Kika XI…

Honestly, I was too tired to even start typing this blog post. Thus, probably this one would be somewhat a short post. I think there is nothing weird with being tired, recalling my usual back pain sometimes, and my hectic life or routines everyday. There had been days that I wouldn't eat any lunch or dinner even. Anyway, it is time now for Kika's photo challenge, and this time with Week 11.

Kika XI

At this level of the photo-challenge, I got very busy with my brother and his studies and I barely had the capability or that piece of mind (pun intended) to work with the camera or to think of something new, or even to just edit. Well, editing is what I did but after some long time of searching and reflecting. The theme for the 11^th week challenge was "Weather." And of course, you can't speak about weather, in Kuwait, without speaking about the sun and summer. Because, well, this IS the weather of Kuwait! What else do you expect here?

Sunny

For this photo-challenge, as I've stated before, I didn't take any new shots, but I've referred back to some old shots, specifically some of those that I've shot in the shining morning sun of May of 2020, during a total lock down back then. I remember I was testing all my infrared filters back then and this particular shot was probably made with Neewer IR950 filter (and of course using my modified Canon EOS 7D). To be honest even, it seems, for some good reason, the shot was taken with B+W 043 black filter (UV-pass filter).
If I remember correctly, this image was processed differently back when it was taken in May, but for this particular photo-challenge, I've processed it again with a huge crop to the image to let the focus go to the eyes specifically. Not sure what type of processing I used here but I'm sure it is not the typical IR processing that I would usually follow which typically turns the image into almost a monochromatic one. Adding also some more emphasis on the luster of the eyes.
With this, the photo-challenge almost comes to an end with only one week left. Actually I could've done week 12 here as well but I'll leave it for another week. The last image posted for Week 12 is, again, an old one.

Bubbly

At this point, I come to the bubbles project which I've postponed previously. It's a photo shoot that spanned several days; Trying a new method or technique every now and then. The final result was more than 90 images (which have been processed and published).

Final setting

In the process, I've tried several ways to light the bubbles and also worked with 2 lenses (50mm and 100mm macro). I'd say though that the 100mm macro did fit most of the shots. Those shot with the 50mm needed a great deal of crop. Now, I don't want to go on with the story in length, but the goal initially was to shoot a bubble at the bursting moment. Though I succeeded only with 2 shots but nevertheless, the collection of these colorful bubbles was worth the lengthy work. 

Bubblosphere LXVIII
(one of the bursting bubbles shots)

It would have been better if the bursting shot was done in midair but unfortunately, as usual, I had to work alone. So, most of the work was done on a stable ground (used an oil burner as a base for the bubbles) and I've been moving around, blowing the bubbles and taking the shots.
Speaking of bursting, that calls, of course, to the usage of high-speed. However, that was not done right away. I was actually having some trial-and-errors with the lights and I've been using several lighting methods, and even a handheld beauty-dish to light the bubbles. Anyway, turns out that the perfect lighting angle for the bubbles is to be (as seen in many videos on Youtube) from above. The  final setting can be seen in the image above, where I used a white board hung over the work area to bounce the light from all my speedlites below. I had to do it that way since I don't have a softbox.

Bubblosphere XX
(shot with handheld beauty-dish)

Worth noting that despite this number of speedlites (and the supplies of batteries!), I still needed to raise the ISO a bit to get a proper lighting level in the images. Normal I'd say, since bouncing the light or even diffusing it would cause such loss of power anyway. Though at such moment I would appreciate some light source with AC input instead of DC batteries! Ah well…

Worth noting also that I've been doing some stroboscopic experiments before all of this work as well but the results were not quite to my liking but I've merged several images into a single ones (and I've posted about them few posts ago in Kika's photo-challenge about Colors).
Anyway, to summarize it all, I've made a video containing all these images. If you are reading this and wish to get any of these, you can find the full collection on my Canstockphoto profile (you can also click the signature at the end of this post) and some of them had been accepted as well on 123RF. 

 

 

Finale

As I've stated in the introduction of this post, I've quite lazy (or tired) to type down this post. This makes me think of having a break after doing the last post about Kika's photo-challenge in two-week time from now. Not sure how long this break would be but I think I just need it not only for physical reasons, but also to build up some content as I'm actually too tired to hold my camera or even to think of anything new.
As time is ticking, it seems that I will be back to work around the end of July or the beginning of August. I don't want to start talking about the stress that I'm already living in since I heard the news. I'll be back to the rush hours, and even more, more stress at work because of the events that took place there during our days off (around one year and a half). I'm all alone there and surely ugly things will be hitting the fan. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for sparkles of hope to shine as I'm looking forward to get my medical retirement if possible for retinitis pigmentosa, specially before moving to the new location which further away from my home, and it will surely cause me hectic time in driving to there. So many ideas, so many thoughts, and all cramps my brain rendering me paralyzed. All I can do is pray, and send my heart with hopes across Heavens…

Kika IX…

Kika IX

And on with the 9^th Week in Kika's challenge, which bore the topic of "color". This theme kind of coincided with a separate work that I was planning for and working on away from the Kika series, and just happened that the photos I've shot were full of colors; Though in abstract sense. And that is my work with the bubbles. However, the work with the bubbles, then, was still in its beginnings and I didn't quite find a valid or perfect way to capture these bubbles, and yet was doing some stroboscopic and macro experiments. Anyway, I think I will keep the majority of these posts for later, but for the time being, I'm just going to post those that I've dedicated specifically to Kika's photo-challenge with "color" as a theme.

Bubbly
Some abstracts shot with a macro lens.

The first problem with the bubbles was not being able to blow a proper bubble, so instead of having one big bubble, there was a cluster of small bubbles, Not wanting to lose the chance, I've decided to shoot those anyway. With a bit of processing, colors popped out more. Not sure why, but these images brings me nostalgia for rainy winter days, specially in my old home.

Set A

Then, there are the trials with stroboscopic flash. As for Kika's photo challenge, I've posted only one set, and that is Set A. Now, the reason for this name is that this image is made up of various images and not a single one, all shot in stroboscopic flash. Because of the empty spaces in each image of those, I thought it might be a good idea to combine them altogether and fill the gaps with other photos in the series. Then there is another series, and that was dubbed as "Set B" but I didn't post it for this theme of Kika's photo challenge. I'll keep that set when it's due when I'll be talking about the bubbles project.
Anyway aside from bubbles, I still had one last try here, and posted it on Instagram on the last day for Week 9 challenge.

Pantone Eye

The idea in the beginning was far from the photo challenge really, as taking a macro shot of my eye was something I wanted to do in a long time. I did it before but usually with 50mm or 50mm plus extension tubes (which provides moderate magnification of 1x or a bit more). This time I was aiming for a bit more but with me failing to get any good perspective, I reduced my ambition down to 2x magnification.
It's not the first time I do take a shot of my eye but with such magnification it was so hard; harder than before even. I had to use a hand mirror and hold it behind the camera to see the LiveView in order to frame correctly. Barely made it there actually with few shots with proper lighting. As the lighting goes, I had to hold two 430EX II near my face (and feel the heat of the pulse!).

Pantone Eye (details)

As the title goes, I thought of coloring the iris to pantone's color of the year (2021) which had a hex value of #F5DF4D. I thought this would also be suitable for the theme of Kika's photo challenge for Week 9. Anyway, coloring was not an easy process; It's not as simple as picking a brush and go over the iris. But I wanted the iris itself to adapt this color to have a more natural look. Thus, I've color-picked somewhere in the brightest region of the iris and started twitching colors to arrive at the proper CMYK equivalent for #F5DF4D (I think that was 8,7,78,0 in CMYK). This might initially resemble the pantone color but of course these digital values would change as I downgrade the file from 16-bit, change the color space and save the file as 8bit JPG. But the visual outlook should be the same since I use conversion of color space and not assigning  the color space. In the end, for the love of details, I've created another image from the first one (a crop) to show more details from the iris. I just can't remember was that my right or left eye!

Oxeneye

Usually, when shooting macro outside, I wouldn't go beyond 1x or 1.5x magnification. Even with such magnification, it is quite a hurdle to get a stable shot. Anyway, I've decided to take this further up, using my Voigländer 20mm lens (in reverse) and reaching up to 4.2X, and shooting outside. It was March, so many blooming plants were still available, in contrast to the situation now in May, as the temperatures already started to reach beyond 40°C here. So, my work begins with the oxeye bloom, or in fact it could be something of that family but not exactly the oxeye daisy itself, as the petals for the bloom here are yellow instead of white.

عَيْنُ الأُقْحُوانِ
(oxeye eye)

I have to admit, despite the hurdles and difficulties (and the back pain) for setting up the tripod and the camera (with or without a rail), the view at 4.2X for such small parts of the flower is simply amazing! I used to work afternoon when the sun is almost gone and not shining on the yard; This way it would be easier for the camera to communicate with my handheld 430EX II speedlite via infrared. Otherwise, it would be impossible to shoot using a speedlite unless I use a cable or a radio transmitter, which I don't have at the moment. Holding the speedlite freely at hand also enabled me to change the light direction and experiment with the looks by changing the light direction and distance even. 

عَيْنُ الأُقْحُوانِ 2
(oxeye eye 2)

As I've stated already, changing the light direction can make quite a difference in looks, as can be seen here in Oxeye Eye and Oxeye Eye 2. In the former, the dark background wasn't quite to my liking (hence cropping to get closer to the stamen), while in the latter, the background was harmonious to some extent in terms of color (keeping the foreground darker a bit). All that change was done by changing the direction of the speedlite and/or its distance from the flower. And it's not only the background here in fact, but also the texture of the stamen's surface popped out clearly (well, in the former version it is clearer because of the crop). Probably with a lesser than 4.2X, such texture won't be visible much.

Cornered

Probably the awkward part of shooting at such high magnification and shooting such a subject, is fixing the composition. In fact, as I was working behind the camera keeping an eye on the LiveView, I would have snapped any clear details I could get there. Images like Cornered and Last were originally aimless without concrete composition, but I've tried to fix things by cropping, sometimes to some severe measures here. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I'm guessing that more professional photographers in the world of extreme macro photography do have their own techniques to pinpoint the composition properly. As for me, it was a mere trial-and-error and a game of chance!

Last

Finale

Something is going on with my mind and body lately, and I just can't figure what it is exactly. I've been lethargic most of the time and taking a nap after a nap, after a sleep. I'm starting to wonder if this is a normal thing to have at 40? Or should I say 42, if I want to count my age according to the lunar years. Is this part of what they call the "mid-life crisis"? Or it's just a fleeting influence or transit from the planets upon my life and would soon go away? Or maybe it's just escapism at its best? I'm hoping, as I really need to get going and work with my camera more.
I'm still going on with the process (and the bureaucracy) of attaining my "special needs" papers. And who knows, I might work on getting a medical retirement afterward, but the long from here is long and hard to speculate. I'm not sure I'm going to attain the retirement yet. It sounds inevitable though, specially with the move of my workplace to a new location which is double the distance from home almost; I can't imagine myself driving that much on a daily basis, twice a day. My body is not what it was in my 30s and 20s. Trying hard not to think ahead about it but my brain can't stop flipping the channels.
As days pass by here, I just realize how awesome it would have been if I had my own home, and yet how hard it is to gain one. Even my trials years back to settle down and get my own place were never fulfilled, and interrupted with my mother falling sick for kidney failure. I was the main carer for her for 3 years then and I've totally forgot about myself then. More chances came in later, and never worked out, and now here I am… at 40, not knowing where am I heading, nor what I'm supposed to do, or what to be…

Visionary…

Well, I'm struggling here to keep my mood swings off the ground a bit till the time for my vacation arrives. I'm trying to squeeze my mind to extract some more ideas for the project of the month of May which is about colors. Yet, however, when I tried to do something, I've gone out with a completely different experience and experiment. The bad thing about it is that I had to work with high ISO here since I didn't want to use speedlites. Explanation for not using them will come shortly.

Visionary

I won't go over my original idea which was about colored sticks and a glass of water, but I'm going to move right away into the application of the second idea which came to live, even though it did not involve colors as I hoped so.

Vivid Dream I
Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/2.8, 400^-1s, ISO3200.

The idea was simply to display an eye image (ahem, my eye) on my tablet and cover the tablet with a lasagna glassware, then filling the glassware with water. The goal was to achieve some kind of movement, distraction, or any kind of action that could possible mimic the sense of a vivid dream with a fuzzy looking eye. However, to aid me with this, I had to add corn syrup (didn't have glycerine) to the water and use a milk frother to disturb the water and produce some action and bubbles. Any liquid works here I guess but I think anything else would add color and maybe unwanted level of foam (like soap for example); Thus, corn syrup was just about enough for me here.
In the beginning I did indeed use ND filter to lengthen the exposure time considerably, but that length in fact hid all the action; I guess I didn't learn my lesson from hunting clouds with long exposures yet! Thus, I've removed the ND and decided to shoot normally. The blur produced by the moving water did, in general, look like a motion blur of some unstable hand, which is not something I was aiming for. Meanwhile, I noticed how the bubbles were interesting enough to make some kind of vivacity in the scene. Capturing them needed some shutter speed (i.e. short timing). Not wanting to use Speedlites here because they might make the situation worse with refraction and highlight spots, I've decided to work with Tv mode, and set the ISO to Auto. A Kamikaze plan, I know. My little cropped Canon EOS 7D surely does not do well with high ISO and heat. However, so let it be.
I've shot most shots at 400^-1s shutter speed, but seems even that was somewhat slow and I needed something faster at some point (but didn't discover that until the examination of these images closely). The ISO here ranged from 2000 to 4000. A Catastrophe.

Turbulent Dream
Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/4, 30^-1s, ISO400.

By the end of this experiment, I was back again to try and shoot something with motion blur which I did, and produced something surreal of some sort after winding the ISO back to 400 (still high to my measures) as seen in Turbulent Dream. Not sure why I stopped at ISO400 and not ISO100, but probably it would make the exposure so long that all turbulence would simply disappear. In total, there were 8 shots, so here are the other 6:

Vivid Dream II

Vivid Dream III

Vivid Dream IV

Vivid Dream V

Vivid Dream VI

Vivid Dream VII

Of all in this series, only Vivid Dream VII undergone a special treatment somewhat as I applied Pinch filter to make the bubbles' circles seemingly more directed to the center of the image around the iris. The effect was slightly applied and not in extreme way, otherwise it would be more like a graphic surreal design instead of a surreal photo!
Now, the critique about these images was fine but with one problem here: the noise. For this reason I might need to do the experiment again, and this time I have to go with another risk: using speedlites. However, I'll try to make speedlites as diffused as possible, despite the fact that I'll be using HSS mode which will reduce the power of the single flash lighting significantly. Anyway, all that is on hold for now, since I have to get busy (really busy) with my colors project for the month of May, as the month is getting closer to its end and I didn't achieve a single proper photo yet!

Finale

Well, this was a short trip into what I've been doing lately. Too bad I didn't capture any further images with the colors project yet, otherwise I would have posted them here. Meanwhile, I'm looking for a good topic to write about in my other Arabic blog as I didn't post any articles in some time now. I'm thinking about talking about High Pass Sharpening method. Anyhow, I should start ASAP to be over with it by next Thursday. That means, also, I won't be posting in this blog next week.
Good news here: I have to get ready to start my own vacation during Ramadhan, as I've signed for one. Remembering the hell I used to go through last summer with traffic jams at work itself, all that, makes me freak out thinking how things would be this Ramadhan in this summer. They say this would be the last Ramadhan to arrive at summer and will not fall during summer again till after 26 years from now! Something to joy about I guess? The question is though, would I be able to use that time to work more with my camera, as well as some of the postponed projects? Till then…

Black-Out…

It's been some tiresome 2 weeks, so this is just going to be a quick wrap. I'm still enrolled in some workshops which I'm trying to get over with. Unfortunately, for some reasons related to the lecturer (the founder of our group), things got to be delayed a bit. Anyhow, my Abstract Photography workshop is over, yet no concrete results yet. I tried my best trying to make up some ideas but to no avail. I usually shoot abstract which already exists, but this workshop was about "creating" abstract and play with ideas; and let's not talk about how hard it was to make up an idea from scratch! In fact, I've never made up an idea; I was solely playing with techniques. Afterwards, there is an ongoing workshop about the philosophy of colors, which also required some assignment to do. Anyway, things on hold now for some private matters.

One of the abstract shots of marbles.
Canon EF 100mm macro, f/7.1, 400^-1sec, ISO200.

Meanwhile, I've abandoned my idea for shooting a bursting bubble. It seems to be a pure team work needed with this one, and for someone like me, it is hard to be get it at that. Add to that, I cannot yet get the right mix or tools to have good bubbles production. Thus, I want to invest my time doing something else for the time being, beside the assignments for my workshops. Also, I do have some specific projects in my mind. All that will be done with the help of flashguns.

Probably the best single bubble shot I've made so far.
Used Dark Field technique: white background, black sides.
Sigma 70-300mm @70mm, f/16, 4000^-1, ISO400.
Used three flashes on HSS mode against the background:
2x 580EX II + 1 x 430EX II

I'm having some weird issues with my flashguns and cables; specifically, the 10m (~33ft) long cable, and my newest 580EX II flashgun in particular. Researching the issue a bit, it seems that 580EX II does indeed have some glitches and that's why it was hard to find (and it's discontinued already). Anyway, I can always rely on making it a slave after all. It is just a matter of time before converting completely to radio systems though (which is more expensive). Till the utmost need urges so, I'm not going to get into the radio systems for the time being. However, I'm gonna have some hard time because of that long cable.

Source: Amazon

On the other hand, I finally got my new "toys" but I still could not try my new lens for real. I don't have the time, yet! I also got a new book, which I'm not sure how to start reading, but for the time being I've read 2 pages or 3 in bed along with some other (thick) book which I'm supposed to read since last year!! Yes, such a stuffed schedule, and mind. The book is about the so-called Visual Design. Something I think I do need indeed in the current time specially that I want to work on converting ideas into photographs and kick in some creative work. I'm not sure if it is just a temporary black-out for my brain or it is indeed a basic problem with my own imagination trend, but I feel paralyzed and unable to achieve something unique with my camera away from the panorama trend and landscapes. Well, not portraiture as I completely have lost interest in that field specifically. In addition to this book, I've also ordered a stack of 3D (anaglyph) glasses (100 pieces) which I'm planning to put to some good use when circumstances allows it!

Now, I think it is time to add a bit more to my forgotten website, and check out more for chances to add artwork to stock sites as well. I think I can call this as a real work since I'm not doing any real work (or gaining real respect) in my own workplace. If only I can have my enough of sleep…