Success…

Phew! It's over! What an exhaustive 10-days time! I barely had time to do anything else; work, home for lunch and then out again to the expo, then back again home for a little work with some photos (if any power was left) and hitting the sack so hard with exhaustion. I think it did make some toll on my health too. Anyway, the expo which accompanies Kuwait's 40^th Arabic Book fair is now over, with brilliant success, and what is left now is some reflection and thought, as well as analyzing some events.
It was a gamble in fact. I didn't know how the public would perceive a display of 3D images in a photography expo, but my bet was on the fact that it is a new and a weird idea which people are not used to in here. The fame was obvious when I saw some people advancing directly towards our group's booth and heading directly to the 3D display. However, I did have to follow every visitor possible (not in the first opening hours in the morning though), just to check their reaction, and also provide any help needed.
Among the audience there were many types: The analytical, the ignorant, the surprised... etc. It was fun noting these types down. Probably the most mysterious type was the one which looks thoroughly through the 3D glasses, for some time, put them down calmly then, and walks away without a single facial expression to note any feelings! Some other types surprised me as well, like some of them who said they don't see any difference at all when they look with and without glasses; Not quite sure what's the problem here but noting how other people perceived it, it seems such people did have a perception problem. The most annoying type was the one which puts the glasses for a second and puts it back; apparently not interested in the first place but probably the hand has a brain of its own to move! The majority of the annoying audience was composed of kids, kids, and kids! Even though I kept tracking my glasses, still some of them just disappeared into thin air! Adding to kids, some irresponsible adults.

Images displayed in the expo.

Now, the mess is over with, it is time to re-think and re-schedule my life as much as possible. I have many ideas I'm trying to apply and test... and some will cost me some precious pennies. I do have as well some scattered ideas for making some photographs, but let's hope I get the opportunity and time to work on them seriously! Aside, there lies a long abandoned project: The Geltani conlang. I was supposed to make a web version for the conlang, and there are still some screws that need to be tightened, specially in the transliteration notation.

On the other hand, there are a number of plans and tasks to do, like making test prints, and thinking of new ways to make prints for upcoming exhibitions. Presenting prints in some unusual way can be one of the points to keep us afloat in the world of art and photography altogether. It is a matter of presenting something new to the public. However, there are some other ideas on the waiting list, like the concept of the 4D image. I'm not sure how to apply this yet but it surely needs some practical work and trials and errors to examine how good this idea could be. I did give it out a try in few months back from now, but the subject needs more testing to come out with a concrete conclusion! 

ن (Nún)

In the meantime, I'm keeping myself a bit busy with some cultural activities, like visiting the theater as much as I can since it is Kuwait's 16^th festival, and working with panoramas acquired from the Den Gallery during the Arabic Book fair back in November. I'm still trying to extract more projections and styles from these 5 panoramas as it can be seen in ن. There are plenty of possibilities, yet I cannot simply form just any projection and stitch it without a specific goal or aim in mind - something I'm learning to master from visiting such galleries and going to the theaters to understand how to read emotions and in between the lines. In The world of artists, do what artists do!

Welcome to Den!

QTVR

Speaking of a documentation of such gallery naturally brings about the topic of QTVRs. In fact, We had some lengthy discussions about the properties of QTVRs and how the gallery would make use of these. There are methods and ways to introduce QTVRs but they do require some quite a knowledge in coding or building webpages (like using Java and Flash) which I'm not acquainted with. In this blog, I do usually use QTVR (.mov) files and embed them to be viewed in this page. Learning such methods for website building with QTVRs can be quite useful, but it might be a headache trigger as well - and after all, I'm just a photographer. Anyway, I've decided to make one QTVR out of one of these 5 panoramas (and two of them are not complete panoramas in fact).

However, it seems it is about time to learn these new website techniques, but I'm not ready for it yet, as my schedule is getting tighter for the time being even after the end of the exhibition. In fact, I was waiting for the exhibition to be over with just to do other activities on hold. 

These activities within the Den Gallery were done voluntarily, as I've discovered that an old friend's brother and their relatives are involved in this prestigious gallery. Now, I'm hoping that my surreal projection styles would be inspirational to them as artists as well!

Ring of Arts

Finale

Now, I've talked a bit about what's in my list of activities, specially those related to photography, but I still have more. Well, excluding the daily routine and the bills, as well as cleaning my room! 

I'm already enrolled now in a special 3-day workshop discussing High-Speed photography and using the HSS mode in the Speedlites. In the plans as well, searching for classes for KSL (Kuwaiti Sign Language) and if ASL (American Sign Language) if possible. I really loved to learn this language in a long time now and I had some trials, but with time gaps in between trials, everything is forgotten easily! Maybe it is time to get something concrete like I did before with the German classes about 9 or 8 years ago!

I'm not sure how necessary is this; I mean going into activities like that. However, it is probably an unconscious trial from my side to escape my reality? Trying to find myself a name? I don't know. One thing for sure though: my tired body will take the toll for sure; but I'm hoping it will be like the case with muscles: The More weight you take, the bigger the muscles grow! 

I was wishing to display my panoramas from the my first commissioned work in Bait Al-Othman museum, which got me a tiny stream of extra income, but unfortunately, I cannot do much right now until they publish the images on their own. They didn't buy the right of these images (which should cost more of course!). Now I'm thinking of how to expand the circle of customers, and probably my work in Den Gallery would be a spark in that road.

Golden Times

On-Going…

Not much to be said right now, as the long awaited expo started this Wednesday and it will last for 10 days. My schedule would be busy in the afternoons as I will be heading to the expo everyday, as much as I can, even though the health have been shaky a bit lately.
For this expo (which accompanies the annual book fair) I've made 3D prints (i.e. images) in a gamble with how people would perceive this. So far so good, despite the problem with the lighting and the sunlight coming in daytime. Such images have somewhat greater sensitivity to the light level falling upon them which might alter or change the red and cyan level, which in return initiates a "ghosting" effect, where the eyes cannot merge the two images into one (using the glasses of course). I have also to keep track of the 3D glasses and keep them on check.

The guys in front of my 3D image print, which is a panorama from,
Sultan Qabus Grand Mosque. It comes as a surprise that my two 3D images
are from Oman, and displayed in this time which coincides with Oman's
national day!
Follow the group's Instagram's account for more updates and news:
@bpf_kwt_group

The Minister's visit to our booth in the opening ceremony.

Despite this pressure, I did minor processing for some shots from Malta, and probably will display them in a later time. For now, my mind is running around for new ideas, to photograph and also to print. I'm thinking as well of doing more experiments in the field of 3D anaglyphs. I'm just hoping no more mishaps to come down my way as it is the situation with this passing week, as well as better health to be coming down my way… I hope.

Triq tas Sema (BW/3D)
Road of Heaven
طريق السماء

Gallería …

This post contains a QTVR, which needs QuickTime to be installed. It requires some time to load and probably won't show properly on mobile devices.

Here we go now with the gallery (or expo). It really made my week busy, and made my plans go on halt for the time being, despite the fact that attendance there was almost a zero for most days. Yet, I had to attend and be there for some time now and then (except on Friday, in which I was really tired and needed to sleep). In the beginning I was reluctant to do any documentation, but then I decided to do some simple documenting, specifically for my own work, and add a twist to it by using anaglyphs.

Section where my prints are kept (on the right side of the hall from entrance).
They should look hovering above wall level when viewed properly.
Click to enlarge.

Doing a panorama, too, was out of question, but then I thought again why not document that whole hall by doing a panorama? Specially that I didn't touch my tools for a long time now (while trying to work indoors at home to no avail). This panorama specifically was a unique experience on certain levels. I've discovered that empty spaces do have their magic at some point, this is for one. On the other hand, some features were not quite obvious on location until I started working with the shots, this is for two. As for the third, it was the usual pizza-behavior as I call it - panorama stitching gone erratic. Something weird is going on with this behavior, and I must try to figure out the reasons behind it before heading to Oman on September 9^th.

The pizza!

I did the panorama shooting in one day, but since it didn't go well (as I said, pizza behavior!), I came back the second day to shoot. However, after inspecting some images, I could probably relate to the reasons for such erratic behavior in the stitching process; it could be the dirty lens which left some spots (probably causing the computer to calculate some control points for them), and to my surprise, I've found out that there is a whole angle or corner in the panorama which was left without shooting! It was definitely a job to be done again (and carefully this time), and after cleaning the camera and lenses thoroughly.

The Gallery

This panorama shooting was done in manual mode and I did some light metering around the set yielding 1sec exposure at f/11 and ISO100. This is the base from which I've expanded a bracket to take shots at -2 and +2 EV (that is 2 stops below and above the basic exposure time). However, the next day, the settings in the camera didn't change but I thought of reducing the f-number to f/9 while reducing the base exposure to half a second. This was done mainly for two reasons: a) reducing light source burst (star-like effect) which might corrupt the stitch later on and add unfavorable effect, and b) just to make sure that +2EV shots don't go way too bright but just enough to control the shadow areas later on. Moreover, I've used my white balance disk to pick up a Custom WB image, because the lighting conditions there were all mixed up (CFL and spotlights). A decision I didn't regret at all!

Initial tone-mapping settings before adding further adjustment layers.
I got to say that I like the shape of the final curve!

Tone-mapping the HDR panorama was done in Photoshop rather in Photomatix. This is because I needed some control over specific zones (to make the whole scene look as if it was a high-key shot), while suppressing some other zones; in a nutshell, Photomatix would be way too general to my needs here. The only mishap here is that the virtual reality (QTVR) would have an obvious seam between the left and the right edges of the panorama. Strangely, that did not happen, or maybe it did but my eyes are failing me! Photomatix supposedly is the only application that would make it possible to equalize the exposure and tones on the left and right edges. I was thinking of fixing that manually if I had to, but strangely, the QTVR was seamless!

QTVR

 As I usually do nowadays, I don't play it hard with the nadir shots (even though I do take them in the process, just in case). Thus, I've made the usual tag or title nadir shot on my own, with information about this QTVR (location, event, …etc). As I've mentioned above, I was surprised that the QTVR did not have a seam line, OR it might be just my eyes failing me. The irony here is that I didn't notice the arcs in the ceiling on location, but only when I started to work with this panorama already! Anyway, it was a lovely addition which transformed my work from documentation to working for art.




For this panorama specifically, it is better to see it in a small size, as there are several stitching errors even in the second trial to take the panorama (however, they were minor). I do suspect that Moiré effect does have a relation to this. But I need to check my no-parallax point in the configuration as well.

Finale

This might be my last post for now before heading to Oman next week, on September 9^th. Four days only, but surely they will be tiring. I've seen the proposed schedule for the shoot and frankly I'm not sure I will be able to cope with that but I'm hoping to do some panoramas there and night shots as well. Until then, I'll be wishing myself some good luck…

A surprise this week from m&m's. A heart-shaped chocolate legume!

Mawahb 5 Expo…

A tiresome week had gone and I'm still following up with its consequences - as usual, sleep deprivation. I can call it a successful week with all the positive feedback we received for our booth in the latest Mawahb 5 Expo; and my own panoramas specifically got large base of attention, starting with the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Sheik Mohammed Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah.

Explaining Ludendorffs Wirklichkeit to the minister, and on the far right appears the Kuwaiti actor Abdul-Rahman Al-Aqil. Frankly, didn't know he's there until I got this image from friends!

It was a funny chat, and I didn't know he is a photographer too! Turned out that he is a Nikonian, while I'm a Canonese! He started the chat with a statement:

I saw your photo and I wanted to see this man in person, now I see you're wearing a Canon around your neck, you made me sad. 

Oh well, it was the usual strife between Nikons and Canons! At least I did a job that people kept, keep and probably will keep talking about! Up till that moment, I really didn't know he is a photographer as well. It was a pleasant encounter and the beginning of a robust engine. The only thing that kept me annoyed in the duration of the expo is the quality of the prints we've made, and they are supposed to be printed at the #1 print shop here. In one of my discussions with the people working in that print shop, I've realized that the term "calibration" never crossed the dictionaries of those people, yet.

Quick glance at our booth

In this expo, I didn't run around doing a documentation for the whole place as I did 3 years ago. But simply dedicated my efforts for the stage (and man, what an awful legs' pain it was). I didn't have a good lens with low f-value (wide aperture), but the maximum zoom I could do was with my Sigma 70-300mm, and adding a teleconverter (x2) to double the focal length was another definition for "Disaster!" And because the dark atmosphere, there was no escape but to raise the ISO somewhere in between 1600 to 2500. Most of the shots were taken in ISO2000 in fact. Viewing these photos in small size (and after processing) seems fine, but sure not for printing on a large scale.
Taking shots at this events and specifically from the stage is something somehow important for me personally. This is because I'm not a portraiture fan at all, and while a photographer must expand his horizon to other fields other than his, I find it hard to work with portraiture, mainly because of some introversion traits. Thus, the stage is a suitable environment for someone like me to work on capturing gestures and emotions without having to deal in person with the subject. Needless to say, I don't have to plan anything related to the lighting of the scene; it is just all there waiting to be captured.
Well, the work is not over yet with these photos but I will leave you now with a show of some of them which are processed so far, in hope that you'll like them. Keep in mind that the light conditions beside the lens' conditions were NOT to be appreciated! Sorry for the low quality of the slideshow though; this is the only way I got to upload it here!
Note: Music is Soulmates by Lee Rosevere, and can be downloaded for free from freemusicarchive.

  

Book Fair…

Things had been busy a bit here, particularly for the matter of the Expo which accompanies the annual book fair (Arabic Book fair that is). Things went fast, as the organizers called the group's leader to get some photos ready for the expo, leaving the leader no choice but to "pick" directly instead of the usual sorting out process for the members - members that he chose and picked himself out of all of the around-34 members. They, the organizers, specified the number to be 10 photographers, with 2 photos from each photographer to be displayed, and thus the total would be 20 photos. To our surprise though when the expo started by last Wednesday, our group's position was apparently picked by the organizers in a haste or simply our group was thought of as the last solution for some problem they had! Other groups had the chance to get 30 photographers in, with two photos for each (i.e. 60 photos in total). Moreover to this, our group's photos were not gathered specifically into one booth, but spread over 2 places, with some photos of other groups into the booth containing most of our photos.

Our booth in the expo, with the right wall belonging to another group.
The photos of the leader and 2 other members are displayed on the partition,
and on the other side into the next booth.

Also, apparently other groups knew what was going on and brought stickers to put them on the names of their members. We didn't bring ours till next day. There were no signs showing which belongs to what, but they simply dumped the stock side by side.

Anyway, things are going fine and so far so good - we are considered by now the best contributors to this expo; testified by both: photographers and non-photographers. The distribution of the prints made me a trouble for how to document this event by a panorama. However, I decided to go ahead and do one panorama for the main booth. I did another panorama for a general view of the expo. The panorama for the main booth had to be done in HDR because of the harsh contrast coming from the windows above, and yet I didn't bother doing some metering here, since it was just for documenting after all. As for the general panorama, which I didn't stitch yet, it was a simple 360 panorama of single shots, as I didn't care much about showing fine details or making a dramatic look out of it.

This is all for now and till I get some free time from the expo, I might get back to writing this blog. I do have some ideas that I need to work on (at home and outside) but because of the time consuming expo, I can barely have some rest from work before going to the expo, or even barely having some time for myself. See you later!

Mawahb 2...

Phew! What a week! Long and exhaustive but I've made it through finally. Thursday to Sunday, I was attending my booth (with my sister) for our crafts in Photography (me) and in knitting works (hers).
Despite the fact that I didn't sell a thing and I've realized that people look somehow cheap at what I do, but I've made some contacts and socialized a bit, and made some notifications (mental ones) about some printing aspects. It is all about learning.
There were amazing people with amazing talents in many fields. However, my focus was on photography and printing. Moreover, I'm trying to make plans for the future from what I gained and saw in the expo.

My humble booth

Because of the time limits and because of my lack of experience for such events, I didn't really become a match for the beautiful booths in the expo. Anyway, I think my biggest mistake was to choose a booth opened from two sides, which made my place like a tunnel of people coming in and out!

The Booths

In 4 days, I got to know some amazing people in this expo. I picked my camera and roamed the expo and catching snap shots. In fact, it was somehow a good experiment with my snapping skills (i.e. fast-rhyme photography if I can say), and some high-iso shots too. I like to greet them all, and I beg pardon from those whom I didn't get the chance to take a photo of their booths. يعطيكم ألف عافية شباب.

Here are the booths that I had the chance to photograph in alphabetical order:

A Touch
A florist with a gentle touch. I got intoxicated with the fine aroma in this booth!

Abdullah Jery Photography
Pioneering in HDR and printing. I really loved the optical keyboard there!

Al-Arbash Designer
Absolutely magnificent. I simply fell in love with the architectural designs he does.

Antiques
A corner that stole my heart away. Not only because I love antiques too, but also it is all about the history of my dear homeland. Snap shots will follow later!

BOFA
The booth that made all the action in the expo with disguises and make-up. Snap shots will follow later!

BPF - Bahaa Photo Friends
My teacher's booth and his group. My teacher is giving his back to the camera under the arrow (if you can see it!). Some more snap shots later!

Breezes
Amazing action/portrait photographer. She pushed my confidence further when it comes to printing with noise grains. Some of her photos are so nice and you won't notice the ISO1000 noise until you approach the print at 30 cm or less!

Casual IT
I think she didn't take the address of this blog! Oh well, good luck!

CG ARTS
A corner I loved so much too, with all the fantasy characters and sketches in it. I can imagine future games productions!

Creativity Photography and Design
Fancy wallpaper and photos with cool contrast. Good luck guys!

DCStudio
Pioneers in printing methods. I need to check their place often in the near future!

Extended Galaxy
My far neighbor. Amazing work; all done with spray paints only!

Fatma Al-Refaee
Nice photography and cool abstract shots. Opened my eyes with a new printing technique; the acrylic. Some of her photos are printed on a sheet of acrylic and lighted from behind. I'll try to investigate more on this technique!

Fatma Thuwaini
Provided me with lot of information about her techniques with the flashes and printing. Thanks a lot!

Focus
My immediate neighbor and one of the first booths to photograph. Gentle touch and also provided me with printing information. Thanks again!

Gina Arts
Quiet corner with huge artistic talent!

Hanan's Photos
Another gentle touch and some more information on printing methods and some techniques as well. Thanks!

Hawra' Boshehri
My immediate neighbor. She had her share of annoying people! We had some long discussions about arts and the mentality of people in general, and of those visiting the expo!

Hussain Dashti
An organizer and, then I've discovered, an artist too. Thanks for all the efforts!

Jaberna
A volunteering community composed, as I believe, mainly from people of special needs. The group is dedicated to the name of the late Amir of Kuwait, Sheik Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Subah. They made me write a dedication and sign as well. Good luck guys and always forward!

J&L Photography
Great photos, specially those in Black and White that I thought they were sketches first. The contrast in the images was astonishing!

Khaled Al-Sayegh
Fashion, arts, and energy prospects; all combined in one booth here!

Kuwait Creative Society for Culture & Arts for The Disabled
Pioneering group advocating people of special needs and their arts.

Modern Touch
A fellow student with me in my previous class with Mr Bahaa. The decorations and products are all made within a family circle as it seems. I loved the decoration and did take a simple panorama of the place for stitching (see below).

My World by Nouf Al-Khamees
Quite surprised me with her shells collection and also her unique artistic talent. She did combine photography with a touch of decoration making a 3D effect out of simple shots. Also provided me with some information about new locations of probable inspirations, for the future. Thanks!

Q8 Long Exposure
The name says it all. One of my favorites. I've been fond of long exposures for some time and this is just what I needed to see!

Q8 Old Cars Team
Yes, this car was inside, but the team has a wide set of cars parked outside as well, and gracefully they allowed me to take photographs of them. Snaps will follow later!

Raffaello
Amazing sketches of different styles. Simply, great catch!

Rasha Photo
Another fellow photographer. I did like a collection of some old photography tools in the booth!

Snapshots
Although I didn't meet the owner personally, but had a permission from her relative, yet it looks promising indeed. Some nice saturation and contrasts there!

Sophie
Meet the creator of one of the most devastating piece in the expo! I can say, with all confidence, that every one passing by the booth thought that it is a photograph, but the fact is, it is a painting (and I guess she told me a pastel painting). She did not offer them for sale despite the many offers she received. Excellent job, excellent attitude!

Unique Art
When photography meets fashion, it is not always about a model and cameras around!

Yousef Al-Muhanna Photography and Ali-Media.com
One long booth that combined two dear items to my heart: Nice Photography, and unique Arabic calligraphy!

Zahra Naseeb
Together we share the artistic thoughts and our view of the beauty that lies within destroyed places and devastated atmosphere. Unfortunately, she had to put up with so much stress and pressure from comments coming from people who did not understand her style and didn't give a chance for her to explain, thinking that she is following some Gothic-like thoughts. It is a usual matter for any artist I guess. Also, she is a matron of iPhone photography!
Her booth was a subject for a panorama too (see below).

Snapshots

Around the expo there were some special moments and some special "tasks" that I had to do. Ideas sprung up as I roamed the hall. However, the earliest form of snapshots were taken outside, with the old cars parked and shown in front of the hall entrance. Luckily, the sun served me and my mind, immediately, went on designing how this can serve me with some HDR scenery.

I. Cars:

The HDR tone-mapping done here was extreme. I'm not constrained with limitations of submissions to the websites who require "regular" images, thus it was a chance to let it out and speak in HDR-ish.

As you can see, all the shots were taken with a fisheye lens (Rokinon 8mm), which I think plays well in such atmosphere, and thanks to the sun and the hazy weather that day!

The funny thing is, the team forgot to print out a business card for themselves, like me! However, I've been given lot of information and you can reach them if you like at: www.q8oc.net .

II. Antiques:

As I said before, this Antiques corner was a lovely one, and I couldn't hold myself from capturing more shots from the inside!

General view of the booth with many old stuff, even old Pepsi cans!

Mirwás. I just love the sound it makes.

Old American Kodak camera and... something beside it...

Old German Loewe radio.

III. Stage:

The stage, and continuously for 4 days, was full of activities at the evening shift. However, because I was busy roaming the hall and checking on the booths, I didn't get the chance to take some photos for some of the performers till it was the 3rd day. Compared to the lens that I saw by my teacher's (Mr Bahaa) hands, my lens (tamron 77-300 and x2 teleconveter) was merely a toy. It was an experiment however, and made me shape some ideas about the usage of the flash with relatively high shutter speeds (and also high ISO). 

Another Phil Collins?

The images generally suffered from severe chromatic aberration. Seems that the teleconverter makes the effect severer and even harder to remove. A major problem as well was using the manual focusing all the time since the autofocus function is slow with this lens combination. I think I got extra muscles in my fingers that day!

IV. BOFA:

The life inside the expo was alive with visitors, and also exchanged visits between booth owners, but one main factor for this liveliness comes from BOFA, and her make-up and costumes.

Yeah. That was fun.

I remember he asked if he looked pretty. I answered with... "yes"...

Mario... without his mushrooms. My flash froze his movement.

Who's that?

Many fun times with these guys, even though they had such horrific costumes, but their ideas were revolutionary relative to the typical idea of an expo!

Thanks for all the fun guys!

Panoramas

The atmosphere was a busy one, and even, at times, busy with boredom. However, I guess everyone knows right now my love for the panoramas and the geometrical shapes that can be achieved from panoramas. Thus, I didn't like the idea of passing 4 days in such a place without doing something about it.

My first attack, was my teacher's booth. After gaining permission, I've came to the place as early as possible and started settling down with my tools for shooting.

BPF Booth from inside

The shoot went on with a single bracket (i.e. no HDR attended). I've done some simple metering on some white and black surfaces and then finally settled the exposure manually to about 1 second or more a bit. Before settling down with my tools I trained my eyes a little bit on the surfaces by standing in the middle of the booth and looking around in a circle and also going up and down with my body. I was trying to see how reflective the glossy prints might be. I was aiming at shooting a low-level panorama thinking it would be more interesting in looks, but I realized that at a low angle (less than 1 meter above the ground), the glossy prints will reflect too much light and shine, leaving the original image printed on them incomprehensible. For this reason, I neglected this idea and raised the camera more than one meter above the ground.

Frankly, I was afraid that the after-all look won't be nice and the exposure will be screwed up in some places, but I got away with a simple and well lightened panorama. Later on, Mr Bahaa asked for this panorama in a larger size with my name on it for future brochures or publications, thus I've made him a 20K pixels wide version of the same panorama, in TIFF 16-bit, with a simple QTVR (without zenith and nadir points because I didn't include them originally). The original TIFF file almost measured up to 1 GB.

Another panorama for the same booth was done manually for the outer wall. It was a simple handheld panorama done at around 20mm focal length, and it was done in a haste and at high ISO (400 if I remember correctly)...

BPF booth from outside

The lack of concentration at that moment made me lose the right hand side of the panorama. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this fact until I've came to prepare the images for this blog later. However, it was a panorama done in a haste and fast rhythm. Only 3 shots in landscape orientation, and done handheld.

The other interesting location for me was the first booth, Zahra Naseeb. What attracted me is the solid black wallpaper (with fine lines) and the location itself relative to the whole. Also, the lack of any decorations in the middle of the booth, made it an easy target for such a panorama.

Zahra Naseeb's Booth

The stitch here was made in a haste for this blog. The extra space was cropped showing only the booth itself. However, there is a problem with the central point which made the cropping process uneven. I think it is one of these panoramas where you HAVE to specify a vertical control point to adjust the orientation of the whole panorama properly and straighten the panorama vertically. 

The panorama was done in 3 rows and without zenith and nadir, just like with BPF booth, but I've realized that I might, later on, have a severe problem with the highlights because of the harsh lighting and the small space of the booth itself. Thus, the whole shooting was done in HDR brackets and tone-mapped manually in Photoshop instead of Photomatix, because I wanted to give a natural look as much as possible. The panorama is stitched in Mercator projection because it yielded a better, and not-so-flat, view of the booth itself.

The last of the panoramas was for the Modern Touch booth. This small panorama done in 3 rows but without a wide horizontal range, with around 5 angles only per row.

Modern Touch booth

The idea initially was to shoot the booth from the inside, but with the logo on the floor I've changed my mind and decided to shoot from the outside. This in fact even made it easier for me and less of a work. Metering the walls of the booth and the light areas on the items showed a wide gap, so I decided to resolve the matter with HDR shooting again. Also, the tone-mapping was done manually with some adjustment layers to fix some color casts.

The projection style here is Mercator as well but other projection styles were interesting too, specially the straight or "rectangular" projection which made the booth look flat with great depth, but unfortunately the title on the top would be severely blurred because of the stretches on the edges by this type of projection. I will experiment some more with these panoramas in the near future hopefully.

Contacts

As I said before, I've met lot of people and exchanged contacts with a lot of people. Unfortunately, I didn't a card for my own use, but I've collected some cards. Maybe posting the cards here would be beneficial for other people to connect and sort things together. With all the talents I've seen in the expo, I can say that we can do a lot; more than we have imagined even...

Contacts
Click to enlarge.

As for me now, it is time to have some rest and plan ahead. New ideas came to my mind and probably new ideas for marketing or so. But my mind is still tired for all the work done so far in these 4 days of the expo.

I would like to thank everyone who shared the information they got with me, and everyone reading through this blog at the moment and I hope you enjoyed this ride for the time being, and hope you will enjoy the upcoming rides as well.

يعطيكم العافية شباب وسامحونا على القصور وموفقين دائما إن شاء الله

"Imagination is more important than Knowledge" - Albert Einstein.