Happy new year, and I hope you had a nice one. To be honest, I wanted to take another week off from typing my blog here but I thought maybe I shouldn't and thought it would be a good idea to stress myself more beside all the things happening in my life right now on the home front. So, here we go.
As a side note, while typing these words, I've already been out in a random shoot in the morning like I would do every winter; around the neighborhood. This time, I've picked my Sigma 12-24mm lens (which is challenging really) but anyway it was a simple stroll around and I'm still "trying" to work on the photos I've shot back then. Hopefully I will talk about them in time but this post is supposed to be following the chronological order so I'm going to take off from where I stopped in the previous post (well, the previous previous post). However, before I proceed, I'd like to give just a liiiiittle announcement.

Little Announcement

I've recently uploaded a full set of images which was a project initiated in 2021 but didn't get to finish it (let's speak procrastination here) except in 2022. Long story short, after sending emails to the major stocks i deal with, I've uploaded this set to Canstockphoto and Dreamstime. However, to my surprise (and for some reasons beyond my humble understanding), Dreamstime did accept some images (about half of the set) and refused the rest and it seems for reasons related to quality; despite the fact that all images are the same with only one element that had changed.
This said, I've tried to delete what had been already accepted in my profile on Dreamstime (i.e. what had been accepted from this set of images, 39 of them) but I could only delete few. When I inquired about it, I got the response that I have to wait for 6 months until I can delete these files (Why? Just because…). Digging through the website further it turned out that it got itself wrapped up in political views that i think are not supposed to be there in such a website that offers art in the first place.

For these reasons, and despite having a profile there (and I can't withdraw anything from there), I've decided to stop uploading to Dreamstime completely. It's a loss for sure as it provides exclusive rights to images and I do have some exclusive images there, but such terms and also getting into the political issues for no reason, such issues are a red flag to me. Thus, I will stop uploading my work there completely but my profile will be active still. Who knows, might be deleted one day.

Meanwhile, the set of 39 images, which I've called Arabic Eye, is available on Canstockphoto.

Dewy

So, now, to the bulk of today's post! Now, before the main thing, I did take some shots and even edited some shots from the past but it's not the topic of this post. Some of the shots taken were simply for embracing my (new) window which I just like to gaze at in the morning when the light comes in, specially in winter time. Anyway, away with that.

This "experiment" (if I can call it so) was somewhat a "two birds taken down with one stone"; if that's clear anyway! I wanted to do some macro experiment (away from bougainvillea and picking the flowers of the poor bush), and in the same time I was looking for ideas for my Arabic blog as I didn't post anything for a while, and my thoughts led me to make an article about Super-Resolution (SR) images and how to do them in Photoshop. So, the two ideas combined into some macro job in Super-Resolution; What was missing though is a proper target. Chasing my tail again looking for ideas, I arrived (again) at my beloved colored feathers, which I didn't use for a while (maybe since 2020 or 2021) for any photo-shoot.

نَـدِيْ
(dewy)

I'd say, initially, it was a success. For creating a SR image, one wouldn't need a lot of images like in the focus-stacking technique. In Dewy, around 13 shots were taken. The problem here though, because I've sprinkled water (plain water, no glycerine added), the droplets on the feather wouldn't stay in place completely but some (just some) of them did move a bit. Originally, in fact, I wanted a simple one droplet to be stable on the tip but (surprise surprise) that nearly impossible, so I sprinkled the whole feather with water. Anyway, the movement in the water droplets between shots (even though they were taken quickly, relatively) - all was fixed in the process of merging and also some extra job was done with Photoshop magic (cloning, and stuff, you know). The dimensions with this technique ramped up from the typical 5184X3456 pixels for Canon EOS 7D (my camera) up to 10386X6929 pixels; So that's like double the original resolution. Of course, things had to be taken down, like cropping and other cleaning stuff and sharpening. Increasing the resolution in that technique is "somewhat" good, but not "absolutely" good. 

نَـدِيْ 2
(dewy 2)

Of course, I wouldn't let things go without playing around with the colors, like in infrared. I went on to do some color inverse and I think the color cast is still impressive. However, I must mention here that this is just one of the things that I've experimented with in this image. The main issue here is that I've tried to put my vision as a person who reads from right-to-left (normally, I guess); Thus, to me, the image seemed more "normal" to my eyes if I just flipped it horizontally and let the lines going from the bottom right to upper left corner. I kept the original orientation as it will be seen with Dewy 3.

نَـدِيْ 3
(dewy 3)

As for Dewy 3, it was actually a direct edit for one of the shots that made up the original SR-image (which was cropped later to make Dewy 1 and 2). Here, you can see the original orientation of the image as it was shot. Worth noting that the shot was done with 50mm lens and 36mm extension tube, and at f/22; So, nothing fancy here and no focus-stacking (that was not the aim to begin with). If I would go for focus-stacking I'd probably use more zoom power via lens reversing technique. These images gained some nice momenta on YouPic (specially Dewy 1). Nice to see such a simple experiment go wild like that. I still need to work on more though.
After this I've done some little shy shots with a leaf from one of the basil plants in the yard (didn't want to upset the bougainvillea again!) and I'm not sure if I'm going to post about them here as they were just simple shots with various zooms (exceeding the 1X limit). They got some nice details to them though. We'll see…

PSAChina

Here, I just wanted to put a little announcement about the results that I've got from participating in PSA China contest. The contest had its deadline in December, and the results were announced on January 3ʳᵈ. I have to say, for the majority of my entries, the results were disappointing. Yet, just by the last category, Architecture, I've had a surprising swift turn of luck!

Results report card

Out of the 4 entries for the Architecture category, I won 1 gold medal and 2 honorable mentions. Even though the last image is not awarded anything but it gained enough points to be "accepted" and exhibited. In fact, I've received another email asking me to upload the bigger files for all these images, beside a personal photo and some text about these images. It seems that the judges at PSA China contest do appreciate panoramas pretty much unlike other contests I've been into before (specially the Trierenberg Circuit which was ended in 2021 or 2022 already). This makes me happy, as well as sad, because it reminds me of the fact that I didn't do much panoramas for a long time now (for reasons beyond my reach already). Just to finalize this, here are the images that were accepted (and awarded):

 One thing I'm hoping for here, and that is to receive my gold medal, unlike the one that I've never received from Trierenberg Circuit back in 2018 (which was my first gold medal ever in any such contest, and this one now is my second).

Finale

I was hesitant to type this post and was afraid that I wouldn't finish it in time, but here I am. Things on the home front had been very disturbed; No maid to help with the housework and tend to Mom, and a challenging Mom on various levels with health issues, a household that doesn't feel like home, and coping with mood swings and depression, trying to think hardly about the camera to find some kind of salvation through it. I've honestly lost a lot of appetite for everything (beside food, and the camera work). Spending my day just thinking if this is going to end at all at some point, and whether it was all my fault to be here in this position and place. It's a blame game with myself, and trying hard to convince myself that I've done my best whenever I could.
Traveling is quite essential at such a time but with the world going crazy and with my eyes condition (which apparently is going down even though not as bad as my other siblings) - such conditions are just not quite encouraging. Sure, I can travel to well-known destination and sure I can just travel to get some breath away from this house, but I always feel it is a money wasted if such a travel wasn't for a solid purpose (like a religious pilgrimage for example) or without my camera. I didn't shoot any panoramas in ages and my current results from PSA China contest were quite encouraging to do something, but where and how, this is way beyond my thinking at the moment. It does feel as if my life is getting isolated more and more by every passing day, and soon, my life would be no life at all. I wonder where is that light at the end of the tunnel that everyone is talking about…

The Dewing Dew...

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas. I'm running out of ideas I guess. However, my time is consumed gluttonously. All what I'm waiting for is to have to a break from my workshop to be able to organize my thoughts.
We had been working on some homework in this workshop and there had been some trips that I've felt obliged to go along with. Lately, we've been to the Scientific Center, again, and it wasn't my first time either to take photos from inside. Despite the chances of doing some photography in low light conditions, yet I've lost my appetite for it - needless to say that it was a busy time and visitors kept rushing in, and when we talk about visitors, we should mention as well, kids. They are blessed; because I didn't carry a machine gun back then. Anyway, I'll be back to this later.

One of the things that I'm suffering from is amnesia as it seems. As I've been preparing for one homework about long exposures to be done on the beach, I've forgot to wear my vest, in which I kept the remote and the calculator. Anyway, wasn't a big problem after all - the problem was to slide down the rocks and slipping down!

Canon EF-S 18-55mm @24mm, f/22, 30sec, ISO 100.

In the beginning, I was afraid that the waters won't splash against the rocks as it should be because the high tide time already passed 2 hours before the shoot. However, that wasn't a problem. Another problem occurred when a man and his kids settled down beside the rocks to take a dip into the sea; I was planning to take a long exposure with my Tamron 70-300mm as it gives larger f-number and it will help me for sure to increase the shutter time significantly - but now with this man in the path, I have to go closer to the rocks as I didn't want to give an impression that I'm snapping pictures of him! Isn't that annoying?

Canon EF-S 18-55mm @53mm
f/36, 30sec,
ISO 100

As I settled near the rocks and closer the water's transgression line (and after slipping off the rocks), I didn't know how to really begin doing the exposure. At night, you settle, fix a composition, check the histogram for a good distribution and from there you start the calculations and how much needed time.
Here the situation is supposedly easier but with the lack of a remote and a calculator, all what I did is try different compositions first - I tried to take a shot from above the rocks but the tripod could not be stabilized there. On the ground though, I've put on 2 3-stop ND filters and the time was significantly raised to 30 seconds, and I was able to focus (with the help of the live-view). I didn't think about it then but all what I needed was one more stop and make it one minute! Is it that important? I don't think so. The nature of the water movement is vivid and active, and probably even 10 seconds would do the job perfectly.
All shots were tinted (typical for Cokin ND filters) and I had to adjust the WB and Tint while RAW editing. The image above was sort of overexposed, while the one on the left was my teacher's favorite. There is a tiny problem with these two shots; a plastic bag was roaming the beach and I didn't notice till later.

Cotton Waves
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @38mm
f/22, 15sec, ISO 100.

As for the last shot, which took only 15 seconds, I didn't eliminate the tint completely and kept some purplish hue in the scene giving it some dreamy effect. Even though I like this one because it is clear and no plastic bag roaming! Yet, my teacher prefers the one above. I have to agree though that the previous shot was more vivid and active because I've zoomed in more and the action is visible clearly. I think also, that the elevation of the camera played a role here, where in the previous shot the camera were lower and closer to the ground, while in Cotton Waves shot it was higher, probably to my chest level.
Up to this level, I'm preparing to do some new experiment with long exposures which involves doing some sort of "double" exposures in one scene by applying ND filters to part of the image. This move, I presume, would divide the scene into 2 or more divisions and hence it would require an exposure calculation for each division and, at the end, the exposure value for each division must match as closely s possible. This is only my theory for now, but all should be clear in reality when I work it out on location. The location itself is another story that I have to think about.

Now back to the Scientific Center. As I've said before, It was hard to find out something new to my eye or to spark my imagination. Anyway, if we say that I was being paid for such a job of course I won't mind doing all of the cliché again and again!

The New Past
Rokinon 8mm fisheye
f/8, HDR [5], ISO 100

However, the imagination sparked as the sun was setting outside. This is the main difference between being inside in the aquarium, and outside in the hot weather while the sun is going down!
In The New Past shot, I've used the magical recipe for dawn or dusk: switching to Fluorescent WB. Despite the nice light but it was still so bright and the luminance range was extremely varied; a call for HDR. I've taken this shot in different angles and in different lenses and the only barrier for me to change my point of view was the fence circulating the old ship. However, it didn't matter to me as I'm pleased with the result after all, but the problem of the noise remains. I had to do some Photoshop magic to get rid of those hard crisp noise pixels that no plugin can remove.
Usually when we talk about sensor noise and how it does escalate under the effect of the heat, this noise is recognizable by its chromatic appearance or simply red hot dot in the image. This is not the case here and frequently, it is only a product of HDR merging, which makes me ask myself if there are ways to enhance my workflow with HDR rendering - More experimentation needed!

Historical Transition
Canon EF 15mm fisheye, f/8, HDR [5], ISO 100

Historical Transition was even more disastrous than The New Past. If you enlarge the image you can notice the blue line roaming the edges of the ship. I'm not sure why does that happen but most probably the culprit would be the chromatic aberration which gets exaggerated by the HDR rendering. I tried to reduce the effects by some effects yet it didn't work perfectly after all. The idea behind Historical Transition (and it was shot first), is to combine the modern buildings with an element from the past making a contrast between the old and new. Surprisingly though, some people didn't get the idea directly, not even from the title itself!

وطن النهار
or
Hiding Sun
Tamron 70-300mm @259mm, f/8, 125^-1sec, ISO 400

The Hiding Sun was one of the earliest shots done outside in fact, but I don't put much weight on it, and as you can see I didn't even watermark it. Taken with Tamron without a tripod and with manual focusing, it was indeed a struggle. Even though I did plan for HDR merging here yet a single RAW edit was enough to pin point my view, and I do predict a disaster if done in HDR. It was really hard to be convinced about this image, but I've taken it merely for the composition itself. Was I to take it again, I would definitely use another lens (probably Canon 100mm) and a tripod!
One last funny shot (taken before I get outside) that I have to mention here I guess...

Infinitarium II
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, 13^-1sec, ISO 800.

As you can see, Infinitarium II is a shot taken at ground level after a long journey inside the aquarium. In the beginning I've taken 2 shots standing up in portrait position by the same lens, but I've figured such angle of view is not interesting much. Luckily, I was carrying my calculator in my pocket just in case, so I've laid it flat on the ground and rested the lens on it. With the help of the timer (2 sec) I've managed to balance the camera gently with both hands and shoot.
What I like about this shot is the little sparkle in the lights caused by f/8 aperture. If I was to use a smaller aperture like f/16 or f/22, then the sparkle around the light sources would have been severer and probably, as in most cases, would cause a flare and ugly sparkles covering large portions of the image causing distractions.

Mortuus
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @44mm
f/5, 13^-1sec
ISO 500

Now Monday was the last day in Techniques (2) workshop, and I'm sort of relieved so I can have the afternoon time for myself and my preparations for the travel. However, there is one weird assignment left that to be submitted on Thursday, the day in which this post is to be posted! Our teacher asked us to take a photo of a glass (or a cup). As simple as that, and as weird as that! Up till this moment at which I'm typing this, the idea is roaming my mind still and I just don't know how to do it yet. In hope that I will find something soon. Beside this, we are waiting for some training on action shots and panning with, supposedly, the hockey team in here. Though I'm not much interested in action photography, however, it might be a chance to try out my speedlites IF I was allowed to.

If you are wondering about the image above, Mortuus, it is just a shot for a dead bush branches that caught my eyes before going out of home heading to my workshop. I liked how the light on the wall is reflected. Metering (in spot mode) was a bit hard but at a certain point I've started to reduce the shutter speed (faster) to avoid shake and give more saturated look. Unfortunately, I was in a hurry and I used my 18-55mm which doesn't give a shallower depth of field more than this. There is no philosophy behind it, but simply, a shot!

The Dewing Dew
Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/2.8, 100^-1sec, ISO 800

Let's face it. I'm not a flower photography fan, and I don't have much of that romanticism in my life, nor do I feel it. Yet, this shot specifically taken from the Scientific Center was a bit inspiring. When I took it, I wasn't aiming at a specific idea - but simply to work out something because my mind was dull and no ideas were going through. At home, however, this image inspired me to write something after stopping for ages - The Dewing Dew.

Now, I'm going to post this (or schedule it to be posted) and turn around to work on some traveling issues and organize my life before traveling. The vibes are telling me that there are big changes ahead; good or bad, I don't know. I just know I have to do it. See you next Thursday...