What The Heck?

What the hell is going on??? This winter is just a puddle of murky water which doesn't move! No activity, just a dormant life and busy busy mind and technically like a paralyzed person who can't reach out for his camera. There are good points however in this time of the year but still I didn't achieve what I was aiming for! I didn't go out to do some photography at night; my favorite time, in my favorite season of the year!
Anyway, in the meantime, I've been busy doing some other work here and there (mostly in front of the monitor here) and specifically working on posts for my Ayvarith conlang on Instagram. It's not only to spread the word about Ayvarith, but it is also for me to revive my memory a bit! Needless to say how much I did forget about the Bulughman and how the Geltani is on hold again after doing a tiny progress few weeks earlier. Also, I've been working on exploring some of the old panoramas, specially those from Ireland in 2010 from Cashel and Cahir in Co. Tipperary. There had been some inspiring results!

Manach ag Damhsa
(the dancing monk)

One of the first trial was the Hore abbey panorama from inside the abbey. I chose this specifically because of the architectural features and specifically the ceiling which had some Gothic-like or Celtic-like design and when stretched out it is more likely a resemblance of St Brigit's cross!
I had a theory before that places with ceilings specifically are more adequate for such twisted panoramas done in Mercator projection; I think Manach ag Damhsa proves this fact. This panorama got a lot of positive feedback and my group displayed it in the group's gallery account on instagram (@bpf_gallery). The pillars here really played a great deal in making a swift-looking movement. Without those pillars it would have been probably a dull twist. I've previously done something similar, a vertical panorama for this specific scene, but it was slender and the sides had to be chopped off.
Anyway, these panoramas were done in the beginning of my journey in photography back then and it wasn't really an easy to ask to "redo" them again. There were some awful mistakes and some "smudges" where something went wrong in the exposure for that particular slide or HDR image in that angle; some were treated, some were not, simply because I didn't know what the HELL was going on there!

Ar an Snámh
(afloat)

For example, in Ar an Snámh the already-stitched panorama had somewhat like a doppelganger! The abbey had virtually some shady building behind as if covered by fog. Looking closely, I've realized these were stitching errors. I don't know how it did happen, but I surely had no time to fix all of that. Thus, I've just stitched it and made a small size out of it for display here. it is a nice effect I believe; gives an impression of fantasy and surrealism. Could be a good option for some panorama maybe (specifically those with open top, or those which got no ceiling). Some panoramas, also, showed that annoying problem of color patches which I still don't quite know what causes it, and apparently I didn't have the time to redo all the HDR merging again and stitching again. Thus, the natural option was to convert to B&W.

Gairdíní Crochtaí
(hanging gardens)

I'm not so attracted to this one; Gairdíní Crochtaí in fact never was in other forms to tell the truth. Probably the best to be is just a flat spherical panorama for this scene. To get rid of those annoying colored spots, I had to convert to B&W (and even then I had problems with tones). It was a great deal of work here trying to show some details and hide some, keep some details dark and lighten some. Some patches or zones in the panorama had a smudging problem which was hard to resolve before stitching and after that, thus again converting to B&W was the solution.

Caisleán Seilide
(snail castle)

Further I went on and completely went out of my mind when I was struggling with Cahir castle. One of the panoramas done there (in the main yard of the castle) had a strange problem which could be related to a misalignment maybe: the edges of the castle itself were glowing as if it was a halo effect. It is not a halo effect as this white line is sharp and not fuzzy or soft like the halo effect. I'm completely blank about this problem. Anyway, the idea for creating Caisleán Seilide was inspired as I was moving around with the coordinate system under the planet projection (as usual) and notice how some parts of the castle are longer than the others. The only thing I regret about this panorama specifically, maybe, is that I tone-mapped it in Photoshop. It did a fine job but probably it was harder to make a drama out of this panorama specifically. All of the above panoramas were merged in HDR slides first using an older version of Photomatix, and I didn't bother to redo the merging again to see if these problems would just disappear.

Back to reality. It seems I'm left now with some of the final images I could be working with from my travel to Ireland in 2014. Mostly floral and I got to say, they are mostly cliché. But there was some promising venture in those.

An Ghrian Gorm
(the blue sun)

Many of these shots did need a work in the focal depth; I had to mimic a shallow depth (using Lens Blur) to the background to isolate the foreground better (since my lens didn't do its job well in the very beginning!). It is a really hard work and a painstaking job, since you have to go around selecting the specific areas only that need to be protected (or blurred) before applying the blurring effect. For this reason I do expect many glitches in the original image despite the fine look when in small size like An Ghrian Gorm above. I see this radiating effect of blue and purple pleasing (despite being oversaturated at times), thus I decided to do another one.

Corcra chun Goirm
(purple to blue)

But the real catch was an architectural detail from Ashford castle (or its periphery to be precise). It began as a play, then developed into a serious venture which I'm trying to do over and over again whenever I get the chance for such play.

Stánóir an Óir
(gold gazer)

I have to say that from far away, Stánóir an Óir does look like a person with closed eyes. It started with a half face of the statue (which was on the top of the tunnel entrance leading to the walled gardens of Ashford castle). I did previous edit such a shot and wanted to do something different here but didn't know what exactly. Suddenly the whole "vision" started when I played around with the contrast if I remember correctly; then I thought this is a good chance to concentrate the light in specific areas and darken the rest to make a dramatic look. So it was, and the rest was a Photoshop game. Originally, Stánóir an Óir is just a half face, but then it was duplicated and the duplicate is flipped horizontally and attached to the rest to make for a complete face! Then there was a nose and lips job (yes like in cosmetics) to enhance the look a bit. The awkward point here is that the nose is actually somewhat out of focus but probably not that obvious after all. I had to do sharpening twice or thrice to increase the visual impact, while the golden patches were simply a result of adjusting the white balance in RAW before opening in Photoshop. Thus, a dull white statue was transformed dramatically, first by RAW editing, then by Photoshop. I'm looking now for more instances of this sort to work out my mind about it a bit. I think it is a good chance to vent creativity a bit instead of this dull winter season I'm having.

Finale

Things are going slow and sluggish, and I'm trying my best to enjoy my time as much as possible throwing back all the hardships. I'm trying to synthesize a feeling of carelessness deep within me, specially when it comes to conditions at work.
We had a meeting lately and I had to participate and the end result is a bit perplexing. According to one of the members of the committee that manages my workplace said that I did a pretty good job and I should participate more in such meetings when they are due (usually I'm not part of it). This is a good thing because it is encouraging and, well, someone expresses how valuable I am, but on the other hand there is a gloom lurking, as it means more responsibility and a careful venturing in that domain, in a time when all I'm thinking of is myself and my leisure, and doing what I like to do.

Source: Amazon

I'm in the process of reading an interesting book here, which I've brought with me from Dublin's airport, but didn't start reading it except of late. The book is by Daniel Kahneman, and as it says on the cover, Kahneman is a Nobel laureate. Kahneman is a psychologist and discusses many (logical) psychological issues, specially those affecting the general public. I had some ideas specifically about the media, and this man here, a professor, did explain exactly what I perceived in the media under his term: Availability Cascade. I advice everyone reading this now to get this book. Ironically as the title says, Thinking Fast and Slow, I do find myself reading it slowly; probably mainly because the language is English with long passages and entwined terminology, but after all English is not my first language - I guess I should learn fast-reading in English. Saying that, I'm doing some effort as well in learning Irish, at least in writing it for the time being!
I've been running errands in a continuous rhythm by now, every single day. Makes me think of a real vacation as well of doing nothing but sleep and walk somewhere nice. Alas, my duties are always calling for me…

In Failure We Trust...

Here we go, my new PC is finally online, and the process of keeping it up-to-date with the software arsenal is going on in fact. How much I'm relieved. I didn't feel such speed in ages!!
Because of the busy schedule (sleeping time is included in this statement) I couldn't do much work with my camera or with Geltani. Some mental work was involved here though. In a haste, anyway, I tried my luck with another peeling project which was not achieved as I wish (hence the title of this post!) but I got my lessons somehow.

Censer Censer Against The Wall

This week I've noticed that Mom had a small censer, other than the one that I've already used in a previous experiment to capture smoke. The new censer is small and thin and quite seductive to my eyes because of the curves it has, but all of that proved to be a real challenge later for the peeling work (which was never done right here up to this moment).

The previous censer.

The new censer.

This time, and because of the shape of the new censer, I've decided not to light the object from above like I did previously with the mug peeled mug shot. I've realized that if this is done, then the thicker top part will cast a shadow to the bottom. Hence, I've decided to use both of my speedlites (580EXII and 430EXII) on the left and right of the censer - a decision that I've regretted later.
One of the critical aspects of this object is its relative small size, and hence, any small offset from the center of the rotation was drastically apparent in the series of the shots taken (meaning the objects won't be rotating around its own axis, but it will move in a circle around a common center!). Another problem was, as usual, the tilt of the images taken which was not so obvious until the images were examined on PC.

One of the trials done for peeling.

As you can see above, the final stitch had many errors and mainly it became a fan-shaped stretch instead of (relatively) flat stitch. This is mainly because of off-center movement mentioned above which means the base would look nearer and further on different angles as the object rotates. This was also evident when the mug peeling effect (posted in previous posts) but the general size was larger and the offset did not show in a drastic way as in this experiment.
Notice also that the top portion (top right) of the stitch has broken lines and not a smooth stitch. In my mug experiment, when this happened, it meant that I need to narrow my crop or the slit from which PTGui should scan to make the connecting lines smoother. Here, however, this was not possible. The above example is stitched at -/+8^o from a common central point (picked by comparing the minimum and maximum extensions of the body to the left and right during its rotation), meaning the total angle was 16^o.

Cross-hair marks added on feature-less sides to help on stitching later.

Notice here that I've added cross-hair mark by pencil on the censer itself to aid the stitching process, but I have to say it didn't help much in this situation. Going lesser than 16^o for the crop caused much hassle an PTGui would miss a lot of the matching points. One of the ironic things is, why did I use 180^o in previous posts to measure the different in pixels, while I can measure the number of pixels for each degree simply by measuring the move in two successive shots of 5^o.
I've mentioned above that I've regretted using both speedlites on the left and the right of the censer. I've realized this fact while working on PC and comparing images to establish some control points. The thing is, the body is not unique in its shape and has many protruding features, which means shadows on the body itself. However I try to balance the lights from both directions it was almost impossible to eliminate the shadows completely. The problem of the shadows is, as the body rotates, the shape of the shadows will change eventually, making the stitching and matching control points even harder. Maybe I should have proceeded with speedlite from the top as I did before (or one from the bottom, but I would need a glass surface below the censer as it rotates).

Comparison between two shots few degrees away. Notice the change in the shadows and the light levels.

It wasn't till I've installed DxO Optics again when I fixed the tilt perfectly. DPP (Canon's software) was not much of a help and cumbersome when I tried it. Probably the less problematic stitch was achieved when the images were corrected with DxO.
As I was going on to find a solution to the problem, I've tried to make the crop literally by Photoshop. I'm lucky now that I have a faster Photoshop (32- and 64-bit) and what would take 30 minutes is done in the matter of 30 seconds or even less! Anyway, such method didn't work as well, and even blending in Photoshop didn't go much far away with the results than PTGui did. However, one interesting experiment in Photoshop yielded something of fractal-art quality I would say and I really liked the result and might upload it later to some stock sites as an abstract art.

Fractal Censer (blend of 72 images)

I'm not sure how the colors were produced in the image in that way, but I do appreciate abstract art anyway and I don't mind the extra colors!
I need to go further and study this matter further. I might try to do it later but one thing for sure: I need a new base for rotating, as the current one is not precise with its center of rotation.

Γλώσσες

As I've mentioned in the beginning, I didn't spend much time doing a practical examination for Geltani, but there were some mental notes, specially that I've started reading a book about learning Turkish. Well, I'm not intending to delve much deeper into the language itself as of to speak it, but it did give me some insight on some matters (mainly grammatical) that were absent from my mind even during the make of Ayvarith.
However, I'm not intending to copy-paste features from real Turkish into Geltani but it is worthwhile to think about some grammatical cases and special verbs. Turkish, being somehow similar to Arabic in some aspects, got a special features in its verbs to denote the verb that acts on itself, and the verb that acts on something else (sorry I don't know the exact name of this grammatical case). Just to explain, here is a simple example:

Arabic

Study: daras [درس] (someone studies on his or her own).

Teach: darras [درّس] (someone teaching or making someone study).

Turkish

Study (learn): öğrenmek.

Teach: öğretmek.

Notice that in English the two verbs are completely different, and this is how Ayvarith used to work. In Turkish and Arabic, despite the critical difference in roots, they do act according to some basic regulations to formulate verbs that act on their own, and those which act on something else. The question is now, how to implement this with Geltani? Leave Geltani; What about Bulughman - an artificial language that I've made it sound like a Turkic language?

In Geltani, the verbs are derived from the noun (mentioned that in previous posts). Hence, the noun "flight" is used with suffixes and prefixes to make the verb "fly". However, I don't have a clear idea yet of how to formulate a verb that expresses the action "made something fly". Would I have to introduce auxiliary verbs in such instances? How that would sound and look with the dilemma of the writing system already? Too much thought and my mind is so tired of thinking much into this matter for the time being. In hope that all this mental power will be boosted after Ramadhan.

Finale:

It was relatively a busy and a tiresome week that just passed me by. I just can't wait to get into the regular time-table. I think what really wears me off is that the whole community goes under a time shift making working in the usual way, for someone who is used to fasting, a hard task to do (with waiting).

Earlier this week, there was a meeting for photographers invited by HIPA of Dubai, to introduce and identify the HIPA reward in its third session. I tried to attend, but with the delay in the opening which was supposed to take place at around 9:00 p.m., and me being awake since 6:00 a.m. to pick up for dialysis and then back home to work on something else, made a 30 minutes of delay such a great displeasure. Thus, at around 9:30 a.m. I've left the scene, before the ceremony would even start.

However, during the waiting time, I've met a friend who was a member of the photography group I'm in, and left after some tensions with the management. As expected there was a chitchat about the quality and the functions of the group, but I have to say he had some points that I share, yet, I'm really so tired of all that tension between photographers in here. It is largely a talk of money-making, and how things are done, but I didn't hear much about the philosophy behind photography. This friend pointed out to some photographers and mentioned to me some names, and when I answered, simply, that I don't know any of these guys (who apparently are famous in their fields) he said "Whom do you know then if you don't know these?". I replied: I'm working with the camera since 2007 for my amusement and never made a contact with Kuwaiti photographers up till 2012 when I joined the group, and now I'm regretting that I've been social with other Kuwaiti photographers. No offense, not to say all are bad, but surely it is something that probably I should regret. I got myself into struggles and wrestles that I should not have been into. I can't remember when was the last time I talked with a Kuwaiti photographer about the art of photography or its philosophy and its meanings; It was mostly a talk dominated by money and gear, and nothing else. Useless talk if you ask me.

Next Saturday it is scheduled to have a meeting to sort out some images. I'm sure I'm going to have another batch of disappointments. The sorting process is aimed for Cyprus photography contest and I'm not sure how it works, but it is apparent that registration is for single photographers and not groups. What I've noticed that in most contests, the most renowned photos are those of exotic places and/or those of portraits and people shots. Now, how am I supposed to get into exotic places (specially with my situation being stuck now with Mom to care for her)? And am I supposed to do something I hate just to please the judge? Am I supposed to please the judges to get some good results in a contest, or am I supposed to do photography for my own sake? The answers to these questions lead me straight to the belief of the futility of such contests in my case and made me even less interested in them. I'm not supposed to take a burden just to have a photo. I'm supposed to please myself in the first place, despite all the criticism I'm receiving from the group.

Peace of mind is a precious thing, and simplicity, I reckon, should be in the core of my goals. Yet, I ask myself, would life allow me to do so? Would there be someone who would help me to be so? The view is blurred...

Stop!

Another week without much activities with photography, but I've finally got my new notebook for conlangs. I've started pinning notes about basic elements of Geltani for the time being. Along with Geltani, there is a syllabary that I had to develop to write foreign names to Geltani. You can imagine this as being a Japanese writing Katakana along with Kanji. Will discuss that later.

I do have my own plans and pace for my own photography venue. With Mom's schedules taking 3 days from my week for dialysis and also because of my fasting right now for the month of Rajab (which I hope it would continue till the month of Sha'ban and then into Ramadhan), I barely find the power and the time to work with my camera outside or even think of something. Under these circumstances I've decided to abandon the Redbull project. Despite the fact that I've already prepared a plan to take 5 images telling a simple story for a A Day in Kuwait, yet the deadline is on May 20^th and I barely did something. However, there were other reasons that made me neglect this project:

• The deadline is too close as stated above and I don't have enough time with my current responsibilities.
• Some of my plans might require permissions and I'm absolutely in no mood to have a conflict with authorities or any hardships concerning that kind of activities outdoors.
• The conditions of Redbull were not so clear and frankly, I don't feel safe to submit my work to them.
• I had enough from time pressure and contests.

However, just for the fun of it (and who knows I might do these ideas later) I did sketch a plan for the process with 5 images and each image telling some phase in a typical day in Kuwait:

1. Morning: Sunrise; the beginning of a new day in Kuwait. This idea is already reflected in one of the panoramas I've done back in 2011.

   

   Towers of The Rising Sun

2. Traffic Jam: This is the phase of going to work. My plan was to shoot some traffic jam from a pedestrian bridge over some road, but having the problems I had in the past, I think my chances that this would pass safely is like 50% of even less. In periods of traffic jams cops are usually spread over the place and a person with a camera is not a favorable spotting.
3. Busy at Wok: For this phase, I was planning to shoot some office with a busy look (scattered papers, scattered furniture...etc). In fact, thinking about it right now, I might as well use one of my own panoramas which I've done in my own office in my work place including myself in the shoot!

   

   Busy at Work!

4. Evening: This is the period of family and friends visiting and the typical Diwaniyyah I'd say. For this idea, I was planning to do silhouettes by the help of my speedlites and some colored gels to light the background blue (reflecting evening time) while people laughing in the foreground. Might do this later even after abandoning the whole idea of the contest.
5. Night: This particular time I would have used it to reflect the safe atmosphere that we live in despite all of our problems. Initially my idea was to take a shoot of someone sleeping with the Towers of Kuwait in the background, but if this is done in the public, God knows what hurdles I have to put up with, specially with unnecessary people in the scene. I'm not a people's person and not so social, beside that, I might need a special permit to do such a thing in the public. The only alternative here is to do it with props in some studio or a room; yet, that won't have a great impact on the viewer I believe.

It was quite a brainstorming session for me to get out with some of these ideas, but I can't say I'm completely satisfied. Moreover, in the current time, I'm trying to prepare a dinner party if I should say, as a gratitude for friends in the photography group and out of the group as I've promised before - Just a tiny gift for Mom being out of the hospital. It should be on a Saturday, but apparently it won't the coming Saturday as there is no time for any kind of preparations right now.
Meanwhile, I'm looking further for other agencies of stock photos to submit my images to. I've long abandoned Fotolia and Bigstockphotos, while things are going smoothly with Canstockphotos and Mostphotos. One of the targets had been 123RF and Featurepics, but still looking for more outlets. I'm not that optimistic about Dreamstime, but I might try it again just for a change. Here and there, who knows what might come next from such websites.

Geltani Glossa:
As I've mentioned above, I've been working lately with Geltani further more and recording notes and trying to establish some basic elements of the conlang. Plurals, numerals, and many other things are all on papers right now, and when it's all over, I would need to do those digitally somehow but for sure without any fonts. It might be scanning all the way (and I'm having hard time with the scanner already!).

Scan of my notes with some scribbles of Geltani.

There are still though some basic stuff not settled down, like the sound of some driving letters (sorry folks, can't explain this all over again, it's in other posts already!). Some innovations and some regular rhyming must be added to the list to finish this task, I believe. On the scan on the left you can see some of the basic grammatical cases that I've been trying to settle down with. They had been changed from time to time and I think it is now the time to finish it one and for all. The plural is achieved by repeating the last syllable in the word, and drawing a special character for plurals. I'm not quite happy with repeating the last syllable method but this is the best I could think of for the time being. Would there be a change? Maybe!
One thing to be dealing with as well is creating a suitable transliteration system for pronunciation.

Primary Geltani Syllabary

On the other hand, I've sketched a primary syllabary for writing foreign names into Geltani. I say primary because these shapes are still under consideration. The system is like a mix of syllabary and abugida. I didn't want to put on more loads of vowels, thus I've pinned only 3 types of vowels and whenever the vowel is to be long, a marker is added on the syllable, while if the syllable is to be still (i.e. without a vowel) then it is done as in abugida systems; a marker is added below the syllable (as you can see in the scan). If there is a vowel in between (e.g. as "A" in way) then it is approximated to the closest vowel(s).
To make some twist in the whole conlang of Geltani, I've decided to make it sound like Chinese, yet with more sounds and consonants that aren't originally in real Chinese, mainly of Semetic origins like ħ [Arabic: ح], and there is some thought about adding the sound of Ayn [Arabic: ع] as well, but not now.

The complete picture of the grammar and the order sentence is still fuzzy in my brain but for some reason I'm not sure of, I do like the order of the sentence used in Sumerian and Akkadian (notice that those are REAL languages!), which is SOV (subject-object-verb). But I have to see further into this matter after the basics of the writing system are settled.
I've avoided, so far, working on several other conlangs (like Betenic and Bulughman) just to concentrate my efforts. Multi-tasking won't work here I guess, specially with such time schedule in such a mess.


Finale:
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This is what they say. It seems for the time being that I would conduct more experiments in the field of tabletop photography and product photography. Even though I've never considered it before because of the equipments that I must have with me most of the time to take most of such shots, but it seems the only solution available in my case; to try to innovate something and avoid being outdoors too much unnecessarily - in locations that bring problems. On the other hand, who knows, I might as well make a good idea and impression with such field to open up the fields for some financial gains in the future. However, I don't tend to be over optimistic in such matters. I just need to think of what to do next.
Some of my plans for the near future include shooting a censer, a silhouette (as mentioned above), objects dipped in water with some special effect and maybe custom bokeh effect. This is some of the ideas that I've been noting down in my photography note. Would there be someone interesting and interested in what I think, what I do, and share? That, gonna take such a long time as it seems... if any.

Free Fall...

Struggling struggles and fighting fights, all of that to keep coming out with new ideas for photography and other aspects of conlangs, amid the increasing responsibilities concerning the house. Well, I guess I'm glad I'm not married at such moments.
At least in this week, I got to test the trigger partially, and under the light of the new book I'm reading (and almost finished) I've got more insight about my mistakes. More to come below.

Source: Amazon

As I've mentioned in my previous post, I've ordered 3 books, and they are here already. Instead of reading 2 at a time as I usually do, I decided to concentrate better on one book at a time. The first one to pick was the Tabletop Photography book by rockynook. I would classify the book as general (because under tabletop photography, you can enroll product photography or food photography... etc) but it has some nice tips about the lighting and how to do some stuff with emphasis on low costs. It is really an encouraging book despite the lack of some technical data when dealing with the light but, anyway, I think the depth of such topics is out of the scope of this book. I've already almost finished the book!
While reading the fore mentioned book, I was working on my own experiment which is also my first real trial for the new trigger since I got it back in March. I've pointed some of the lacking points in my previous post and some of them (if not all) were very true. From my side, I had my own problem too with my own tools already (other than the trigger that is) and also, I didn't learn quite enough about such type of photography.

The setting I've worked with in my experiment. Sorry about the bad quality but this is what you get when you ask a non-photographer to take a photo with his iPhone. I think my brother never heard of the word "focus" before!

As you can see from the blurry image above, my brother never heard of the word "focus" before as it seems. My setting was simple (and the trigger is placed on camera) while I needed a long cord to connect the sound sensor to the trigger. The sensor was placed on the surface of the black sweep (if you can notice, it is a small tiny black box on the left side of the sweep, which is your right side). Luckily, I had such cord long time ago when I used to record some music for a friend!
I've used my both speedlites here on both sides but I think this is a wrong step. I will explain further below in form of points for easy reading. My target was to freeze the falling moment of some marbles.

Free Fall
Canon EF 50mm, f/7.1, 2500^-1sec, ISO100.

Many trials went on to check for position and light levels as well as the depth and the shutter speed required to freeze the moment. Believe it or not, a 800^-1sec shutter speed was not enough to completely freeze the moment, and some marbles kept on showing motion blur. Yes, I'm a physicist (or so my B.Sc. announces) but I don't have the time to count for the falling acceleration and velocity and check it out with my camera's shutter speed; besides, I really hated mechanical physics! However, let's move on to the points:

• I've used some marbles randomly here and with different sizes. The problem with Free Fall above is that two big marbles dominate the scene in the foreground and this is a bit distracting. It is a trial and error job after all but it might be better to use only one large marble or leave them all at the same size, I think.
• The positioning of the speedlites on two sides (but pointing in different directions) was a mistake I believe. Under the light of my new reading, I think the best method to conceive the feeling of glass in the air is to have a reflector on one side and reflecting the light off it. I think a narrow strip of some white board would do. I think this way would also help me on concentrating the power of the light in one direction to get an intensified effect from both speedlites under the operation of High-Speed mode, which reduces the brightness severely. This is way much better than scattering the power of the two speedlites in different directions.
• The prop or sweep I've used was not completely black, or let's say it reflects bright tones when light strikes it. Besides that, simple cleaning from dust particles was not enough for clearing the view. Anyway, I do recognize the importance of capturing a glimpse of the ground to emphasize the sense of falling, but this ground such as the one in Free Fall is not a favorite.
• With trials, it was evident that there is a time gap between capturing the sound and then sending the signal and triggering the camera - this is natural of course, but with time and trials, it seemed the time gap between these processes is getting bigger (bigger in terms of micro or milliseconds).
• Maybe it is not very clear in this situation, but probably I should start using a black board over my lens when I shoot up close to avoid any reflections from the camera onto the glass.
• The low level of the settings in general is not helpful and I think they better be up a bit. 

These were some of the points that crossed my mind so far and bearing them in my mind, I might work it out again some time later. I'm just glad that I've tried the trigger at least and I'm ready to write a review about it on B&H website. This is like a duty for me. In the mean time I have to think of something to do about the increasing number of tools and how to organize my room!

Linguae Artificiales:

In the course of developing some thoughts about the future of some of these conlangs I've created, I've decided to keep a regular notebook. Probably, a notebook for every conlang I'm trying to work on from now on. I've had this idea since I've been looking at my scattered leaflets on my desk at work with all scribbles for Geltani and figured it is really easy to lose track of ideas made before! For example, I'm still not sure of the possessive articles that I've made already nor I'm sure about the grammatical cases! I have to organize my stuff.
On the other hand I was thinking if it is possible to work on 3 conlangs altogether? Seems huge step but who knows! Geltani, Bulughman and Betenic; and probably Caqobian as well - an artificial language spoken hypothetically by Alexander, and the plan is to make it go along with Greek somehow. Ideas, ideas, ideas. This is all what I can promise of. If only I can get my brain to organize itself as well...

Geometria...

Here we go, another week, with not much of activity, but at least I'm trying to grease the engine slowly. In the meantime, I do have something for mathematics and geometry still going on in my mind so far since the time when Mom was in the hospital, and that made me think of some weird stuff - simple, but weird I'd say. I'll come to that later on. Also, the group sent me (or maybe I should say put me in front of the cannon) for an interview on TV regarding aluminum prints. Ironically, I have nothing to do with this, except that I was "supervising" the printing process for the expo back in March. It went well (and short) but I have problem getting and viewing the video from the TV channel's youtube channel, mainly because they used a copyrighted topics and issues in their show which made the episode unwatchable in Kuwait! Thank you guys!

As for Mom, her health is progressing, specially that she started to head to the kitchen often and THAT is a very good sign in general, yet, personally and for my own state of mind, I won't feel comfortable until the number of dialysis processes that should be done per week is reduced. At the current time, we have to pick her to the dialysis center (luckily near my working place) 3 times a week, and each session takes around 4 hours. As far as I know (and some by logic), doing dialysis on the long run can cause more hibernating to the kidneys (because dialysis is doing what the kidneys should do) and that would weaken the body even more, beside weakening the immune system naturally. Two things that I don't wish Mom to be acquainted with.

Grease:

Source: B&H

It's been a month or a bit more since I've got the Ubertronix Strike Finder Elite for triggering the camera (or flash as it seems), but unfortunately I'm still unable to work out any ideas to work with it. Sure, water drops and splashes seem to be an obvious target but they are cliches by now. I was trying to find something new or some creative venture within these two topics (water drops and splashes). Since I couldn't think of any, I've tried at least to do some testing for the device.
The Ubertronix seem to work fine except for few awkward delicacies!

• The wires of the sensors (for sound and motion) are short, but probably can be lengthened by some means.
• The device contains no controls for the sensitivity of detection (specially when it comes to sound detection).
• The port used for connection to the camera also bears "Flash" on it, but in the instructions manual there is no explanations involving triggering flashes instead of cameras. Could that be with the help of the PC port in the flash itself?
• Motion and Laser detection seem a bit unpredictable. 
• The sensors for sound and motion with their short cord are also hard to be placed. Probably duct tape is due in some situations. They are in a bulky rectangular box shape and because of the sturdy cord it can be hard to make them stay flat on a table for example or make them still on their sides.

These might be some awkward points, otherwise, the device works in a wonderful way. I think even the Laser detector can be used as a motion detector but I'm not sure of that yet and I need to do more experimentation.

Rising Eye
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm & 35mm tubes, f/11, 400^-1sec, ISO100.

On the other hand, I was trying to catch some eyes with the help of extension tubes but my trials with other people were in vain, so I've tried to do it on my own eye. Of course it is not like a piece of art (specially with all these reflections of flashes on the iris). I've been fascinated with the lines formed on the iris and I thought maybe the best way to do this is to use extension tubes. Using speedlites, on the other hand, was problematic but it was a must; otherwise no light is available in such narrow corner! Doing the whole thing on my own eye is a really hard task, specially with using an external portable monitor to judge the focus and the composition. After many shots, I've decided to pick Rising Eye to work on its RAW and filter it a bit more. I like this version mainly because the iris is situated in the corner (and I cropped a little from the top right corner to emphasize this fact) and it breaks the monotonous look of the iris being in the middle of the frame (and I did take shots that way as well). I've never imagined myself going so deep with the macro field, but it might be time to plan for some rails for fine adjustments?

Geometria:

With my sudden amusement with geometry and mathematics (not something new in fact), I've been playing around with circles and rectangles, along with squares of course. Needless to say I had some crush on Schläfli and his symbols.
From that perspective, I've been thinking of ways to organize my composition or the way I see things in my pictures. I'm quite a believer in what Bruce Barnbaum mentioned in his book The Art of Photography about the myth of the law of thirds; something that I would beheaded for if I talk about in here inside the photographic community in Kuwait! Bruce, however, had his own points and logic indeed. Anyway, for me, I do tend to think of the law of thirds and the golden spiral as means to merely organize the objects in the scene but not a critical tool to get the attention of the viewer. I'm aided with this point by the common belief among photographers that Rules are made to be broken in general!
Stemming from this point of view, I've been working around to base some order based on geometrical means rather than visual means opposed to the theory of the thirds and the spirals.

Red: Golden Spiral.
Blue: Law of Thirds
Green: Diagonal-Circles

My first trial was to draw quarter circles from the corners of a 3:2 rectangle; with 3:2 being the usual ratio for imaging sensors (at least for the APS-C cropped sensors?), and the radius of these circles is half the length of the diagonal. Thus, the quarter circles would meet at the center point of the rectangle, and by drawing the diagonals of the rectangle we can specify the points of intersection between these circles and the diagonals (green on the image above). Now, would these points make an interesting composition? This, I wouldn't know without trials. However, I do imagine it is a good starting point for circular (specially overlapping circles; e.g. in a rose) subjects. But the intersection points seem a bit far away from the center which makes me skeptic about its use in general, but again nothing can be talked of without trials.

Red: Golden Spiral.
Blue: Law of Thirds.
Green: Diagonal-Circles.
Yellow: Central Circle.

Another thought then occurred to me is to draw a central circle within the 3:2 rectangle in such a way that the center of this circle is shared with the rectangle, bearing in mind that the radius should not exceed the height of the rectangle (the y-axis length). Then, drawing quarter circles from the corners like before. This one diagram is unusual for me because it shows here more than the usual 4 intersections; in fact we have 8 intersections. However, four of these intersections don't seem to be practical (the two central intersections up and down) because they touch the edge of the frame itself. Probably, after removing the 4 central intersection points, we are left with the other four that are close to the diagonals and work more in harmony with the law of thirds and the golden spirals (yet far away from the diagonals-circles intersections). I guess placing a subject in these points won't make much difference visually since it is close to the other perspectives. However, those points close to the edge of the frame which I've omitted in the beginning might make a difference if they are to be included in the rules of the composition. Notice here that I'm talking about placing a subject in ONE and only ONE of these intersection points, whether it may be law of thirds, golden spirals or any other perspective I've been mentioning so far; but what if some of these perspectives, specially this last one (Central Circle method) would work as a whole, meaning that intersection points are to be used all together to organize subject(s) in the scene and not one subject only? You think this would be visually interesting? Again, only trials would prove if it's appropriate or not.

Red: Golden Spiral.
Blue: Law of Thirds.
Green: Diagonal-Circles.
Yellow: Central Circle.
Grey: Diagonal-Central Circle.

By the end of my thoughts chain I was almost going to forget about the result of intersecting of the diagonals with the central circle. Not strangely, these grey points are in harmony with other perspectives like the thirds and the spirals, as well as the central circle intersecting points. In fact, I think the four perspectives or divisions: thirds, spirals, central circle and diagonal-central-circle do all make clusters for one position at a time around the center of the frame, and if we have one big subject within the frame it would be covering these four points in one corner at one time probably. This leaves two main questions of how affective these perspectives are when it comes to the Diagonal-Circles perspective (Greens) and the central intersections of the Central Circle (those closer to the edge). Well, as for the central circle perspective, we might, as I've mentioned before, work with the 8 points altogether (or 4 of them at a time) to place a certain subject. The greens, however, might have been tried before from my side without noticing like I did with one of the shots for some roses and petals.

Die Sanfte Ringe

Probably Die Sanfte Ringe reflects in a way how the Diagonal-Circles perspective would work - but I have to say here that this shot was taken long time before thinking about these different geometrical plays within the 3:2 frame. Yet, it does coincide somehow as a subconscious drive I presume! Notice that the Rising Eye mentioned before does somehow imply the Diagonal-Circles perspective and again it is as if it is a subconscious drive within my mind to do it that way, specially when it comes to circular subjects or rings and loops. There is a difference though between the Rising Eye and Die Sanfte Ringe in that the former is indeed a 3:2 rectangle, while the latter is a square. Not sure yet how to think about the visual impact in between these two but one step at a time - I think there is a plenty of time to think about these crazy geometrical means. As for now, I need to work a bit more on more serious stuff!

Libros!

I've exhausted all my arsenal of books by now (and only one or two short stories are left). I've been working on my queue of Arabic books that I've purchased some months ago from the books fair back in November. Back then, I did purchase some stories just to rest my mind little bit from the technical aspects that I usually wander on. Now my eagerness is back to the technical side and I've decided to purchase 3 new books from Amazon. As usual, I've decided to take up 2 books about photography and 1 about science (specifically archaeology).

Source: Amazon

One of the books that I'm eager to read is Lens Design Fundamentals by Rudolf Kingslake. The book is cheap and in fact I was going to order another one which costs around US$150, but judging from the contents, I believe the latter is way too advanced for me for the time being (it appears to be too academic in style). Thus, I changed my mind and picked this one since it's cheaper as well as it is aimed for beginners. I'm not sure where does this lead me but I've always wished to gain more insight about the make of lenses and where the power lies in the design after all.

Source: Amazon

 The second book deals with Tabletop Photography, by Cyrill Harnischmacher with some twist about using speedlites. From what I reckon about its table of contents, it is dedicated for people who don't like to work in studio environment, and eager to use some tricks with their speedlites. Not sure how much I will gain from such a book, but I'm pretty sure that I won't be disappointed as it is the case with most of rockynook publishing.

Source: Amazon

The last book is something attracted me mainly because of some formulae inside! The Handbook For Classical Research, by David H. Schaps, seems to be a general overlook about humanitarian sciences and how mathematics merge into them for purposes of studies. I was looking for a pure archaeological book with pure scientific prospect, but unfortunately most of the books I've found were novel-like and don't deal much with the scientific and mathematical side. This book, however, bears much about studies and how to do them and how to analyze data in such fields like anthropology and archaeology, in different sub-fields. This is, at least, what I've regained from reading the table of contents and some few pages in between the covers. I don't think I would be disappointed here though - anything that has some numbers in its language can be quite interesting in the current time!
The only problem that remains now is how to manage my time between these 3 books. I think I'd read the rockynook issue first, because they can be over with quickly, usually!

Conlang:

In the meantime, I'm not forgetting my beloved conlang(s) in such frustrating times, but actually I'm not putting ideas onto papers or notes - but simply everything is going on in a mental note. I need to enhance my memory about some basics about the Bulughman conlang as well as Betenic.
There had been an idea of a funny or a comic version of English as a conlang. I thought about it long time ago and proposed it to Simon Ager, the author of Omniglot.com, but as he said, the priority is for conlang with conscripts (i.e. artificial and new scripts) while my version was simply using modified Latin alphabet. From that point I've been thinking of inventing a new conscript indeed. Priorities for now, however, is for the Geltani project that seems endless. Sometimes, I do think I need a wife not to love or share dreams together, but simply to organize my time. Might be a plausible idea, but I don't think I would call it a marriage, can I?

العين التي رعتني
The Eye That Cared For Me

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.