Alexander 5, V4.

 

This image, tells what kind of camping tools I was carrying with me up to the roof of my own house. Filters case, Camera and its tools, a book (under the filter case) and the chair is put up from the last session, flashlight and all is carried in this handbag (crushed beside the chair!). Ah, I forgot the tripod. It was a heavy load to carry and go up that ladder to the roof, and with my fear of height, it was unbearable.

I made out a square black card (from the large hard papers I bought yesterday) by the same size of my filters to be fixed within the filter holder to block the light when unneeded. Anyway, my trials were not successful at all to get a glance of the sun. I ran in buLb mode and minimized the aperture as much as possible (f22), and for all over the 30 minutes, the black card was covering the lens and I moved it for ONE second only and put it back and continued the counter above 30 minutes even. Yet, the image was so bright and features cannot be recognized at all, although I even fixed my ND8 and ND4 filters as well. One second of sun in its height made a fuss for the image. At the end when the sun was gone and I had nothing much to do up the roof, I decided not to leave it just like that, so I made this shot. After gazing for some time into the sun (not directly of course but almost), I did have problems concentrating on whatever I have in front of me. Thus, I was trying hard to focus the lens manually but I couldn't, and fortunately, the auto-focus capability worked just fine even though it was dark already.

The image above is Pseudo-HDR by the way and not a real HDR. Despite the fact that I took 3 images already but I was so careless about the settings of my camera that evening that I did't fix anything, but shot the image directly, and hence, I had to make up some effect with one of the RAW files (i.e. one image only). Some manipulations and noise removal were used as well, but the original image was way worse than it appears here in this small version.

I've really started to like to sit there on the roof. Quiet (despite some children noises from neighboring houses), and fresh, although it is tiresome already to climb to there; specially carrying all these tools. I spend the time there reading my ghost book that I got from Ireland. I'm just afraid that some of the neighbors would reckon my position there and ignite some problems, claiming that I've been spying on other homes. I know the mentalities of my surroundings, trust me.

In some weird spark of thought, I find myself (again) attracted to astrology and the calculations involved. I realy can't say whether I'm fascinated with its history, concepts or its calculations and usage for the human beings, but in general, I'm just chasing after it. Specifically for the time being, I'm running after what is called the "Arabic Parts (Lots)". I found some calculator for these parts (as they are not heavenly objects) but, the main part is, what do they mean when found in some place? The calculator can be found here.

Despite the name, Arabic Parts, these aspects of astrology were actually much older than the raise of civlization in Arabia, dating back to Egyptians, Greeks and Babylonians as well. They are mainly named like that now because Arabs made an extensive use of them and because of the Arabian scientist back then, Al-Biruni, who derived many parts of those. I'm not a keen lover of prediction, but as an Arab, the topic attracted me as well to see for myself where and what is that. I used to read a lot of astrology and palmistry book before for my interests in occults, but now, seems my scientific brain occupied the most part of my life because of my studies. However, I go back to these for fun from time to time... there are certain degree of occuracy within such things and within some limits that would make you surprised sometimes...

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73. Alexander's hair stood up like pikes when he heard of Zimúrá
74. because he tried it wityehnot h his men and he knew the pains
75. and he told the old man his story from Caqobia
76. up to until he reached this strange village of the old people
77. the old man then shouted: you are the promised then!
78. Alexander was surprised for the answer and opened his eyes
79. and asked the old man about the other stories of the village
80. the old man continued the stories of this strange village
81. and he told him that this village is called Hoshea
82. and his name was Nertus, the elder of this village
83. no one rules them and all of them are equal
84. they plant together and eat together and trust each other
85. their graves in the homes to remember death always
86. and no doors to their houses because no thief exists
87. and one day their prophet long time ago foretold them
88. a yellowish warrior will come and save the village
89. from the beast of Tawyátá, the bird that eats humans
90. and in every year the bird eats a young man or woman
91. or eats what they plant for food or drink their waters
92. and only when one man and his faithful nobles come
93. they will save the village from the claws of this bird
94. and their names and numbers are mentioned in the books
95. the old books of the village of Hoshea
96. and the talk of Nertus the old was over

Experimenting...

1. A quiet day relatively, with a visit from my colleague, who is officially in a leave. However, I was almost going to cancel this day from my schedule and sleep more, since I stayed awake late last night (technically, stayed awake until today's dawn) and had a sleep for 3 hours only and was almost going to be late from my usual going-out time. When I was just leaving I remembered that I was planning to take photos from inside in one of the buildings in the campus. It was so damn tiresome to just get back to my room to bring the camera and the tripod after reaching my car outside. I didn't even go to buy me something for breakfast the usual way. I just flew over to campus directly. After doing my fingerprinting thing in the same building, I got out the tripod and started to work. Some cleaning guys, who were the only inhabitants alive there, kept on staring at me... like an alien! Well, I kept my nerves down with that.

I had some difficulty as I wanted to take a photo of the dome with some depth (not depth of field but the dome with some of its surroundings), so I tried to lower down the tripod as much as possible to work with it. Of course because of that, I didn't know what I'm catching, because I wasn't able to look into the viewfinder and snap. As as I said in the previous post, it was a chance to check for HDR's capability in this case. HDRs aren't good in general with moving objects even if the movement was tiny... it can show clearly on the image after combining the layers. Anyway, after many trials, here and there and changing a bit of the position of the tripod, I think I got satisfied with the list of photos I have in the current time. The building is there to be snapped at any time!

Going then to my office, I ran the wizard's wand (which you know by now) and started to work on the photos and boy, did I not want to crash my laptop down. I think I do need a new one now with some 4GB of RAMs if possible. In fact, my work on this laptop was just to experiment a bit and not to add a final touch, as the real work will begin at home. On location however, I got the idea of trying a panoramic shot as well, but this time length-wise and not width-wise as it is usually taken. I did photomerge these photos with my laptop but the work was done so slow and yet it was cumbersome. I need to check back at home with more advanced tools with it. After working around a bit and converting to HDR, I loved to do just a tiny experiment and saved the image as it is in 32bits, as a TIFF. The size was 90.8MB. I laughed. I deleted the file. Ta Da! However, still, I got back to reality again and coverted the file to JPG and made a tiny fix in colors to get the final touch on one of the scenes:

The rest of the work will continue at home. Although I wanted to write down some lines in my story but unfortunately, I was swept away and I'm writing these words in a hurry before I leave the place. I have a game, and photos to work with allllll day...

2. Now, after getting back home, I feel a bit energetic to work with my new photos! That reminds me to recharge the cam's battery... I need to buy another battery and another CF memory card. It is just embarassing when you feel yourself into the shot really and then your camera just stops focusing correctly! I tried it! The charger sucks anyway. Couldn't fit it into the electrical exntesion in my work place so I had to wait til I get home. The first thing to do now is to work on the photomerge, as it is a hard task to me still, then I shall work on the HDRs a bit and play around. Guess won't have a spark of ideas to write down anything in my story today. Ah well. Pass.