of curiosity I've brought my camera with me to work one day, and in fact I was planning to shoot the garbage which our admins pay for respecting us in front of my workplace. Anyway, I got better idea than wasting my battery on work issues.

Time Mechanics
Canon EF 50mm + 68mm ET,
f/22, 1h5m, ISO100.

Thus, just having some spark in my mind for some activity I decided to do a long exposure for another clock (which I did many times before) - this time however, for my watch; and that means a macro setting.
I figured a tripod won't be much useful as I'm intending to work on the meeting table in my workplace, thus, I used a stack of files and for the stability of the watch, I've placed it around the edge of a coffee mug! Too bad I didn't think of taking a shot for the setting back then. Anyway, as the main subject is the second dial (or hand), a small exposure for one minute or even 40 seconds would be just fine to show the movement of the dial - but something was not going OK here.
Because of the light coming from the windows in the office (and the room's lights), there was some apparent flare in the results and the watch facade was washed out of details. It's not like having an over exposure, but it is simply light pollution into the system. Tried to turn off the lights (and the windows cannot be blocked unfortunately), and tried to block the small distance between the lens system and the watch in some way by placing dark objects, and I even tried placing the polarizer on the lens, but all of that that didn't work well. Anyway, decided now it is time to get a black cloth which is something I was planning to do for long time - you will know why below.The place for clothes is near my workplace and just takes 5 minutes driving from my work place (1 minute in traffic-free road!).
With the black cloth, I was able (according to my measurements) to extend the exposure time up to 4 hours! But with my limited time in the office, I had to adjust the black cloth covering in such a way to allow some light to get slightly and thus the exposure time, after some trials, was set to one hour and 4 minutes (added one minute just to be on the safe side).

I wasn't disappointed here. The white tip of the seconds hand worked well with the slight light coming into the set, and because of its (relatively) rapid movement, the movement is recorded clearly on the sensor because the hand goes on all around the hour. The details on the black surface of the watch showed significantly nice (needed to reduce the brightness later and add contrast). The hard work though was with cleaning the noise and the other artifacts. For the first time ever, I try the Dust and Scratches command in Photoshop, and proved quite useful for some type of noise that neither NIK nor NoiseNinja was able to remove.
I think I made a mistake here for trying to smooth out the images before doing the adjustments needed for the colors of the image. The chromatic noise specifically was also persistent and I had to do "cleaning" before and after the processing. I've uploaded this image to some stock sites, and I'm not sure it will get accepted for the "cranky" quality when viewed at 100% zoom. I might as well use it elsewhere anyway.

Scanography

I've mentioned above that it was about time to get a black cloth. This black cloth (preferably velvet but didn't find one) is essential in the art of Scanography; an art of doing images by flatbed scanners. A black cloth is not always the choice, it can be a white cloth, but I think with bright or reflective objects it is preferred to use black cloth instead.
This is my first time to try this kind of art, and there is so much to learn ahead. However, from what I get, it seems that old fashioned flatbed scanners are better equipped for this task, more than my (relatively) new type scanners; this is because the depth of field of older scanners is relatively higher (still shallow) than modern ones - something related to the use of prisms in older scanners and fluorescent light to light up objects. In modern scanners, like mine (HP 3-in-1 type), it seems that LEDs are used and the use of prisms is not involved here as it seems, making the depth of field so shallow that 1mm high from the glass board (the bed of the scanner) will render the object blurred.

My Life Is A Scopa

I tried varied objects (a ring, a watch) initially, but since the depth is not what I expected, I headed to try thinner objects that can somehow stick to the bed of the scanner; and couldn't find any better than my scopa deck of cards. The scanner, after spreading the cards, was covered with the black cloth to block the light as much as possible; the cover can't be closed here because the cards are forming a thick substance after all.
The scanning process was done at 1200dpi, and according to what I understand so far, the resolution has more to do to the magnification factor and not the printing size of the final image. Anyway, to fill the image of the cards, I've made two scans here, each with a different distribution of the cards, as random as possible. These two images later were duplicated and mixed up and blended to form My Life Is A Scopa. As you might see from the image, a slight shift in the height of some cards would render the image blurred and out of focus. I have to say I'm somehow disappointed but nevertheless, I'm willing to try more of this technique, providing that I get the appropriate substances.
In working out with this image, I had to crop some portions of the edges and recompose the framing (after duplicating and blending the two images), as well as remove some black areas in the middle by copying some parts into these places. I wonder now if there is some way to increase the depth manually by placing some subject over the flatbed? Just a thought...

Lingua

On the lingua side (i.e. language side) I've found (or more like deducted) some time for working out with tiny research about the IPA representation of the standard Arabic sounds. I stumbled on a specific article in Wikipedia dedicated to the phonology of the Arabic language. The page has some notes about the essential phonemes I want to research; namely [ط], [ظ], [ض], in addition to some notes about [ع] and [أ]. For the former three, the IPA mentioned on Omniglot, and the one mentioned in this page - these sounds are supposedly pharyngealized (issued from the pharynx) and it also mentions that sometimes they are "velarized"; meaning to be issued from the velum point. The points are mixed up in fact and mostly put (as it seems from the resources at the bottom of the page) originally by non-Arabic speakers.
According to this chart and these notes, we should have, for example, two variations of [ط]: velar, and pharyngeal. I'm trying to figure out the real variation here. Probably, just probably, some people in the Levine circle do have a deeper sound of it which might sound like it is produced from the pharynx. Yet, this is not exactly the standard Arabic we are talking about. Anyway, this variation is simply not thought over when I listen to other Arab speakers. It is not like shifting the sound of "j" (/d͡ʒ/) to "g" (/g/) when an Egyptian person speaks. We do see that "j" and "g," as sounds, are different, but I do not think that we think over the sounds of velarized and pharyngealized /t/ [ط].
Now looking deeper and trying to understand the "standard" version of Arabic starting with a sound as (tˤ: Voiceless/Stop/Alveolar/Pharyngealized). Technically, after spending some time saying it to myself and trying to check the movement of the tongue inside my mouth, I realized, first of all, the sound is not "voiceless" but quite the opposite; voiced. This is apparent from the fact that the pressure of air in the mouth to say this sound is harder than simple /t/, or it can be considered something in between /t/ and /d/ in pressure; but I do not think it is completely voiceless like it is in the chart. The Arabic Wikipedia's article about this sound is, it seems, a mere translation for the English one (in short) but it does give a description for the movement of the tongue after the plosive movement of the tongue against the upper ridge; specifically, the back of the tongue. It does sound from this description that they classify it as velarized, rather than pharyngealized - and without the movement of the vocal cords. This would make the proper symbol /t̪ˠ/, and the "t" is shown here because it is the most approximate version for this sound, despite the fact /t/ is voiceless and here I'm inclined to state that this sound is voiced instead.
The case is even more complicated (for me) with the sound of [ض], which goes under the same criterion as the sound before, but it is more complicated here because of the amount of the air pressed against the ridge and the plosive movement. The Arabic Wikipedia didn't help much here to decide, but this one too doesn't sound pharyngealized as in Omniglot version, and more into velarized region; yet I need to work more on my sounds to decide!
One of the surprises that I've encountered in Wikipedia's article about Arabic Phonology, is that some linguists consider the sound of [ع] as a voiced fricative! As far as I know, fricative sounds like /s/ and /z/ do produce a continuous (or a person is able to produce a continuous) vibration of air when said; the sound of [ع] is clearly not so! It is apparently a plosive sound.There are extra notes about this notes in Wikipedia's article. Needs more to check out, and I need to ask an expert about it.

On the other hand I worked a bit with my UDHR translation into Geltani and I'm not sure I'm satisfied about the final form of the sentences. The grammar, which I try to mimic Turkic languages with, needs more patches and fixes, beside adding idioms or expressions unique for Geltani for some regular phrases (e.g. "each other"). Also, there is some more check ups to follow for the glyphs and the way they are written. The progress is slow but it's going on. Hopefully I will be able to produce a sound recording for the UDHR in Geltani later on.

Finale

I've reserved a room in The Waterfront already, the place where I stayed in my first visit to Ireland back in 2009. I had to do it early since there was only one room left! A friend of mine was wishing to come with me to relax (been into his own troubles) but I'm not sure if he is able to.
Now, I have to do the usual errands related to all the work with the visa, taking photos and preparing for the trip, and most importantly, taking care of things for Mom. I'm just hoping my load of "good" photos from there would be more. Frankly, I'm not sure if my budget is ready for this or not but I'm putting a sign on my forehead that says "I don't give a damn!"... I NEED to travel after all this stress and havoc. I need to really know and feel that I'm alive still.
Well, this has been my life for this week. It sounds goal-less somewhat, like I'm living week to week; I guess this is the best I could do. Am I supposed to exhaust myself to the point that I block my mind from thinking about the future, and the emotions and my life in general? Probably the most appropriate answer here is: yes.