Lazy…

OK I admit; I have been lazy in the past week. Well, 2 weeks. That's why no post last week. The temperatures here dropped suddenly with a chilling wind on and off. Truly a bone breaker. Not sure why, but I've been feeling tired and lazy lately to even go out at night in such weather which I like the most. Probably it is the erratic sleeping pattern (which persists even in working days). For this reason, I've been mostly editing and creating new panoramas, besides trying a bit of the new "observations" in the field of panoramas to some of the older panoramas. Moreover, there is one extra observation on the way as well!

An-Mór

I never thought of myself being so interested in such projection style which seemed so boring before like Mercator. The beginning with this projection was (as mentioned in previous posts) was to make a more plausible vertical panoramas because vertical panoramas are "slim" and cropping the sides would do more harm. Mercator was a solution because the vertical perception comes almost in a square ratio (height = width), and occasionally the sidelines make a nice curvature with no need to crop even! However, time had to come to push my views further with an extreme approach.

Ashford Domhanda
(global Ashford)

The beginning was about doing a vertical panorama (again) for Ashford castle in Co. Mayo, but with a twist or a swirl as it was with other panoramas recently. However, this approach didn't work out and I decided to play with the sliders a bit. All to be done was to stretch the viewing window or space to the extreme ends to show the full extent of the Mercator projection rather than compressing it, and the result as you can see in Ashford Domhanda; a global look like those maps which are also made using Mercator projection.

Casadh an tSúgáin
(twisting of the rope)
I was seeking a swirl like this
for Ashford castle panorama.

My personal impression about the implications of such projection style is that it gives sense of grandness, totality, greatness; probably these impression come from the back of my head as I used to see lot of Mercator maps (specially in school times). However, this projection style has one awkward disadvantage, even though a normal result: the stretched and blurred sides and corners. My intentions were to crop these portions out in the beginning, but that would corrupt the overall oval shape of the center, which is to be the main interest. For the time being, I would just call this style as Extreme Mercator. I'm still working on discovering the possibilities here, and specially with old panoramas.
When it comes to old panoramas, I made a trial to do the "twisting" effect again with one of the places I like and taken a panorama from back in 2013: The Arab Organizations Headquarter. Such a place with quite amazing wooden craft and Arabesque and Islamic designs. Anyway, it seems a twist here is not quite that attractive, for various reasons...

El Andaluz Bailando
(the dancing Andalusian)

Generally speaking, the hall is a mess. Despite the fact that it was wide and bears not many obstacles in view, yet it had many reflections, and twisting the panorama that way as in El Andaluz Bailando made some eyes "sore". I sort of came out with a conclusion that to do a twist, the roof of the place must be close and it is better to have the surroundings on the ground arranged in some systematic manner. In the case of El Andaluz Bailando, the roof was too high, and the surroundings on the ground were not giving out a sense of symmetry.

An Solas Sníomhta
(the twisted light)
The twisting effect appears stronger
and more concrete when the roof is at proximity

However, the work was not limited to Mercator, despite being big part of my work lately. The old tunnel projection (the reverse of the planet projection) was a target for some "surreal" editing. It is a surreal projection after all, but I mean here something out of the usual look for such projections. Something off-center.

An Cúinne Geal
(the bright corner)

Frankly, I was aiming at a sweeping movement for the landscape and the house and decided to make the tunnel projection as a starting point. However, things went out of hand a "bit". Why would I restrain myself for centralizing such panoramas anyway? Specially those which do no possess any degree of symmetry anyway! Call me an impressionist, but those curves can do a lot further when moves off the center; Curves = Emotions.
The main problem here is the cropping factor. No, not the sensor's crop factor. Here, the original panorama was 9000x9000 pixels in size (meaning a resolution of 81MP!). However, after some crops to adjust the portions of the panorama and the curves of lines (controlling those with coordinates is hard), the size came down to around 5000x5000 pixels (i.e. 25MP). Such a loss of size. Of course, I can stitch it again with a larger size to crop it back again, but that means more processing power. Imagine this: for a panorama coming down from 81MP to 25MP with such crop, then that means only 30% of the original size is used. If I'm going to do this on the usual size of 8000x8000 (64MP) like most squared panoramas before, then I would need to stitch to somewhere around 213MP in resolution, that would be somewhat around 14500x14500 pixels; this is just to crop it down to the size of 64MP.
Anyway, this is just the beginning, in hope that I would do more observations about this. One of my goals right now is to create something else with panoramas, specifically in a vertical format, but no success so far. All I can say about it right now is, it would be a diagonal panorama!

Geltani Again!

I know, I've been neglecting this project for a really long time and I've totally forgot about doing some representation for Omniglot.com as well.  However, I was working slowly for some time with this project before traveling to Ireland last October and I think I didn't post anything about these "inventions" and additions.
For a beginning, I tried to make a standard set for the "radicals"; those large strokes that contain other glyphs combinations. Usually those radicals are the last letter of the word. I wouldn't say it is a final set, but it is a trial to make it so.

A scan for some of the radicals designed already (from my Geltani notebook). Sorry for the bad quality here; I did barely make it through the technical problems! The asterisk here points to the position of the other glyphs relative to the general (larger) radical glyph.

On the other hand, there had been some tiny approaches to imagine out a general aspect for the grammar, and this was by some trials to form the passives, conditionals and perfectives. Not planning to complicate things here, so the general formula for such phrases would consist of a mix of the verb "to be" in a specific tense, with the original tense marker of the verb itself. This is the idea for now and seems it works (logically!).

Another scan for some grammatical constructions with the verb "to fly" which transliterate as "píj" (pron: peej, with "j" as in "jacket").
The top 2 columns of 4 lines discuss the direct tense (flew, fly, will fly, fly!) on the right column, and the passive form (was flown, be flown, will be flown) plus the modal (should fly) on the left column.
Next line is an example: would have flown, which literally here becomes (fly-will be-was)
Next example: he should have flown, literally here becomes (must-fly be-is)
Last example: would have flown (to...), which literally becomes (... to fly-was be-was)
As seen here in general, it is combination of two tenses of the main verb and the verb "to be"

Beside these forms, it seems that it would be necessary to merge some phonemes or sounds in Geltani when they come successively, like the sounds of "J" (as in Jacket) and "Ch" (as in Church), but I'm not sure yet of this theory right now. I hate to deal with a language like mathematics - this is not the way I learned English (even though it's not perfect anyway!), but it is important to "live" the language and make sense of it. Just get into the flow and only then things would fit into place, and this is what I'm trying to apply myself as I'm going through some Irish lessons online (sadly written and no audio available).
It is funny though how I got into formulating the grammar without even working on representing my work and the script. I've been overwhelmed with many things to do at the spur of the moment which effectively made my mind scattered in all directions.

Finale

Snufkin

The Moomins

Well, I won't be ashamed to say that one of the reasons to be lazy in the past week and this week is the fact that I was busy playing games, and watching cartoons. Old cartoons that is, like The Moomins. Well, I remember this cartoon long time ago (and played in Arabic back then of course and I'm watching this version specifically) and I used to get scared somehow every time it is played because it, simply, looked weird. However, now it gives another feelings when I watch it, specially after knowing that originally this Finnish comic and stories were dedicated to adults with some deep meanings. To me it resembles the simplicity and the life of adventure in simple terms, needless to say the imaginative stories and the countryside framework which fits my mood perfectly. I think my favorite character here is Snufkin. This is the English name of course. I like his role and I think it does have some aspects that I need, crave, or already have. This is not the only cartoon on the list; Golden Cities (or as dubbed in Arabic: Golden Dreams) is next on the queue line. However, I might not start it immediately after The Moomins. I need some time in between to reschedule my priorities!

On the other hand, I've been thinking seriously on having another instagram account for Ayvarith to post some aspects about it since there is no homepage for it yet. Another failure, I know. I have to admit, I do hate building websites! However, this will also mean added pressure, and with the technical problems I do have already with connecting to instagram and posting in it, it is probably better to wait and watch out for the next move. I'm so pressed in time with my photo-processing schemes and duties for the group, as well as my usual daily posts on instagram. In all of this, I'm giving my workplace my back, which I know it does sound dangerous a bit but I can't force myself to respect something that doesn't respect me back.

As I'm typing this, I've received an email informing me that one of my images submitted to HIPA (Hamdan International Photography Award) was qualified after the first round. The image was submitted for the Night Photography category. Meanwhile, my other images for other categories did not pass. The image submitted was Die Kuwaitische Mitternacht, but I had to translate the name into English as per the rules. It is funny that I've submitted my images in a haste just 2 days before the deadline. There was another event I wanted to role into, and also takes place in the UAE, which was an award for achievements done for the Arabic language. My aim was to submit my blog, but I had to back off. I think my blog is relatively new beside the fact that I was not sure of the regulations about electronic contents in that way. I had to let it go for now as I have more important issues to attend to (and ironically one of them is find a topic for my next article for my Arabic blog!).

Die Kuwaitische Mitternacht

Laziness in the meantime comes as an essential part of my life now. I feel that I need it strongly. I just realized that even when I play a game, it comes to me as a "duty" to do and not merely an entertainment to have. I think I've completely lost the definition of "entertainment" in my life…

PolaPeel...

OK. This one is done in a hurry. I barely had something to post this week, and I'm still trying to adjust my time after the end of Ramadhan. I was going to cancel the post for this week just as a... gift to my own self, for my coming birthday on the 17^th, but then there was this tiny project that I hated to delay more than it is delayed already.
Furthermore, my appetite for photography was on hold because of some migraines and sleeping disorders, as usual. However, I was lucky to work in a hurry and somehow thoughtlessly on some project that I was planning to do some time ago: Polaroid Peel.

PolaPeel

Back in March this year, I was invited to attend the rewards ceremony of HIPA (Hamdan International Photography Award) in Dubai; an event that took place a week before Mom's sickness. There, they distributed a package containing a polaroid camera for the ceremony attendants. I have to say I'm so excited to have such a camera out of the ordinary digital cameras line, and I'm hoping to get the chance to use it one day for some nice shooting. Unlike the digital stuff, with such cameras as it is with film cameras, it is a one click business.
Anyway, I've decided to work with this polaroid camera to do a peeling effect. Most of the time I was trying almost regular objects with cylindrical or semi-cylindrical shapes and I thought now it's the time to try out some real irregular shapes with sharp edges.
In the beginning I wanted to check the potential of PTGui to do the job despite my doubts about it. A prime stitch confirmed my doubts and such objects won't get along with the slit-crop method that I usually use in PTGui.
After this failure, I thought it's about time to get back to the classic methods of manual blending of layers to make up for such a peel. In the beginning it was frustrating as how to align and how to start, but things just went on (with errors of course). The job took around 2 days, and the work took around 48 layers stacked together. The original working PSB file (Large Document Format) sized more than 5GB! I've decided here not to include the back portion of the camera body because then I would have a problem with the lens at the front - I want this to be in the middle of the image and adding the backside would disturb the balance.

Polapeel

There are many issues that are still going through my mind about this simple project and probably I should put them in specific points:

• In such instances, it is even better to use the flash on top like I used to do before. It would shorten the exposure time significantly, and lessen the troubles with the shadows below subject.
• I'm not sure about the specific technique to blend. Technically, I was actually aligning different features on both sides and blending manually (using layer masks). Would there be a specific form of approach for this?
• Would I need indeed a shot every 5^o? Or it would be enough to take a shot every 30^o or even 45^o for the object? Probably it also depends on the type of the object I'm trying to peel? Surely, if it works for 45^o the work load would be significantly lower, but I don't know if it would work. Only experiments would do.

These were the main points that I've been thinking of, and I'm sure there are more on the list in the future as I go on doing such stuff!
However, these experiments seem hazardous a bit because I'm straying away from the typical photography venue and concentrating on something typically called special effects and not a real style or school of photography. Yet, I think it is my desire to create the unusual that is always driving me to such experiments, including panoramic photography.

Finale

The engine is still greasing, or trying to be so, even after the end of Ramadhan. If I was tired during Ramadhan for waking up early and picking Mom to the dialysis center, it's doing to be a doubling of efforts when the jam starts with schools return and students' come-back to my work place. Yet, the routine and the schedule with Mom's duties do not change. Ever.
I've been reading more into Turkish and discovering more about its grammar, which is somehow inspiring for my Geltani project, but I won't apply everything I read blindly. I admit, in the past 2 weeks, Geltani was of the least concern to me as I was chasing after my camera, and Mom's health. All what I need is some time organizing, and some physical health. In hope that Geltani would be in front of my eyes again and soon, probably, get published. Now, with no new books to read in my free time at work, I hope I can dedicate this time for Geltani.
My readings into the Turkish language lead me, by virtue, to be listening to a lot of Turkish music (and I do like such oriental music long before I try to understand the language). In musıc, though, there are always those strings that should not be touched that mangle in the heart. Isn't it a wonder, how something makes you so sad, yet you keep listening to it all over again?

Dubai Back and Fro...

Well, been to Dubai for 3 days this week and I couldn't have much time to take some photos or work on some pictures. I received and invitation (as I've mentioned in previous post) from HIPA to attend to the ceremony of awards giving.
The stay was fine and Dubai is a nice place to stay (I couldn't imagine there was no traffic jam!), but unfortunately way too expensive for my budget. In just 3 days I've spent what I would've spent in Ireland for 5 days or more!
Despite the beautiful atmosphere it was hard for me to take any pictures from there, and the sum was a total of 3 images only and 2 of them were, well, fine.

Dornige Schönheit
Canon EF 50mm + 20mm tube, f/22, 160^-1sec, ISO100.

I went strolling outside of the hotel after breakfast on the 18^th, first without any camera just to check my surroundings, but then I went back to my room and got my stuff and went out again to catch some weird looking plant (but then I've realized it is abundant in UAE). Weird for me at least as I'm no botanist! In here, I've used an extension tube (20mm I think) and took several shots with and without flash, but I think after all Dornige Schönheit was the most stable of all. I did took shots from above but I needed a larger zoom to hide my other hand which was holding the stem. Lately, I've been using the extension tubes a lot with my 50mm lens as I see it a nice and fast substitute for the heavy 100mm macro lens and would give a single hand the power to control the camera body properly more.

Columns and Columns
Tamron 70-300mm @300mm, f/8, 500^-1sec, ISO100.

I've walked and wandered further away and took some shots (mainly of abstract nature) but lot of them didn't turn well, and finally reached a construction site where I've noticed some raising columns under construction - probably the only thing that really caught my attention.
That night there was the ceremony which I went to Dubai for, the HIPA awards ceremony. Nicely done and I got the chance to see such amazing photos indeed. I'm checking with HIPA to see if the ceremony will be published on youtube.

I do realize that lot of people are surprised for the fact that I didn't take much pictures and I didn't go out a lot in Dubai - but this is back to the simple fact that I don't really consider it a vacation (or completely a vacation let's say). I would spend a vacation in a calmer place like the countryside or a sea village probably, but not in a big city. Also, I'm not a shopping person and I didn't go there for shopping in the first place, and photography-wise, the urban scape is not greatly inspirational for my mind. However, it is a nice city with nice people and there were lot of things to think about by observing my surroundings - Culture, attitude, and arts. Dubai is a big city but not within the same reputation line as other big cities like New York or London. This would seem hard to explain but probably easy to observe in Dubai itself!
Anyway, after a fast roll over Dubai events, I'm back to my previous regular work with my own humble photos the week before.

Flora Mood:

Well, they say it is spring already but years of living here as a native, I sort of realized that Kuwait has no spring. It's simply: Winter, Summer. It's an On-Off case, so to say. However, some blooms and flowers had sprung already and I didn't want to miss the chance. I think after my last workshop with my teacher about geometrical plays in floral arrangements, it seems that I'm (or my mind is) more aware of floral arts and the inside arrangements of floral lines.

Aglow
Canon EF 50mm+ tube, f/16, 50^-1sec, ISO400.

These images were taken the week before I travel on two days, when I started packing my camera and taking it with me to work. This time, however, I decided not to take my tripod. In fact, a tripod can be a hassle in such situations specially for one heavy and cranky tripod like mine!

Quinquenia
Canon EF 50mm + tube, f/20, 60^-1sec, ISO400.

As you may notice from Aglow above, that even f/16 can have a shallow depth of field in such situations (with extension tubes in used). Lately, I've been using the tubes a lot (I've mentioned that already above) because it is fast and easy to get a close up and ALSO because I can use 50mm lens which has a maximum aperture of f/1.4. This is of course a very shallow depth of field and when you compare it to f/16 which still has a shallow depth, f/1.4 might not be that good as an option. However, adding this value to the range of stops available is pretty valuable and I wouldn't know when would I need it. Anyway, in both shots here, Aglow and Quinquenia (and also shots that would come later) I was forced to raise the ISO little bit and use the on-camera flash. Here comes another advantage for using extension tubes: the length of the 50mm lens with an extension tube (be it 12, 20 or 36mm) is shorter most of the time (I'm talking here about connecting only one tube) and it gives a good close-up abilities. This relatively shorter than 100mm macro lens length makes it feasible and possible to use the on-camera flash easily because if the lens is too long like the 100mm lens, then a shadow cast is most likely to occur. A cast from the lens itself that is. Of course, we are talking about on-the-go photography and not the precise and making-art photography in which a photographer would spend many minutes if not hours studying the situation and settling the tripod and picking the lens and then choosing the appropriate moment.

Green Ankh
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm tube,
f/22, 200^-1sec, ISO100.

The on-camera flash solved lot of problems, and mainly allowed me to use the manual mode on the camera to speed up the shutter speed as much as I like. I would say though, if I was to use my 580EX II speedlite here, I would need help or something to stabilize the plant's stem at least. In most of these situations, both of my hands were busy and the on-camera flash seemed the appropriate solution for such situation, even though a slight shadow might burst out as in Quinquenia or to a lesser degree as in Green Ankh. The on-camera flash as well helped to create that translucent look and glowing atmosphere in Aglow; but the talk about the ISO noise is something else of course.
Yes, the on-camera flash does eat out some of saturation of some colors specially if no gels are used as it is the case with Green Ankh where the plant's stem was faint in color and I had to reduce the highlights and boost the vibrancy of colors (not the saturation) to some degree. But such situations are easy to deal with in general.

Quadraspinasphere
Canon EF 50mm + 36mm tube, f/20, 20^-1sec, ISO400.

As I've said before, using the on-camera flash allowed me to work with manual mode but this is not always the case. Like in Quadraspinasphere, I was not so sure where to begin with my shutter speed so I've just turned the the dial to Av and let the camera choose the shutter speed for me (in combination with the flash). Here, I was lying on the ground after putting the car shade on the floor out of my work place (and thank God no one was there to watch me do it!), thus it was reasonable to concentrate on my approach to the plant in such a low level, rather than work or think about the shutter speed. I had to crop Quadraspinasphere to make it as a quarter of a sphere as I envisioned it, but one of the hardest points in taking this picture is the fact that I have to work in manual focus most of the time. A fact that had been persistent with using extension tubes, as the auto-focusing function seems to be baffled when it comes to extension tubes, probably!
One of the tricks that I usually do in such situations with manual focusing (and with such bad eye vision like mine), and with a shaky situation (like a plant in the wind or breeze or a shaky hand) is to do a scanning with continuous shutter speed clicks. Meaning: with relatively high shutter speed (20^-1sec seems fast enough but slower with flash turned on), I set the camera with continuous (or burst) mode/drive and check out a point where the sharp focus is most likely to occur (all within the viewfinder). After that, I get closer to the subject little bit (not much!) and press the shutter button and keep holding it while moving my head slowly to the back getting further away from the subject. This way, I get load of pictures of course, but at least my chances for getting a sharp image in between are more. It is a talk of probability and statistics if I should say. 

Thoughts:

There is a hard mix in thoughts right now, specially after this trip to Dubai, and regarding many aspects. In Dubai, it seemed to me that people talk about arts wherever you go, and galleries of art are displayed in public - it was like a public education concerning arts. How was this done? What elevated the level of consciousness of the people of Dubai, at least those I've been meeting on the way, about arts. Such level of thought that I didn't encounter so far in here. Needless to say, that such big city get a traffic jam only in the rush hours time (morning and evening), unlike us with 12 hours a day.
I remember back in the 1970s and 1980s Kuwait was something like that, and the simplest form of art appreciation would be seen in the National Day celebrations, when people and schools used to go out on the streets in an organized parades with props and stuff made memorizing and emphasizing the history and the identity of this country. Where did all that go? All these parades are now replaced by a bunch of sanitarium inmates going freely outside and splash each other with water and foam and traffic jams blocking the roads. Is this the identity we are commemorating?
It is clear and evident that the foreign policies and the openness of Dubai to the world made it a global center with an elevated level in most aspects of life - but do we really need to be open that much as much as to indulge in (mostly) western culture to be elevated in the level of consciousness? Logically and from the perspective of history, Arabs did conquer such place in time and now it is gone, hence, I think building over what was achieved and not merely adapting to the western way is possible; thus, creating a self-identity awareness. The thing is, where and how to start and what could spark people about such advantageous endeavor? One particular clue lies in the ruling family of the UAE and Dubai specifically. I was surprised that HIPA (which stands for Hamdan International Photography Award) was established by the crown prince of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan and he, himself, was a contributor. He is a young man, and I thought he was old, or not-so-old type of person. I realized at this point that the upper class and those under in a community like UAE's is really entwined to some extent and the leaders themselves push people in that direction and encourage the openness of thoughts and arts. He should be an example to be followed in the region, and the ME in general. This is what I believe.

Writing this now, with a call from the main organizer in the group about another fair or expo that they want me to get involved in. I have to say frankly that I'm getting tired of this. At the time that I want to raise consciousness and arts appreciation in the group members and make them stronger in spirit facing the criticizing of their images, needless to say raise their technical skills, the management of the group on the other hand concentrate so much on the aspects concerning the group's reputation and pronouncing its name. I wonder now, how this can be done with members that don't even shoot in RAW format?!
I've been chitchatting with a friend on dinner last Friday and he made a note that he felt that the group and its responsibilities are pulling me down, and I'm pulling or carrying the heavy load of the group's well-being on my shoulders like Hercules. He suggested that if it didn't quite work well, I should quit.

I'm not memorizing all those beloved projects that I've established some time ago along with Ayvarith conlang, like the Bulughman and the Betenic for example. I need to continue and I need to spend more time with these projects that suddenly stopped in time. My Geltani project is also postponed and can barely touch it with all these responsibilities over my head. I have to say NO to many stuff just to sit down and complete some of these fantasies of my own. That might mean, for some time, saying "Goodbye" to my camera and have some rest from all the mess and confusion that I've got myself into with photography world - specifically here in Kuwait.

Mawahb 3

Finally it's over. What a stress and what a scramble and entangle of times and schedules it was. This year, however, I didn't have the mood to go around and take photos of various booths around the expo, even though there were some nice people and some nice talents. I was just too tired to do all of this now.
I did take photos after all from various locations around the expo just for trials and not as documenting. But because of the ongoing event I didn't have enough time to work on these photos once I've taken them - add to that, a panorama of the booth took over my little available time between my work and the expo.
The location of the expo this year was changed and I have to say it was a miserable location for parking places were shared between students, participants and visitors (and later I've been told that the expo location itself was on a parking lot making huge harassment for students there!).

We'll come to the panorama and the QTVR later in its own section, but for now I guess I'll just list some of the images that I've processed so far, and maybe a little story behind some of them!

The Sax
Tamron 70-300mm @209mm,
f/5, 200^-1sec, ISO1600

In the beginning there was the stage which I thought of snapping at for several times on several days (the expo was for 5 days). It is a good target because of the lights and the atmosphere - a real test for the camera and the lenses, but a bad atmosphere for my ears!
The situation was good for all sort of light tricks but it needs concentration and a good lens, and apparently Tamron 70-300mm is not that good but it did some nice job. I say it's not that good, but I'm not saying it's bad! The lowest f-stop could be achieved is f/4.5 and it increases to f/5 with increasing focal length. Moreover, the zooming ring can get jammed a bit and hard to move (this can be good and bad in the same time). Probably the cold weather and air at night does affect this lens but I'm not sure of that. With lowest f-stop being f/5 in zooming situation, it was essential to raise the ISO severely in lot of shots taken with this lens, as is the case with The Sax, which was done with a fast metering for the highlight areas on the stage and stopping down the shutter speed (make it faster) to make a slight touch of light on the bodies. Notice how the shutter speed is barely 200^-1sec while focal length is 209mm, and all at ISO1600.

Happy Drummer
Canon EF 10mm macro, f/2.8, 250^-1sec, ISO800

Just to give an impression how it is to work with such f-stop as f/5 in the darkness, it is enough to look at the other image taken with Canon EF 100mm macro lens at f/2.8 (smallest for this lens). At ISO800 it was barely light enough to catch the drummer's happy moment. Probably the red lights made it worse for the noise-cleaning process. The ISO value was cut to one half.

The Lonely Sax
Tamron 70-300mm @176mm, f/5,
60^-1sec, ISO1600.

Cropping images is a prevalent feature in such images taken from the stage and I think it is a must. It's hard to control such a chaos on the stage but you have to keep your eyes open for specific expressions and/or specific light patterns on the performers' bodies and faces. I wasn't a fan of such type of photography but I think it did change my mood a bit by trying something out of my comfort zone (with architecture and landscape). Amazingly, as well, images like The Lonely Sax did give me some sad feelings and touch, most probably because of the light and red lights and the dark atmosphere, while on the stage, the musical play was a happy Latin tune.

Old laptop and monitors users careful here as the colors might appear smudged and/or banded.

Now, this picture really sparked some thoughts in my head about the possibilities I do have out there, spiritually and mentally that is. What are the possibilities of changing the emotions of the scene intentionally? Is it really easy to change a happy scene into a sad one? Or maybe it is easy to change a sad scene into a happy one? Of course the light plays a major role here in the formation of the feelings surrounding the image, but I'm pretty sure it is not the only factor. I'm already aware of color-to-B&W conversion and its power in conveying emotions through an image, specially those that are intended to invoke mystery or melancholy. Yet, I feel there is a general formula for all this turmoil. Probably my scientific-based mind is largely getting involved here; where it doesn't belong?

The Player of The Sun
Tamron 70-300mm @176mm, f/5, 400^-1sec, ISO1600.

Doing silhouettes is another possibility for objects on the stage with so many lights rolling around, but behold, it's not that easy as well - since stage lights were circling around. I think The Player of The Sun was just a hit of luck for me when all lights on my side went off at the moment and only those on the far side kept on - a must for silhouettes. There had been other silhouettes other than this but I think the one above is the best of them all. The spot light on the far end did help the look I guess to make it something outdoors-like rather than indoors-like and on stage.

Stephanie McGeehee
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 80^-1sec, ISO800.

Our booth was visited frequently and sometimes by some celebrities. One of the major characters to me, however, was Stephanie McGeehee. Stephanie is the owner of METALfusion - a shop for printing on aluminum and one of our major sponsors for this expo. The shop itself can be a target for a panorama and I've thought seriously about sending an email to her suggesting the idea with reduced prices in exchange of a self-advertising by adding my own logo and website to the panorama. Not sure how it would turn out, but I didn't advertise for myself seriously since I decided to start a website of my own back in 2012.

Planeta Columnium

 She was amazed with my panorama Planeta Columnium and was wondering why did I crop it. When I've told her that we have our own critics in the group who decide what to put on the expo and contests and what to crop or not she replied that that this panorama is better be symmetrical as it is intended to and the crop did really take a lot out of the panorama.
Maybe you did notice the shutter speed and the ISO just to make a sense of the lighting conditions there! Yet, the images I've taken of her were mostly out of focus - the darn f/1.4 is so shallow that a slight move can take the whole scene out of focus!

Happy Birthday!

By the last day of the expo I was surprised to know that it was my teacher's birthday! Out of sudden the Birthday chants started and everyone was gathering around the cake singing and wishing. I didn't have time to react here but I just grabbed my camera and started to shoot in Manual mode. Naturally, lot of these shots was out of focus mainly because of the crowds in front of me who interfered with the focusing points and the camera focused on them instead!

Glowing Bahaa!
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 640^-1sec, ISO400.

Magic and Magician
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
1000^-1sec, ISO400.

Just to note, these images were processed accordingly with my calibrated monitor of my PC, hence the luminance level (and so the visual impact on the viewer) can be different that what I intended!

In a fast rhythm, I've started to do some metering in a hurry and change the shutter speed accordingly. I was trying to work as fast as possible before the fireworks go off. I didn't even pay attention to the ISO (which proved to be hard to clean later)!
In Glowing Bahaa I had to emphasize the luminance on the face manually and then work out more with dodge and burn. I have to say here that this image look better in small size rather than large size, yet I'm not sure how the print would go on with this one. On the other hand, Magic and Magician was completely done by luck. As I've mentioned above, objects interfering with the focusing points dragged my focus sometimes away from Bahaa himself and this is exactly the situation here; except that I got a lucky effect. Notice that in this event the lights were on and it wasn't dark in the expo! Well, probably someone turned off the lights of the booth itself but generally speaking, the light conditions were normal. It is all a play of the shutter speed (and no flash).

Booth and Panorama with QTVR

The panorama for our booth was taken around the third day of the expo and to do it I had to leave my work place earlier and head to the expo location. Despite the fact that the campus was stuffed with cars, but I've been told that in such time visitors to the booth are almost none - and it was so! I needed the least disturbance I could have to complete this work.

BPF Booth - Mawahb 3
Version 1

What I didn't get from disturbing people in this panorama I got it from other sources. As I got into the location the AC was turned on and the roof of the big tent started to wave; giving me a clear warning of a hardship to come. This would be exactly the same situation when I've shoot a panorama in the main court of Ikaros hotel on Failaka island last year.

It took me some time to settle down with my tools and to check to what elevation level I should raise my tripod and the VR-head. The main issue here was the reflections from the TV and the rest of the aluminum prints. As for the TV it was turned on so I can relax a bit about it - not much reflections going to come from that direction. As for the prints, I've decided to lower my stuff and myself down to avoid direct reflection (angle of incidence equals angle of reflection).

After settling with the level it was time to decide on my exposure. With my simple light meter I've taken (incident) readings from various angle and distances from the camera and the values varied between 4^2/3EV and 5EV; and of course I've put my favorite f-stop to work in such situation: f/8. The result was an exposure of 2 seconds and working with brackets of -/+2 made the exposure as: 2 seconds (0EV), 0.5 second (-2EV), 8 seconds (+2EV).

You might be asking why it is called Version 1. Well, the problems that rose when doing this panorama made me stitch for 3 times! Yes,  t h r e e. Maybe I should sort this out in form of points:

• In the beginning, the HDR stitch was hard to be done because (it seems) the slides were too dark to establish control points in between them. I had to tone-map all the slides, and align them then save the panorama as a model to stitch the original HDR panorama.
• When tone-mapping the original HDR panorama after the stitch, the usual weird color spots appeared and it was hard to fix this time. This time, however, instead of getting the usual blue spots, they were accompanies by highly saturated red patches on the wooden surfaces around the booth, and some harsh blue reflections out of the aluminum prints.
• After looking at this problem with the original HDR, I decide to stitch the model that I've made out before from the tone-mapped slides - and this was Version 1. Since I've tone-mapped them on the basis of showing details to the stitcher to create control points, the effect is surreal somehow and I thought other group members won't like it, hence I thought of creating a normal one.
• To create the normal panorama I had to convert the RAW files of the 0EV exposure (i.e. 2 seconds exposure) to TIFF files (since my old PTGui doesn't read EOS 7D RAW files) and start from there with the stitching process (which was relatively easy). 

BPF Booth - Mawahb 3
Version 2

Of course in all cases there were the broken lines that I had to deal with by cloning out. I have to say I was lazy here to work with Blending Priority in PTGui to cover up for such broken lines, but it seems that the shake in the roof of the tent which was caused by turning on the AC could have probably affected other slides and caused broken lines elsewhere. Usually in such situations I would check if I can emphasize the Blending Priority of the middle band of the panorama (i.e. the first row of images in the panorama) so these slides would overlap the upper and/or lower portions of the panorama to cover up for such broken lines.

Despite the easiness of cloning for the ground here (because it's all unique in texture and almost unique in light level), but I've decided to use my logo as a nadir point. Later, however, group members asked to have the group's logo as well as this QTVR and panorama could be used officially. Hence, I had to work around this situation by combining both logos and put them as nadir point. Generally, two QTVRs were made for both versions of the panorama.

  Version 1


Version 2


However, in Version 2, the seam line could not be matched while it came naturally as is in Version 1. Also, the TV in Version 2 was a bit off and I didn't fix that, while in Version 1 I did some work to darken the TV a bit. All of that seems to make Version 1 better and superior to Version 2 when it comes to QTVRs, while it's vice versa in the case of flat panoramas.
This said, there is much more to be done with these panoramas, but I need to process some files and some work to be done first before having fun with projections in panoramas!

Going Crazy

From time to time, I do like to get some venting out from the conventional photography and aesthetics topics and just do what my fingers exert. Literally, going crazy with a style that is not my usual style. During Mawahb 3 expo I think I've found my typical target - Cars.

Cars are a typical target for HDR madness. I say madness here meaning the abnormal tone-mapping and the grunge style (which is mistakenly named HDR). 

Going Crazy 1

Going Crazy 2

Maybe I've taken a lot of HDR shots (i.e. bracketed exposures) but I've chosen to work with 3 of them only so far. Probably more to come later. The sole purpose for working in such mode (and mood) is a sort of a stress release, if I can call it so.

Amazingly though, even though I don't like cars and I've picked them specifically for this task (to work as crazy as possible!) - there are still people who do like such colors and hues and shades. This proves my point about the rationality of style and photography. I'd rather sell an art piece to someone than having a critic trying to adjust my style with the assumption of making my skills and work better in the future. I don't mean to be materialistic here, but rather I like to be realistic. The main point here is, do your best and there will be always people who like your work - and there will be always people who hate your work (critics are included on both sides).

Going Crazy 3

I think what critics should do is to help photographers do a better job and not really criticize their work. Yes, there are technical issues that a critic might alert the photographer for, but trying to change the style and the sole purpose and chain of thoughts of a photographer? This is like self-projection and shadowing over the photographer's thoughts and philosophy in photography. This is exactly what happened with my Planeta Columnium panorama which was cropped just to please the critics. Many people were amazed to know that such panorama was cropped while the main idea of it was keeping symmetry. If my idea was to resemble a rising sun, I would have done it already, but simply, this is not what I was thinking of!

Finale

BPF Group

It was a stress time that flew away for now. I'm just hoping that we learn from this experience and from the many mistakes that happened in the preparations phase. Most importantly, I'm just hoping that group members look forward and be careful with the technical aspects of photography (like shooting in RAW format!). On the other hand, I just wish of critics to be more realistic in their expectations (and stop projecting their own style and fashion on their judgements). One of the critical information that I'd like to apply in the future how to tie the viewing distance with the print size (which in return has an impact on the resolution). Such information is available online and can easily be implied, but at the time of the preparations we barely thought about it!

Now, I'm trying to get back to my normal phase since my camera became cold because of the work with this expo and I'm trying to find new ideas yet and new exciting stuff to do with my camera. On the side as well, my thoughts are still going through my archive of Ayvarith and Geltani, while keeping some space of thought for other conlangs that I've created a script for but no concrete language still; like Betenic. Amazingly, I've discovered that some of the words that I've implemented already are already real words in Akkadian and Sumerian - some of them with the same meaning even! Example for this is shá which means "which" or "that" in Ayvarith (for masculine) and also in Akkadian; but in Akkadian it is probably not related to a gender.

I'm writing these words now as I've booked a ticket and a hotel in Dubai. I've always told people that I won't be going to there since it's a city; one big city. Not the atmosphere I want to spend a vacation in! However, the situation here is different not really a vacation by itself. But I've received an invitation to attend a ceremony by HIPA. I've, with some group members, enrolled in their photography contest back in December 2012, and totally forgot about it! However, I've received an email from the committee inviting me to attend the ceremony, and when I checked with other members of the group they stated that they didn't receive anything. I'm not sure what does that mean but maybe I can take some fresh air for one week (and go to Failaka?). I just hope things go smoothly in such big city.  For this reason, I'm not sure there will be a post by next week, but we'll see!