Ham(b)ra…

Still feeling like a compressed can of soda. So much to do in this week and I barely have the time to brush my hair before going out even (literally). The coming weeks aren't free any further I presume.
Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the gallery of the monodrama festival to be established, so that I can publish my shots further. It is supposed to take place around May 25^th. Still a long time if you ask me. On the other hand, there is an eye check up appointment waiting for me by next Sunday, and I'm completely feeling uneasy about it. I need a 2 weeks vacation just to do what I "have" to do and what I really "want" to do. Well, Let's make that 3 weeks…

Ham(b)ra

Al-Hamra (or mockingly: El Hambra!) is one of the longest buildings in the city here. The group managed to make a deal with whoever is in charge to let us in and do some photo shoot inside. Originally, this "trip" is not related to my current class with the group which is about B&W photography, but however, it was a good practice there and our teacher asked us to do some B&W shoot in there.

A map of the location. The blue marker points to the tower while the red one points to the mall itself. The green marker points to the shadow of the tower on the ground; compare to other shadows!

It was my first time in that building and I have to say that I did like the architecture there in general, yet it doesn't sweeten my eyes as much as a typical traditional architecture (i.e. Islamic so to say). However, the lines and shapes were abundant and in fact I spent my whole time mostly in one location trying to extract abstracts as much as possible from there. Needless to say that my burden of tools was heavy and didn't allow for easy movement from one place to another. Other members of the group were roaming the place and did have way much better shots than I did in fact. All settled in B&W. No tint.
In the beginning, however, there was a panorama for the place which I tried my best to make centralized as much as possible for a perfect symmetry. Anyway, because of the movement in the place and the presence of the group (and passing people a bit) it turned out to be a troublesome panorama and I do need quite a time to fix the slides together. With any luck, I might be able to post it next week here!

The main whole where most of my shots were taken.
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), 15^-1, ISO100.
Interestingly, I fixed the tilt when editing the RAW, yet my teacher exclaimed about the presence of the tilt still!

The Ceiling

Even though most shots were taken in exposure brackets as for merging into HDR later, but only one was picked for the edit. Also, everyone agreed that the light conditions (specifically outside) were not proper for the session (hence the extremely bright windows shown in the entrance hall above). Though I don't mind the brightness and I think they add to the contrast, but still they say some details or lower level of light must be there. On the other hand, since the images were shot in RAW, and despite using the Monochrome Picture Style my Canon camera, yet Photoshop does not identify such styles. The images would still show up in color. Thus, the images you see here are in fact "converted" to B&W by the RAW editor. Nevertheless, we were supposed to use the LiveView feature in our cameras to aid in forming a perspective of the B&W image we are about to make.
I did my reading about the B&W photography some long time ago and what I taught myself is in fact what has been taught in this class so far; it is all about patterns and light (thus, abstracts are a good approach in this field). The whole idea is that you forget about the color and concentrate on composition, because it is the pinning factor for your image. You take off colors simply to make the viewer concentrate more on the emotions and the shapes involved in your photo. For that, and keeping this in mind, I wouldn't have to use the LiveView much to imagine my shot, but after all it is a good practice. One's eye should be able to predict the outcome of the B&W already by looking directly to the nature of the subject and the lighting about it, and not its colors.

Hanging
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?),
50^-1 sec, ISO100.

After a while, the group decided to head up, to the 60^th floor! Later I was thrilled to know we were supposed to head to the 80^th floor but the security people disagreed with that and the maximum height we could head to is the 60^th. I was tired already and in fact I wanted to go back home at that time but the group insisted on going up and have a look from there. I have to admit that the view is marvelous, and probably would have been more eye-catching if it was the evening time with the lights of the city glimmering over the landscape. Anyway, my first shot up there was actually of me lying down with my legs stuck to the wall, as you can see in Hanging. Of course, this shot was actually turned upside down for the purpose of "visual impact"; so to say. My teacher liked the idea but said it needs some work (the image itself suffered a heavy cropping as well, as it was taken with a fisheye lens). I'm not sure what extra work needs to be done here but I agreed to bring the original RAW file to the teacher to see for himself. I've removed the empty space (at the bottom of the image) since it doesn't serve the symmetry much.

InfraCity
Canon EF-S 18-55mm, @34mm,
f/10, 25s, ISO100.

The final shot from up there was a landscape shot for the city in portrait, using the infrared filter. In the beginning I had some trials with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, and the Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens, but all yielded improper proportions and the distortion was not highly appreciated in fact. Thus, I decided to head back to the very old (and shaky) 18-55mm lens; i.e. the kit lens. The infrared filter in use here was B+W's circular filter, which has a threshold of 650nm; meaning it does allow some visible light to seep through. It would not be possible to use the gel filter with such a lens (which has a threshold of 1000nm). For this reason, despite using ISO100, the exposure was relatively short (25 seconds only), compared to longer exposures in such situations when using the gel filter. Anyway, the shot isn't typically B&W but in processing such images the image would turn to B&W somewhat with a tint, and can be converted to pure B&W after all. Even such short (relatively) exposure did help in showing the clouds on the move. I guess an exposure of around 40 seconds or 50 seconds would be enough to give some good lines for the clouds' movement. Yet, the infrared filter did in fact help on adding contrast and to show the clouds more clearly (no polarizer was used in here). Still, the amazing point which I don't comprehend still, why the teacher sees a tilt in the image despite my fixes for the horizon line in the RAW editor! It is probable that this is caused by the barrel effect for such lenses. I tried to fix this type of distortion manually but the image was highly stretched at the bottom and turned out-of-focus-like; thus, I've kept it as it is.

Alarming

In all that mess, I got an unexpected (bad) surprise, when I realized some of my lenses were malfunctioning in a weird way. Mainly, the Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens, and the pretty old 18-55mm kit lens. I wouldn't be worried much for the latter, but the former lens is pretty important for my work with panoramas.
I'm not sure what's the deal here. However, the lens seems (or looks) dry. The autofocus function works fine, but when it is turned manual and I try to re-focus, the ring would rotate without the distance indicator turning with it. I would have to press and rotate several times to make it move. This doesn't make for a precise work if you ask me, but thank God it works, for now! Does it need some oiling? Is it a problem of some jamming in the inner mechanism? I'm not quite sure. I'm glad that the autofocus function seems to work without a hassle; for now.
These problems makes me think of seriously updating some of my lenses. Maybe it is a time for another wide angle lens (rectilinear this time and not a fisheye). Anyway, such dreams on hold for now, with the financial situation being shaky and the future is quite blurred.

Finale

It seems that every time I try to recollect myself and establish some time management - everything would fall apart. I've been neglecting lot of aspects in my life... and lot of projects. Namely the Geltani conlang which had been on hold for a pretty long time now. Maybe I should transform some of these projects to be worked with when I go to work; that useless place which gives me no value, nor respect.

I've been trying as well to push myself to write some poetry. There is one finished weeks ago but I didn't happen to post it here; I called it Marbhna Croí (lament of heart). I guess in the process of making one poem you should simply lose yourself into it to the limit of talking non-sense sometimes. If we think with some sense, I guess the poetry-making process would be in halt. This would be another venture that I need to look at further, as it is, like the rest of my projects, been forgotten.

I'm trying hard to keep myself on the optimism side, but things seem to be going downward on every corner. Here, and every where I look. At times, my streak of loneliness seems to be a grace and a virtue, but it does strike back suddenly just like a cancer plaguing the heart and mind. Trying my best to work and indulge myself in work to the limit of exhaustion and fatigue; yet nothing is achieved or not much of it is, and we are back to block number one - time management failure. I need a rest from the world…

360...

A fast paced week somehow. Nothing new on my camera level except of visiting a mall with my class to do some practice, but otherwise, no new panoramas, except of working with old ones. I keep looking at my Ayvarith papers and my microphone connected to the PC and ask myself when I'm going to work with it. Hope soon. For the time being, there are games on my list I need to finish. Games, are important to me. For the time being I'm trying to finish a game called Gray Matter. A nice one with sci-fi theme and magic stuff; oh, combined with some psychology as well! After that, I'll be in hunt for Jonathan Boakes' games Bracken Tor, and TLC3. These corners of the UK that really need a visit one day. Mystery, is what keeps the mind alight. But I might not be able to play all those until the time of Hajj comes, by mid October. I'm busy, somehow, sorting my schedule and my leaves to do the pilgrimage. My work place is somehow giving me a headasche for the time being with their stupid laws and regulations.

I. Failaka Re-Visited:

Under the light of considering further possibilities with panoramas and changing the viewing angle, I've re-visited older panoramas, and specially the one for the "Ghost Bank" taken for a deserted bank building in Failaka island back in November 2010 (after my return from Ireland).

Ghosts Bank

This time the twist was for other projections as well, which I've never thought of back then. Anyway, the tone-mapping is quite different of course. I knew beforehand that Photomatix will give me a headache with some errors related to the size of the final image, but after all I didn't make it smaller and went on with it. For some weird reason, when Photomatix v4.0 encounters HDR images as large as 8000x9000 pixels, it would give an error for memory issues. Doing a "batch single files," which does not require a visual examination, would still not work. Photomatix v3.0 on the other hand, it might show some errors related to memory limitations, but batching single files would work fine (and of course takes a long time). For this reason, the planet projection of this Ghost Bank panorama was tone-mapped in Photomatix v4.0 in the beginning, and the tone-mapping parameters were saved, then loaded into Photomatix v3.0 and the HDR image was tone-mapped accordingly in "batch single files" process. I don't know what's the deal, but it might be a time-consuming process.

Dark Aspect

One of the aspects of this panorama is the fact that I was working with the monopod. Shaky, but with cloning out the remnants at the end, not much of a headache. If the monopod was raised to a low level (to the level of my chest almost) that approximately raises the VR-head and the camera to my chin level. At this level the shake might not be so apparent (but there is some of course). I had to use back then because I didn't have the appropriate tripod.
The second venture after this was a vertical panorama. I made a mistake here but might be considered a surrealistic look after all.

الحلم الكئيب
The Gloomy Dream

For some reason I just named it in Arabic. However, the viewing angle was tilted and hence the tilt on the top part of the panorama is apparent, and that, caused me to name it a "dream" because it has some surrealistic look.
This vertical view was cropped (typically) from the sides and the edges to remove the remnants of the VR-head and the colors were altered a bit by adding a Photo Filter adjustment layer before tone-mapping the HDR. The Photo Filter was Deep Emerald, to give a creepy look. Also there was Exposure adjustment layer to pull back the exposure values accordingly to the whitest spot in the place (the entryway at the bottom).
Maybe the most beloved aspect (point of view) for me was the WV or the Wide View angle. I had to work a bit with adjustment layers a bit before tone-mapping in Photomatix.

Cold Alone

I had to crop little bit in the beginning just to bring things to the center a bit. In this image, and instead of fighting back against the purplish hue (because WB was set to Fluorescent back then) and make out the whole thing in vibrant yellow and red, I've decided to move to the next neighbor of purple; Blue (remember the rainbow? ROY G BIV rule?). In my work with HDR slides in Photoshop so far, I've rarely used the Hue/Saturation adjustment layers. Most of the color adjustments were done actually by Photo Filter adjustment layer. I find it giving more realistic looks and adds to the color instead of shifting the color. That does not mean I don't use Hue/Saturation layers, it is just I don't find them useful all the time.
In Cold Alone, and after fixing the Exposure as usual, I needed two Photo Filter adjustment layers. The first one is to add the general bluish cold look to the whole scene. In this layer, I used a layer mask to remove this effect from the yellow-reddish ceiling here. The second Photo Filter layer was added to increase the vibrant color of the ceiling (by using one of the "warm" presets) and also using a layer mask with it, but of course it is the inverse of the previous layer mask used before (just a copy paste of the layer masks). Weirdly though, in HDR mode in Photoshop, you can't use the inverse command (not from menus nor with the short cut "Ctrl+I"). To do the inverse of blacks and whites, I would use the Levels command (Ctrl+L) and flip the black and white arrows at the very bottom of the dialog box. To avoid any fuss, I would remove the black arrow to the middle first then the white to the other end, then push the black to the place of the white arrow. Sometimes it becomes so hard to know what to click when the two arrows overlapping each other.
Just imagine the blue ink you will be losing for printing such an image!
For the time being, I'm considering visiting Failaka again, specially that summer is on its way out, but I can't decide which time. Since I'm preparing for Hajj journey, I might not have the needed time yet to go there. It would be nice to take a tour with my camera on video inside the car like I used to do on the mainland. We'll wait and see...

II. 360:

Last Sunday it was another workout session with my Photography class. This time we headed to a mall here called 360. As you might have inferred from the name already, the mall is circular in shape. I spent around one hour and 30 minutes trying to find that place, moving from one jam to another.
Architecturally speaking, I didn't find much of interesting in fact. Although we had the freedom to go into shops to take shots from there but as it is with me always, I hate to contact people or ask for permission, so I got stuck to my ground; roaming around the mall trying to find some interesting angles. We had around 2 hours of time but personally I spent only one hour or so and decided to head back home before the darkness hovers over. However, it was a spark for an abstractive mind. I had to bear little bit with annoying people as usual, but the main point in the whole practice, as I think, is to learn how to concentrate in the middle of a fuss (quite the point if you are a journal photographer).
Although most shots were taken in bracketed exposures for HDR later on (except of few ones taken in long exposure), but a lot of those were uploaded after some processing in RAW then converted to JPG.

These are some abstracts, and there were plenty of others that I just need some time to reflect upon. As I said most of the images were uploaded directly after processing the RAW file, but there was a trial at least once for a HDR. But tone-mapping the HDR (in Photoshop) didn't spare me from using extra adjustment layers.

Wooden Arches - Processed RAW

Wooden Arches - Manual Tone-mapping (Photoshop)

Wooden Arches II - Photomatix

The contrast was a bit enhanced when tone-mapping but the major blue shade on the top was added by a Photo Filter adjustment layer after tone-mapping, and then adding a layer mask to avoid touching the lower portion of the image. I tried in tone-mapping to do the best to lighten the wooden pillars a bit but I guess it didn't work out well. I still have Photomatix which, as usual, proved to be superb to Photoshop and my manual tone-mapping. My main concern, in fact, to do the HDR slide was my hopes in eliminating some movements on the ground from people going around (yeah, so annoying, no one would even try to respect you *sigh*. OK, I'm kidding...). However, after merging into HDR it turned out that procedure didn't help much and I had to clone out the movement myself.
We are left then with some long exposures. Long exposures here is something longer than 2 seconds for me. Accordingly, depending on the lighting inside the mall, a single exposure at around 0EV takes around 8 seconds. Enough time to make a water line look silky with its flow. For this reason, my first target was the fountain. I took several shots in fact, but maybe the best angle was from the top.

Vortex

The vertical line in the center is a matter of the fountain itself and helped me much to achieve a sci-fi look. I tried to calculate the time it takes for the fountain to spur the water vertically high up, but seems the process was completely random! I had to depend on luck little bit here (isn't photography, majorly, a matter of luck after all?). I had to crop the image little bit because I didn't realize that originally, I didn't include all the fountain, and the edge was cut from the right side, so just to go around it I've cropped more to concentrate the body of the fountain on the lower right corner. Hope this visual trick helps.

General view of one side of the mall and the fountain.

In the image above, it is more like documenting in fact rather than being an abstract itself, but it was taken in a long exposure as well (around 13 seconds). The long exposure here, specifically, helped on removing the excessive movements going down there on the ground. You would think the mall is empty, but no, it wasn't. This is one of the benefits of long exposures in such situations (beside the night photography thing). Sometimes, people might occur like ghosts passing by, however, this is a nice effect too in my opinion. The fisheye distortion was fixed to straighten the wooden pillars (and that makes the image smaller in looks).

Now, for all these pictures you see... I've forgot my flash memory at home when I went to my class to discuss the images and finding my errors. Now, doesn't that suck? Yes, big time. My memory sucks, and I suck...

Been days now since I wrote something, and been weeks since I worked with my Ayvarith recordings. Seems my fatigue is slipping me the chance to do anything (well, except of using my camera maybe). I'm not sure when I will start recording again. I've arrived at chapter 4 so far. Chapter 6, will be the great burden on my back. As for now, I just wish if the Hajj season comes like a blink...

Cuvaitum At Work...

My mood has been off lately. Trying to smile and laugh just to cover up for the bleed. Ah well, who cares anyway. At least I had the chance to play with my camera and catch a panorama in day time, away from the cops and security people. An experiment that I might be willing to do again, some time...
Previous weekend was specially weird. I did sleep so early. So early that I won't be sleeping like that for work itself! And wake up early too. I didn't want to miss the chance here so I went on to have breakfast on the beach and look for something to capture. I took my tools including my Manfrotto 303SPH VR-Head (was it a coincidence?) and drove along the beach. It was around 7 a.m. or a bit before that when I settled behind Kuwait Towers and started to do my job in a hurry fearing the usual. One panorama was enough to keep me busy for a while now. There are lot of things to do with one panorama, as different viewing angles do make a difference now and I won't let go, from now on, of a panorama until I exhaust my options with it. However, I didn't miss the chance to take some single clicks here and there. It's nice to add some icing to the cake isn't it?
Just before going on, I would like to talk about my previous "homework" in my photography class.

I. Homework #1:

It was our first homework in the Photography Class L1. The main point was to criticize the images in general. Along the years that I've been working with my camera and specially in the field of HDR techniques, I've faced many useless comments and criticism that just don't consider what I'm trying to say in the image. Anyway, I think my mind now has developed a sense of what is a "real" criticism and what is "trash". For this reason, I tried my best to do the shots in JPG only without RAW and without any adjustments at all. Since my teacher is the one who will criticize me, then I have no problem at all and I would learn here, instead of putting up with depressive non-sensical comments. Anyway, our homework was to take 4 shots, and I did take several shots for same scene and then picked the best as I think for this homework. Some people brought 5, 6 and even 10 shots. I wonder if they have problem with mathematics!?

Nail in a Wall

My first shot, nail in a wall. I don't know what happened to this nail, anyway I was surprised for its shape. The fact is I had only 2 hours probably to take the shots before my class starts, thus my mind went on thinking so fast about a solution. The idea was to have a long shadow of the nail but unfortunately, the sun was not in the proper angle in the afternoon. I tried to fix the proportions according to the law of thirds as much as possible, as shooting in this angle was hard. The nail is on a column and a bit high from the ground level, and also on the edge of a small stairway. I had to play around with my tripod until I made it stable and high up above the stair steps and the ground. My teacher said he likes the texture but because he didn't want to announce the names of the photographers when he viewed the pictures, I decided to keep silent and not explain my motive and the things that went wrong for me. The main concept of this image is loneliness, and if there was a shadow it would complete the meaning I had mind. Loneliness vs. Greatness.

Metallic Design

The second picture was taken for the rail of the stair way at home. After taking the image and uploading it to my PC I've noticed that the front portion (top left corner) is a bit blurry which is something I didn't want in fact. Anyway, my teacher liked the concept but, like I thought also, he said the door and the books on the left were a source of distractions. Unfortunately, I can't remove them, and if I was to take the shot in portrait I believe more distractions would be included. He liked the angle and the blur effect (shallow depth). I would crop the distractions but as I said, I wanted the images untouched as much as possible.

Floral Design

The third image, Floral Design, was also from the stairway rail. I had this idea long time ago (but thinking of a panorama for the stairs alone actually). The image was taken with my Tamron 70-300mm, and probably at 200mm or close to that. I was pointing to the rail from a distance of around 2 or 3 meters (~ 6-9 ft). The reason for this is simply, from a close distance I would be able to put my tripod calmly. Because I didn't use a timer here to take the shot, seems the image was shaken a bit, or it was blurred slightly because I used manual focus (always use it with my Tamron). My teacher noted that there is a little shake in the image when viewed in 100%. At this point, my teacher said that apparently this person (i.e. me) likes textures, which is true. I'm not so fond of portraiture.

Qul

I don't remember really what my teacher said about the fourth image, Qul, but the image you see here is actually the adjusted RAW and not the direct JPG that was viewed in the class. Anyway, it is simply a zoom into some Arabic calligraphy engraved on a wall clock in the main hall (living room). Tamron was also used here and I had to raise the tripod higher than my head. The play was in the WB to give more golden streak to the whole thing. I think it was Flash WB.

The clock in the hall (old picture with illusional adjustments)

My teacher is a school by himself, and I guess I'm lucky to be one of his students. Trying patiently to wait for the big bites of info that will make my brain jump a bit. So far, in Level 1 now, the info encountered are mostly well-known to me. Left to say, all of the images except of the first one were submitted to stock sites, but after RAW adjustments. No HDR this time.
My teacher has an impressive photostream on Flickr. Give it a try. He's a genius! As for me, I still hate Flickr for some reason I don't know. I just reject it mentally!

II. Cuvaitum:

One of the surprises that I've encountered this week is, when I wanted to name one of my pictures in Latin, I've discovered that Google Translation engine did include a translation for "Kuwait" in Latin. I didn't know there would be any translation for it really, as mostly the name, specially Kuwait's, is copied as it is in English into various languages. Kuwait was translated as Cuvaitum.
Last Friday morning, and because of the amazing adjustment in my sleeping time, I woke up in the very early morning (with ease), something that doesn't happen when I think of going to work! Anyway, I didn't want to miss the chance and picked my tools, and specially my VR-Head. I can say, I picked it up half-intentionally. I was hoping that I will do some panorama, but I didn't know just yet for what. After having breakfast I was staring around trying to find something, and even drove along the seaside trying to search for a potential. Finally, my eyes was set on a location that I deem, usually, a taboo. I did take pictures from there before but this location is always dangerous to me (me, being someone with past experience with cops). Kuwait Towers.
Now, Kuwait Towers are a pretty nice target for photography at night more than it is in day time (probably only in very early morning or at sunset when you get some special light qualities). I did take some shots long time ago for the towers when I was experimenting back then with my Canon 350D. Sweet old days.

Humid Towers

Kuwait Towers in A Windy Day

But this time the circumstances are different. Completely different. Day time, early morning, the sun is rising and, a panorama. Maybe one thing is common between the old and the new images: all are HDR, and all were manually tone-mapped.
Since I'm working with a panorama, I had to do it as fast as I can for fear of any "undesired" visitors in the early morning (a bit before 7 a.m.). I skipped working out with the nadir and took only direct shots that I didn't use later on. One panorama, many opportunities...

Towers of The Rising Sun

I know that Japan is the land of the rising sun, but are there towers for the rising sun? Oh well. The main difficulty here lies in cloning out the lower portion. I've cropped a bit from the lower part where the VR-Head shows, but this was not the difficult thing to do. It was my shadow with the tripod. Because the ground had a pattern in formation, it was so hard to make it unique, or maybe I'm out of patience to finish this and I couldn't bear in mind working slowly and copy brick by brick. It is possible to make it unique but it's not for me now. I don't have all the time in the world nor the power (cloning work is done in HDR mode, meaning more processing power). I approached the situation with many tricks, the last was to copy a portion of the right corner and paste it over the left portion where my shadow was (after cloning it already) and then do a layer Blend as in stack focus.
The tone-mapping was done manually, i.e. in Photoshop itself and playing around with the curve of the histogram myself. I've been a good boy here and didn't touch other slides like the Threshold and the Radius which caused me grief in the past, and will never learn how to do them adequately. But before tone-mapping, I had to reduce the luminance of the sun and that was done simply by adding Exposure adjustment layer, and with the White dropper I click on the disk of the sun. The image appeared darker in the beginning while the sun was like a dot in the sky (which is the thing I want actually). You have to bear in mind when you work in this way that this is HDR. The luminance data are there and not gone; maybe shifted, but not gone. With this simple correction in Exposure, I've moved to tone-mapping. All the later versions of this panorama, were tone-mapped in the same manner, but maybe the fixes for my shadow were different a bit.

Planeta Cuvaitum

The great advantage here in tone-mapping with Photoshop (which is something I rarely do right now) is that you have a control over certain areas, even though Photoshop's tone-mapping algorithm is considered Global, meaning it effects the whole pixels in the image in the same time. However, with the help of the curve and the histogram. This way, I was able to make the sun as a disk with a halo around it by doing a "U" curve at the end of the line. This "U" curve simply means "high-low-high"; now imagine this to the sun disk (out-middle-inner part) and you will be getting a bright circle, then darker circle, then bright spot in the middle. Are you following? Hope so! Such control is not possible in Photomatix and I did try indeed doing some effect but nothing worked to my taste.

Although I almost chose my location randomly in the area behind the towers (and hoping to keep me a bit hidden from the eyes wandering on the street in the front), I think now I was lucky to pick this location! This was apparent when I went on doing a TV (Tunnel-View) effect for this panorama...

Crescent Sun Towers

The shape of the crescent was indeed random. I didn't plan it. It just happened to be there when I twisted the panorama. Only one thing is annoying me here though; the patch in the sky. Cloning problems are apparent here as you see. Cropping further to hide my shadow or the bad cloning would cut out the fun from the rest of the images with nice patterns made by the pavement, so, I guess I have to bear it as it is.

Two projections though, didn't appeal much to me but I had to do them after all just to make things complete. The Vertical and the "Wide View" or WV. The WV is a term I've made out myself really, since I didn't find any proper names for it. It is a manipulation of the Little Planet projection by changing the angles of Pitch and Roll mainly and fixing the orientation with the Yew.

Nos Regulam Solis

Cropping the sides in this vertical panorama was a hard issue for me and I'm still not satisfied with the final product here. I felt cropping was screwing the balance of the image in general specially that the sun and the towers are not exactly on the same alignment. I had to do the cropping to the side to remove the highly stretched pixels (which is normal in such type of panoramas of course). I think what makes it so hard to decide with the crop is the diagonal lines in the image itself which, if straight, would make for a unidirectional look on the whole thing.

Dancing Towers

Not one of my favorites really. The Dancing Towers is supposed to be something with a comedy twist after all. The twists in the tower were made in HDR mode before tone-mapping by using the Wrap option in Photoshop. The tone-mapping (and adjusting curves later on) didn't help me to add some strong contrast but rather darkening the ground. The other problem was that the ground and the sky portions were too much compared to the main subject: the tower and the sun. I had to crop and cropping here wasn't easy either. The subjects of interest are nudged to the left rather than the center or one of the points of the law of thirds.

QTVR

I was drooling to do a QTVR out of this panorama but unfortunately, things were not easy. The fact that the panorama was tone-mapped manually in Photoshop made me lose one key option here, which is very important for making a QTVR: the seamless blend. In Photomatix, this is simply done by ticking one option while tone-mapping; the "360 panorama" option. I don't know yet how to blend the left and right side seamlessly still using Photoshop as my search on the net was in vain. I even tried to put the final panorama into Photomatix and stabilize the sliders as much as possible to keep the look (changing only the Gamma to fix the contrast) and turning on the 360 panorama option, but even that was in vain. Probably the only real benefit that I've gained so far from such search is to know how to add a label or a logo to my panorama instead of the nadir point in more comfortable way, using PTGui. You can find the tips here in the Support/FAQ webpage of PTGui (with many many other useful info that I didn't read before). The QTVR might need some time to load, plus, of course, the QuickTime plugin.

III. Land, Paper, Wall:

On land, it was the ruins of Hore Abbey, which moved to my camera's sensor to be printed later on. Mom desired something to fit in the living room to change the scenery and she was so fond of Ashford castle in fact, an awkward handheld panorama taken back in 2009 in Co. Mayo, Ireland.

Ashford Castle

Unfortunately, when viewed in 100% I've found that the middle portion of the image is out of focus. Probably I was working in AF mode (a big mistake in panorama venture). The greens also don't appear as they are when converted to CMYK system. I had to convert because of previous experience with this printing shop which seems RGB is not appreciated much (although an expert told me that it is a single print and they should be able to produce it properly in RGB). Anyway, the mistake with the focus was a killer enough to abandon the idea. So, mom picked another shot, the ruins of Hore. I have to say I'm really proud now that she picked my stuff!

Ruins of Hore hanging on the wall of the living room.

The print and the frame prices were fair I'd say, but while watching the process going on (in 2 days) I really wished to have my own tools. I fell in love really with the HP designjet 800ps in the printing shop, but unfortunately it is discontinued, and for sure it costs a fortune!

My signature. Still think it sucks!

However, one of the things that I was limited with is, the type of paper that I could pick. In fact, there was only one variety. I'm sure there are several papers out there that are better (and more expensive, I know), but there was only one type so I had to put it down with that. I wasn't ready to move around to other place to check.
The next thing was, after the print and checking the colors, I went to the framing shop. As I expected they were not that professional I would expect but they did a good job with the frame. I was a little upset about it because when I went back to the framing shop to give them a leaflet with my own signature, the print was rolled up and kept between other stuff. I was a bit angry inside because this is not the way to deal with a print. Also, the matting they provided was not thick enough and seems merely like a cardboard. The leaflet I brought was not stuck or anything but merely fixed, and I didn't get the chance to sign on the matting myself. Anyway, after all, mom is happy with it. I only wish if I have the money to get all these stuff together in one place and do my own prints. My printer supports A4 size maximum, but I wish to have one with A3 size capabilities. Would be awesome and in fact, more elegant to frame in that size I think.
I'm trying now to finish this lovely thin book which my friend got me for my birthday (but didn't get the chance to give it to me in time). It is a practical book and to the point, for beginners. I want to write something for now, but I don't know what. So much is gushing out, yet little words are coming in my mind. For one moment I just wish if I can sit down, one leg on the other, and my palms behind my head, and stare into the world... maybe thinking of No Other Worlds...

Back on Track...

One busy week. Ramadhan is over and I couldn't post on time on Thursday because of the feast (Eid) that, for me, is an occasion to sleep more and care less about the world around me. I neglected for a week now or two everything related to my "duties" toward Ayvarith recordings and just spent my days sleeping and eating, and of course looking for something to catch with my camera.
During family gatherings I worked with my camera a bit as the habit goes but well, this time not many good pictures. Plus most of them are private and I wouldn't be able to show. Now, I'm back to work with a severe insomnia forcing me to leave to work without even a nap for few minutes before going to work. Well, it just struck me for 2 days so far, and I hope I won't have this situation again. I do already suffer from insomnia and not enough sleeping as it is, but I don't go to work without sleeping at all like that!

During the last days of Ramadhan I was working heavily on "old" panoramas taken from Ireland back in 2010. I've figured out that I have more power with panoramas to create certain view points that I didn't imagine before. This was apparent specifically after working on my night panorama from the roof top some weeks ago...

Lonely Night

This thought made me go ahead and try various aspects for those panoramas I've done before, and thought my work with them is done so far. I was wrong anyway, there are things behind the little planet projection and the tunnel view, and even behind the flat and vertical looks and the QTVR rendering. The task, though, was not easy as I thought, since I've deleted most of the HDR slides after doing the primary panoramas with them, to save some space in my external hard disk (which sizes 320GB by the way!).

Ríocht na Ardeaglais
Kingdom of the Ardeaglais

Irish Home VI

These are jut two samples of the newly made views of the old panoramas. The effect mimics, to some extent, the fisheye lens effect on a full-frame camera. Maybe the view here is wider though, and stretches the horizon further. This stretch adds an illusion of space into the scene. Some people, for example, commented already about the second panorama (which if the side garden of Thornbrook House B&B) saying that it is such a large lawn to mow! Well, the garden was relatively small to other gardens I've encountered and not as large as the front yard for example (which mostly people didn't comment about its size in normal panoramas). Anyway, not all new-looking panoramas are supposedly to be stretched that way and to give a spacious look, because I think, after all, that it depends on the location and the scene.

To Salvation

This panorama for example, for St Dominic Abbey interior in the heart of Cashel town, does not necessarily give an indication of such a spacious land (mainly because the court here is narrow in fact), but the main concentration in mind here was on the geometrical shapes created by the pillars on the side wall, and the oval shape illusion of the ground, to make a mix of shapes. The sunlight, too, played a role, hence the name of the image "To Salvation," as if the sun rays are coming out of the gate at the far end.

Now, the previous panoramas were achieved with some twisting in parameters, starting from a little planet projection style. This is not the case all the way. A flat regular panorama can be used to create something out of the ordinary, other than the vertical panorama, like this panorama of Hore Abbey:

Curvae Hore

All what was really needed here after setting the regular panorama, is to pull the center down making a wave-like shape of the sky and the ground. Would be useful for future considerations if there is a valley-like feature to be introduced in a certain mood. All of the dramatic colors and effects were done of course after tone-mapping and with adjustment layers later on in Photoshop. This image was rejected from some stock sites for "jagged edges". I think they didn't accept the hard contrast between the two portions of the image. Isn't it supposed to be so?

But one of the surprises for me was when I've discovered that there is indeed one panorama that I didn't touch at all, all this time! Probably the reason that made me forget about this panorama a bit is the fact that it doesn't bear much of distinctive features (and that caused me also trouble stitching it). To go around such problems with stitching this panorama and just to make it worthwhile, the solution was to do a twist as well.

Crystall Ball Fantasy

The panorama was heavily edited in HDR mode first before tone-mapping, and in fact I was planning to remove the extras on the corners, but then I've realized that it does serve as some effect like a crystal ball (hence the name). On a large scale, the details are not to be praised in fact because of the black level I've added. Anyway, this angle was away from the stitching error point (which I just don't know what causes it). In panorama world, the more space you have in location, the more error-prone stitching you might have because of the inability of the software to find control points properly or mismatching control points because of similar features that do not belong to the same position.

I've decided to do some self-advertisement if I should say, by taking a photo for my own prints. Not prints that would qualify to high quality ones but they make a nice subject I guess. This tiny little experiment inspired me to "something" after all...

Prints

The problem with this shot is the fact that I was laying the prints flat on a white cardboard. The cardboard itself was flat on a table and to get a direct, on-plane shot was almost impossible. For this reason I had to do my best with after-shooting procedures to straighten things out a bit (and cut proportions of the table apparent in the image). The result was fine, but with somehow elongated or stretched shapes of the prints. I didn't want to hang the papers on the cardboard for various reasons, thus I had to satisfy myself with this, for now. This experience made me think of some tool to take vertical shots with ease, so I hit on B&H website again and I think I've found what I need...

Photek TRI-X-2500, literal arm extender
Source: B&H

Not only it will solve such a tiny problem but it might be a good solution for the eternal nadir problem for me, but the problem for nadir is the workflow on location itself. To use this to shoot the nadir I "must" use it at the end of my work with the panorama and I "must" elevate it to the same height of the camera on the VR-head, on the tripod itself, and most importantly of all, I have to unscrew and screw things which would take such a long time. Such a fuss and a mess for one shot? Well, seems it's really not paying. However, this item is on my list for next purchase that I might place at any time now.

I'm starting my photography class now (since Tuesday) and I will be having 2 hours class every Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday, from 7 to 9 p.m.. It is a basic level, and I need it to go up on the stairs in a proper way. Who knows, maybe such class also will make some contacts for me to avoid troubles taking pictures outside in the future! It is so hilarious when I sit and think between myself and I, and find out that most of the architectural photography that I've done, is actually done outside for 90% of it. Time to get busy with life I presume. Oh how much I miss Ireland...