BumbleBee...

It is one weird week from the very beginning. With relative ease and being busy in the same time. Our week starts on Sunday (it was Saturday before 2007 I think), and some surprises started off with this day. Well, only on this day so far!
That day started off with a catastrophe when I figured out that my backpack (with some books that I didn't read yet) went missing. After searching in the car in a REALLY crazy manner, my office keys that were missing for two weeks showed up! Then, I've tried to organize my thoughts and finally reached a conclusion: my backpack could be in the seminar room since I've attended a critique session there last Thursday! And it was as I thought; I've got my backpack back (say it 10 times fast) and most importantly, my keys as well!
Another surprise was waiting for me on Flickr, when a new record (for me) was set, for number of visitors, number of likes on one image, and number of comments as well. All of that was mainly because of one image taken the night before!

Statistics from Flickr on Monday

Critique:
Last Thursday we had a meeting for sorting out our images with my teacher, Mr Bahaa, and another honorary member of the group that I always hear of his name but never saw him till that meeting came up: Ahmad Dashti, PhD. He teaches in the college of Arts under Kuwait University, in the department of Mass Communication. So I've heard.
The event was useful for me, not only in figuring out the strength in my images, but I was already trying to analyze and figure out the characters of the the leader and our guest as they were criticizing my, and others, images.

Dimensionality
Canon EF 50mm, f/16,
60^-1sec, ISO 100.

The image that made it all clear to me was an old image taken from Shuwaikh area beach (and the same day a TV crew came on filming); Dimensionality.
Personally, I do have my own interpretation for this image and why I thought of it and why I made it in the first place, but I preferred not to open the discussion further with the critics but I kept recording notes on the side. Funny thing though, a friend who probably doesn't know this image was mine defended the image and said "The image has an appealing contrast!" This response proved to me a point that I had in my mind for some time (and will mention below).
The image is mainly to be categorized as part of minimalism, but apparently my critics were not into the venue because they were criticizing for a completely another purpose, and probably didn't even notice the red buoys floating to the vanishing point. However, I'm not saying they are wrong of course, but I had my mind and points made up:

Himmelsweg
Rokinon 8mm, f/22,
2 minutes, ISO 100.

• Apparently, the critics were criticizing from the contests point of view and not the regular criticism.
• Accordingly, minimalism is not probably a right theme for contests. Presumably, most judges in such contests would prefer complicated (technically speaking) images, or images that were taken in some kind of hard work.
• Panoramas are a point of weakness for critics; they can't judge it and halt on its steps. However, my teacher pointed out some details that are better to be removed.
• From my friend's comment about Dimensionality (even though he didn't take it), I realized that you can still have fans for an image whatsoever the critics might say! It's up to you: do you want to satisfy some critics to be, probably, authenticated as a good photographer? Or to be a popular photographer? The choice is yours after all!
• It was obvious that my critics were judging from their own experience and their own style in approaching photography, specifically PhD. Dashti. In his comments about Himmelsweg, he mentioned that all what is special about this image is the sky and not much significance about the rest - and he continued to say that he is more of a humanitarian, meaning that he likes to add a human-related topic into a scene to give it a life (either a person or something related). My teacher, however, knows that I don't deal with and hate portraits and picturing people and my sole interest is in architecture and nature. His comment, however, made me realize that he is under the impression and influence of his own style and experience - similarly, I do realize that I work according to my own experience and influence (and style).

These ideas and points would serve me better in the future when I present images for critique and for sorting out for any expo that the group would think of enrolling in - but I'll keep on working with photography for the self-satisfaction and emotions' sake. One of the reasons that I don't like to enroll in contests is the fact that I'd prefer to work on my own pace and photography for me is a tool to de-stress myself, and contests are a bit like pressure gauges blowing off steams. Not my atmosphere. However, I'm into contests for the group's sake alone.

Glanz an Mitternacht:
The weather was nice that night. Not so cold, and not hot of course like those unbearable summer nights. I know that people in the northern hemisphere usually look forward for summer, but here, winter is like our spring season. Despite my tired body and the inadequate sleeping pattern for night time photography, I've decided to just head out as soon as I can after midnight to be safe away from people. My aim was a spot that I've visited in summer and in which people were active all night long (till the morning).

A scene I don't like
Tamron 70-300mm @154mm,
f/13, 7 min, ISO 100.

The spot I was aiming for was in fact an elevated floor overlooking the beach. It would do an awesome job specially if the darkness was absolute somehow. However, my geographical brain had some malfunctioning and I just couldn't remember where that spot is! Anyway, I settled the tripod near by a kiosk and aimed to some lights on the other side of the shore with no discrete goal in fact, and this is why I called it A scene I don't Like, because this is the truth. I don't know why did I take this photo! It was merely a test for my calculations probably. I got some nice color shades at the back after adjusting the white balance but the composition is not something I'd show to other photographers really!

Glowing Beach
Canon EF 15mm fisheye, f/22, 10 min, ISO 100.

As I was taking A scene I don't Like, I was wandering around waiting for the shutter time to finish and then I've noticed some nice view and reflection on the water on the other side facing the location that I was aiming at. What attracted me here is the colors of the last three lights to the left which resembled Kuwait's flag. However, after settling my tripod and working out with different lenses, my attention changed from simply catching the lights, to catching the shore with reflections. The lights alone are not interesting enough and I would repeat A scene I don't Like again! To my surprise, Glowing Beach was responsible for my new record on Flickr with 102 people adding it to their favorites so far.
I have to admit though that the image is processed, just like any long exposures. The main look was achieved simply by twitching the white balance because Tungsten WB on camera was not enough, thus I had to decrease the color temperature more and add a bit of magenta with the Tint slider.
My choice of lens was scrambled in the beginning but then I've realized that my best choice was the 15mm Canon fisheye lens even though with my cropped sensor it does not give a strong curvy horizon like Rokinon 8mm does. If I was to use Rokinon's, then lot of elements would be added to the scene that I don't like, and the reflections and objects would seem really far away - beside the hardships with metering the scene with this manual lens. My best compromise (I guess) between the EF-S 18-55mm and the Rokinon 8mm, is to be the Canon 15mm I believe. Wider than 18mm, but not so wide to include everything like the 8mm!

Light Maestro
Canon EF 50mm, f/22, ISO 100.
HDR

After finishing Glowing Beach I've done some simple shots aiming at HDR with long exposures, but the composition didn't work well for me. There was so much space. However, as I was walking then after, I've noticed the towers - a common target for my camera. There, I've settled with my camera and tried my best with the frame but after all, I didn't like my composition for real. Later, some people on Flickr said the composition was fine (you see here the cropped image) but yet I'm not so satisfied with the composition even after this image made its way to Flickr's Explore feature.
The method here was HDR made out of long exposures. Can't remember the times exactly but the range is from few seconds, to around a minute or a bit more. The process for building the image was as follows:

• High f-number to encompass large depth of field (and the focus is set on the third pillar of light from the front).
• Few seconds exposure to get some details for the core of the light pillars.
• When merged into HDR, the tone-mapping was done in Photoshop and mainly by using Exposure adjustment layers to lower and raise the exposure in certain areas - mainly, lowering the exposure in the light pillars core and raising it a bit in the towers' shades. Also, in this phase, the "White Balance" was fixed by means of Photo Filter adjustment layer.

I have some plans though to go out to the area in some other night soon hopefully. I just hope I will get some scenes worthy of shooting in such tranquil nights. Night brings surprises indeed...

Rokinon's Triumph!

With winter, comes the clouds season. With clouds come many ideas, namely grand views encompassing large skies against the relatively small Earth, and ideas related to long expsoures (like Himmelsweg mentioned above). I had some plans to combine them both, and the best lens to do this was the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. One problem raises though: How would you do long exposures with such a lens with no filter holders?

Through My Window
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/22, 7 min, ISO 100.

At certain times, like those minutes before sunrise or just after sunsets, using Rokinon fisheye lens for long exposures seems a plausible idea indeed; it is dark enough to have a long exposure (of course with some clouds scattered), just as was the case in Through My Window which was shot right after the sunset. Some white balance fix followed later though to enhance the color of the sky.

source: B&H

However, does that mean our long exposures with this lens is limited to night time? This can't be! Unfortunately, my search for solutions was to no avail. I was hoping to find at least some kind of filter carrier or holder to be fixed at the back of such lens; but my search was also in vane.

At close inspection, however, I've noticed that the rear side of the lens had many grooves, and because of the fact that the lens is completely manual, I thought there might be no danger in sticking gel filters at its back with some kind of adhesive. Anyway, I've forgot the idea of using an adhesive because it is not fast enough to handle and probably impractical after all when it comes to using several gels upon each other. 

A groove that got my attention

One groove, however, that really got my attention. It was deep unlike the others and it has some space underneath; naturally it was a target for my thoughts. It was time to work.

After cutting many pieces and trying some models from the ND gel filters that I've already got since two years ago maybe, I've settled down with a square shaped cut. I've tried circular cuts but there were impractical to fit, and I've tried as well some square pieces with side length of 3cm but they were large to be fit into the groove (probably good for sticking them with some adhesive though, that's another idea!). Finally, I've cut some pieces with side length of 2~2.1cm and they seem to work perfectly even when stacked over each other. The only requirement here is, I'd need something sharp to push the edges into the groove, plus some extra utensils that I will explain later.

The rear side with ND filter slide fitted.

As I had different ND filters of different stops, I had to make some special marks to note the number of stops for each slice I've cut. Thus, I've decided to simply add some punctures for the number of stops on one of the corners for each slide. These are added simply with a needle or compass (not the one used for directions!).
In the beginning I had some problem fitting these slides into the groove by the corners, but then I've simply developed a method of simply pressing the center and then pushing the corners with a blunt object into the groove (maybe I should make a video of that?).

The lens and the ND slides.

I've kept the ND slides into one envelope (unlike those I kept for the 15mm fisheye lens, where each stop is kept in separate envelope). In a primary test, the filters worked well as I've set the metering to spot and pointed the lens onto some light fixture indoors - the ND filters worked as intended and they slowed the shutter speed according to the specified number of stops. Good sign!

Rokinon's Triumph!
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/22, 1 min, ISO 100.

The first somehow real test was to take place in the early morning next day when I headed to work as early as possible to catch some glimpse of the low light level before the sun becomes stronger in the horizon. After some trials with different point of views and angles I think I've reached a conclusion that the method works fine with tiny inconsistency in exposure measurements and I think this comes because of the nature of the wide angle lens which gathers light from a wide view; wider than usual, thus even a spot-metering method can be tricky. But, all in all, the exposures done for the test images like Rokinon's Triumph! and before were pinned down correctly a bit more or a bit less.
Some test images were fuzzy or foggy-like and this made me concerned about the cleanness of the slides. I think this fuzziness was a product of my fingerprints on the slides as I was handling them. Also, as I was trying to work fast to fit the slides into the rear end of the lens, I've realized the fact that in all of my gear, I don't really have a sharp object to push the corners into the groove! Thus, I've decided to take a small manicure set that I've had in 2011 when I went to Hajj - It was distributed by the caravan's organizers to help us in our journey in various ways!

 Finale:

Source: Amazon

It was a busy and a tiresome week, and now I've almost finished reading my new book (which had been ordered since 2011!), but I have to say it is somehow an easy read; not much of new stuff to digest. Maybe I'm a little bit disappointed but it's nice to look at the photos in the book. They help on getting inspired.
As for the group, I'm responsible for contests (and how ironic is that!) and frankly I don't know much about it and what to do. There is a famous photography contest of Austria, and I really don't know how to proceed with it; all what I did is scan the leaflet that was given to me and publish it via Flickr. Am I going to be responsible for the entries? I don't know, yet.
We are busy now preparing for many events - the national day, and Mawahb 3 expo next March. I'm not sure where would I fall in this, but I've been asked already to supervise the printing process, hence I've been collecting information about color management issues lately.
The sea is wide and it feels like swinging among its tides. There had been some heart issues lately, but not the hygienic type. Feels alive, but sick in the same time. When does all of this just end?

Laboriosus

Something went wrong this week. I don't know what is it exactly but all I know is that I've been idle and unable to perform well, with my mind or my camera. Well, at least I did something last week (after my last post) with my camera, otherwise, the week was vague. I'm trying to push myself to do some work out, even simple ones, just to activate my body somehow but even that was a fail. Anyway, in the "good news" department we have a new recording available, this time for chapter 4 of Alexander's story. You can check the English version (text only) here, and the Ayvarith version with sound clips here.
Now, let's hope I don't lag behind with chapter five.

I. More Geltani:

The progress with the new conlang and conscript is slow, yet I'm trying to work around it as much as I can. I'm settling my mind here and there about some aspects of syllables and seems I will be deriving a syllabic system out of the original Geltani script which will be dedicated for writing foreign names in Geltani. Ironically, I'm not sure how to write down "Geltan" in the Geltani script! Most probably I would make a name completely different in pronunciation.
One of the real problems that face me right now is some of the ambiguities encountered because of the abjadic nature of the Arabic orthography and script. Abjadic systems (like Arabic and Hebrew) tend to record the consonants alone and add only signs for vowels (in Arabic case, short vowels only are represented with signs and long ones with letters). Just an example from Arabic to elaborate this idea, the possibilities branching from the letters MLK.

MLK [ملك]

Mulk [مُلك]: Kingdom/Ownership.

Malik [مَلِك]: King

Malak [مَلَك]: (he) ruled/owned (Also "angel" in some context).

Mulik [مُلِك]: (he) was owned.

All of these versions of simply 3 letters (and the Arabic language is full of such examples) makes it hard for me to think of a way to go around it when forming words in Geltani based on Arabic. The original idea is mimicking the Arabic letters in form of lines in the first place, but I didn't plan for mimicking the vowels and their signs as well. I'm not sure how to go around such a problem yet, but maybe it lies somewhere between inventing new shapes and symbols and/or creating more sounds for them, or maybe exchanging short vowels for long ones to make the original Arabic word more like alphabetic in nature rather than abjadic. I have yet to think about it.

Another problem on the line is the packing of strokes and whether or not to allow one word to be written into 2 diagrams (or characters). Most probably I would try to fit all in one character as much as possible, because for the time being, and adding some grammatical twist to the whole language, I've decided to let preposition articles to be placed after the word in one line (while the sentences are written vertically top to bottom from left to right).

I'm running to simplify the grammar as much as possible (and that might be awkward when expressing some moods and modes). One of such cases is the conditional (if statements) and the habitual (would statements). So far, I've created a special character for regular and passive tenses, plus the conditional "should". Who knows, I might as well add to the already established characters for verbal words.

The initial design for verbal characters and their divisions. The tense is designated by the number of dots (not the placement of the dot).
Studying possible combinations of both divisions, regular and passive, in order to express more moods and modes.

Other variations of the same characters

II. In Slow Motion:

The beach area was a target, again, to my camera. This time though, although close to McDonald's area where I usually shoot, but it is the first time I land on the sand. I have to admit though that I went there in a hurry and didn't completely equip myself properly (specially with flashlights). The wind was strong and chill but I was determined to work with my lenses AND my ND filters as well. The ND filters caused me another problem but this time I had to investigate after this problem and I discovered that it is something reported widely for Cokin's ND filters. More details will come later on.
The clouds were nice. Not scattered much like cotton balls as I wished but they had nice shapes after all. The first thing was to try my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens with some long exposure before the sunrise above the horizon. The timing here is critical since I don't have any filters to fit fisheye lenses, so I have to time my work with darkness. The best I could get was within the range of 2 minutes exposure after all, and more than that proved to be problematic somehow. To add to my problems, as the time was a morning time and the sun would rise abvoe the horizon, then once you calculate the time required for the shutter, you have to expect that you might get blown highlights because of the gradual increase in the light level in the atmosphere.
However, it did work out well with me in the beginning with my 8mm, and made two shots; vertical and horizontal one.

Racing Heaven
~100 seconds

Race of Heavens
~120 seconds

The clouds' race is more obvious in the landscape orientation (naturally since it shows more and wider view of the sky), while the first one probably is good in the contrast between the sky and the sand.
Both images were fixed from distortion by DxO Optics Pro. This software got the option to fix the distortion without cropping (to keep the aspect ratio of width and height) and hence it gives more stretching effect on the sides and I think it is a good thing for long exposures of this kind. Notice in both shots here, the sun didn't rise yet and it was relatively dark on location.
After being done with my fisheye lens, comes here my EF-S 18-55mm lens, which is the widest thing I have right now which I could use filters with. The sun here started to show a bit, or let's say the sun rays, but the darkness was diminishing slowly. For now, although I do use metering by camera to judge how many ND filters I would need, but I got somehow a grab of sense on it. Not firmly, but a bit. I directly used 3xND8 filters (that is 9 stops: 3+3+3). One minute exposure was enough but as time was progressing, it came down to 30 seconds exposure which made the scene that I want. However, I got the same weird problem again, which eventually I've discovered that it has nothing to do with the white balance, but rather it is the make of the ND filter itself.

The scene directly from RAW file.
30 seconds exposure.

As seen, the scene is reddish and I used to get this many times in my trials with long exposures. They say a good ND filter would NOT give such a result and the colors should remain with no change, at least virtually. However, some mending process did the job to some extend the scene was recovered; but the question is, is that useful every time I take a long exposure with those filters?

Coming

I have to say though, despite the apparent "malfunctioning" of such filters, I do like the reddish look indeed. But maybe not this time.

III. Re-Visited:

The panorama taken 2 weeks ago from a deep point on the beach was something hardly can be done again (although I'm thinking about it seriously). For this reason it was hard for me to satisfy myself with what I've done before about this panorama. I felt there is more to be done.

Nox Salmiyah

Planeta Ignis

In the previous formations done with this panorama particularly, the white balance was not changed when the HDR was made out of the shots. The white balance was Daylight back then. However, with me having RAW files, I have the flexibility to change the white balance significantly.
From previous experiments with the night sky on the roof of my own home, I've realized that Tungsten white balance works better with such atmosphere. It simply adds some magic. But first, I had to recombine the whole set of images into HDR slides and setting the WB to Tungsten. It was then time to work with PTGui again, which was not an easy process (spent around 2 or 3 days trying to fix some images in their places).

Topmost

Personally, I did like it better than the previous two. In this shot however, which looks like a single shot with a fisheye lens, I've used the Mercator projection in PTGui; a projection style that I don't use much and to me, it doesn't differ much from the cylindrical projection except in some stretch in some areas (the height specifically). However, I think the Mercator projection here helped on curving the horizon upward and forming a shape of Earth's surface from outer space.
Hence we conclude, a change in WB can change the mood and feel of the image completely.

IV. Waiting...

Finally, I've placed some orders for some books and simple stuff for my camera. Things I've delayed for long until now and I think it's time to have them. This year will be starting with some heavy debt on my credit card but I need to. My plans for a vacation seem to be delayed for now and I'm not sure I will be traveling this year even. Traveling to me is more than a vacation in fact; it is a time for photography.
One of the most important items I'm waiting for right now, is something that would supposedly can solve the matter of long exposures with my Canon 15mm fisheye lens: Gel Filters.

Source B&H

Supposedly it is a pack that contains four  1-, 2-, and 3-stops filters of each. Frankly, I'm not sure it will fit in the place of the filters at the back of the fisheye lens, or would I have to cut it (as I've been told before) but I'm going to try something new after all. The thing now is to try to use such thing, if possible, with my other Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens.
Another set of gels was ordered but not for lenses this time. They are supposedly to fit my flash head in case I need to change the color cast of the flash head. No plans for using them now, but they would expand my options and might create new ideas in the near future.

Source: B&H

Finally, on the "tools" section, we have a bracket that will help me to place the flash a bit away from the camera or on the side, while still carrying it along with the camera.

Vello CB-500 Dual Shoe Bracket
Source: B&H

Now to the books section. I'm waiting for 3 books, but one of them is not about photography, but about some old passion inside me that is still burning; Archaeology.
I've stopped reading about archaeology for some time, but I felt that I have to get back now and kindle this passion again. Too bad I couldn't study this field in my early days. Anyway, the book is entitled: Forensic Recovery of Human Remains: Archaeological Approaches.


On the other hand, there two photography-related books:
1. The Photographer's Guide to Making Money: 150 Ideas for Cutting Costs and Boosting Profits.
2. Mastering Canon EOS Flash Photography.

As you can see I'm sort of dedicated to understand the flash unit more and how to control the light. Let's hope this field is digested with this little mind of mine, because I did find it difficult before to "paint" an image with light in my mind. Quite an essential capability if you want to deal with portrait photography in the first place.

Well, I've put so much in this post for now. Hope you didn't get a headache going through all of this. It's time for me to put it down, and hit the sack. So much headache involved in doing this blog... gosh!

Ex-Fantasies...

I just can't believe it's Thursday (or becoming Thursday). It was a slow week, and to make it worse, it feels that I couldn't do much within it, except for one thing that is not very brilliant from my side: Daydreaming. Fantasies are chasing me back and that urge to scribble and doodle all the time is hovering in my mind. I keep an eye over my camera with sorrow not knowing what to do about it. I need to move on. On the other hand, there is that recording I'm supposed to do for my Ayvarith project and the story of Alexander, but everything just hit the Pause button and like if I lost the remote to let it go on again. 

I. Fantasy Strikes Again:
Fantasies are attacking, back again. Maybe they popped up in the form of Ayvarith, a project that I'm trying hard to keep up with, but now they are back, chasing me back and urging me to get out something out of my head; Something that was kept in this head since high school in fact.
When the story of Alexander was created and many places or nations were mentioned; like the Bulughman and Zimuran, a writing system was devised then even though I didn't proceed much deeper into these systems, other than creating the script. The nation of Geltan that I've mentioned in Alexander's story, however, and which was one of the first nations that Alexander encountered, was left without a mention to a script related to them. After I finished writing the English version of Alexander's story, it was then I thought that I might break the spell by doing a "pictographic" system this time instead of Abjadic or Alphabetic systems. However, this pictographic system will be based on "radicals" and these radicals are based in their origins on Arabic. The whole system is somehow complicated, and all was formulated in high school. I was fascinated with Chinese back then.

Some of my doodles in the new script

This system was not concrete back then and I've left it untouched for a long time. Now, however, I need to push myself to do more about it and finalize something that I've left for more than 12 years. The main task for now, to me, is to transform the regular straight lines into a curve form and deviate the script from the general Hanzi or Kanji look, and along with that comes putting some basics. Exhaustive job for my brain, but this is not the bad part of the story, it is the fact that I can't stop thinking about it. I call it bad because, as much as I like it, it is a new project that I must dedicate some time to. I think this what happens when I stay away from my camera a bit and not doing panoramas as I used to do for some time. More about the camera work will come later.

The system as mentioned before, based on Arabic as well (just like Ayvarith, but without Hebrew and Aramaic) and the main "algorithm" to create words comes from assigning each Arabic letter to a Latin letter, which means some additions will be there since Arabic is composed of 28 letters while Latin (English) alphabet is made mainly of 26 letters. The radicals and their shapes were inspired also from Arabic letters, and there are Arabic features or letters that a radical was made for directly and a phonetic value that do not exist in the English alphabet was given. One of these features is the Hamza [ء] and its unique phonetic value is [chi], with "ch" as in "church". As you can see it is largely based on Arabic, because back then in high school, I didn't have the resources to get into Hebrew and Aramaic or other languages - all what I had in my pocket was Arabic and English.

Another example

The idea, for now, is to divide a word (after converting from Arabic to Latin) into syllables, and in each syllable there will be a leading part and the other is an effect on the leading part. Example:

Honey [عسل] = RLW

RL/W

Rung-wə

Only an Example

In this example above, the first syllable is [RL] and [W] is singular and it inherits a schwa (little short vowel almost unnoticed). In [RL] combination, "R" is the leading part, and "L" gives the effect of "ringing" with "-ung", and hence we end up with [rung]. Saying this, it means that for every radical or letter there should be two values given to it. A hard task I should say and the whole thing is not well-cooked yet. I need to formulate a big table with all the letters and make combinations of syllables. Finally, the whole system is supposedly to be memorized (like in any language) like people learning or speaking Chinese or Japanese would remember Hanzi and Kanji.
The idea is threatening. I never thought something from that era of high school, when it was the time that I've developed my interest in codes, ciphers and secret writings, never thought such ideas left behind more than 12 years ago, or in fact more than 15 years, would come back to this mind. It is a burden to my mind and I can't neglect it and it will be a burden over the time that I'm already screwing it up being unable to manage it properly to work on the various aspects of my life.

II. Camera Work:

Last weekend I've been to the beach around dawn time trying to capture that special light quality of that time. This time though, I didn't head to the vicinity of McDonald's on the seaside, but to a place near my home, and I wanted this place mainly to reach it as fast as possible before the sunrise begins. The place near McDonald's here would take me lot of traffic lights to pass and hence more delay to reach the place, while this location near by BK restaurant can be reached with almost no traffic lights in between (one only and doesn't make your day harder).

Caeli et Terrae

When I reached the place I started to work directly, but I was disappointed in the beginning because I was hoping for some clouds in the sky, and later the next day I found out that clouds form nicely somehow in McDonald's location as if the sky is different on both locations. Anyway, I had to forget about some long exposures with blurred skies for the time being, but then I headed downward when I saw some rocks showing (as the sea level was a bit down but not a complete low tide), and there, I've tried to do some long exposure experiments, but the adventure just began when I had to go with all these clothes on me and trying to stand in between the rocks on a muddy ground.

Nuclear Morning

With many trials, using the 18-55mm lens and holding the pack of ND filters in my teeth and wearing the camera backpack on my back, I did some long exposures but not exceeding one minute, as 60 seconds do really sound such a long time with all the struggle with the tools in the middle; it is a time when I thought I must hire someone. However, the sun was going up and up and finally I shot a 30 seconds exposure for the scene, which turned out to be better than the other 60 seconds shots. Also, something weird happened (which happened before in fact) when the original image was actually purple or violet and I had to fix the WB. Probably because the WB was set to Fluorescent. This same effect happened when I made one-hour exposure to my wall clock.

Hurry Up!

The colors were then fixed when the RAW file was edited. It seems that when using ND filters, the white balance becomes more critical and it is better to pick up the right one. Even though it can be fixed later on using the RAW editor, but after what I saw with such strange shades of purple and violet, I would say the results are unpredictable, and I wouldn't count on my luck every time to fix the colors that way.
In Nuclear Morning (a.k.a Den Nukleära Morgonen), I did an exaggeration with the WB to turn the image into a warm scene instead of the cold one (even the real scene was cold too).
The real struggle on location was to put the ND filters in the slots and re-focusing again and again. In the beginning I used 5 stops (ND8+ND4) but then I added 3 more stops (ND8) and the total became 8 stops. Such situations make me wish if I can use the welding glass, which alone would provide for 11 stops at once. Re-focusing the lens was done manual each time I put a new ND slide, mainly because of the low light level which won't make the autofocus function properly. At the end, I had a minor accident when I dropped one of the ND filters, and I would need to clean it with special cleaners then.

Working with long exposures of course didn't hold me back from taking some HDR sequences, which turned out well. I tried to keep them normal as much as possible (i.e. no dramatic light) but there was a scene that sparked my imagination a bit while working it out in Photoshop.

Unbekannt (Unknown)

Right now and after this little adventure in this mayhem, I have the urge now to do some panorama in the open there somewhere in between the rocks, with such cold weather. Something to think about for some time, and in winter, it is certainly hazardous.
Away from that, and just for fun, a scene at home captured my eyes. After going around with my camera and tripod, I decided to go for a two-shot stitch, which also had its own errors! I wasn't using the VR-head of course...

Esperando El Amor
(waiting for love)

Dramatic effects while tone-mapping gave out some nice views, but that wasn't really my intent. I just wanted it some how dark and gloomy a bit. Manual tone-mapping was a fail from my side, as usual, so I got back to Photomatix as usual. However, many other adjustments were made later in Photoshop, specially the glamor haze in the highlights. A picture that comes in a time in which I need every quark of hope in my heart...