Goodbye Tamron...

Here I am, after 2 weeks of being almost idle. As much as I hate to admit it, but seems my mood swings were at apex. The material I was trying to prepare for this post wasn't much as I couldn't work much with my camera. I was too lazy to touch it and prepare stuff for more nadir shots. Disasters didn't stop at this level yet, as you will be reading further!
On the other hand, I've started with the beginning of last week to do on some eye checking. From one clinic to another, and then to the eye hospital here (and let's not talk about the procedures and the hordes of people in the queue line). There is a big chance that I do suffer from retinitis pigmentosa just like my eldest brother and one of my sisters, but I'm not sure how dangerous my situation is. It was supposed to be a regular and a routine check up in fact, but oh well... I'm trying to cool myself down and enjoy my time as much as possible, with games and the camera when possible. I'm now waiting for November 25^th to do some eye testing and check with the doctor.

Nadirology

There were many struggles to take nadir shots (or shots pointing downward) specially that I don't have much means to handle the camera and make it hanging in a vertical position.

Source: B&H
FAIL!

One of the "toys" that were supposed to help me with this such task is the (crap) Delkin Fat Gecko Gator Camera Mount which caused me a disaster the last (and it was the first) time I used it. I left it unused after that failure but with my limited hopes in such tasks like taking nadirs inside rooms I've tried to work around it somehow, and the result was another failure and the device totally disintegrated, piece by piece. I'm simply amazed how come I'm the only one who made a negative review on this item on B&H website (or so it seems)!

Above Hall
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/16, 1.3sec, ISO500.

One of the trials to take such shots, like in Above Hall, I tried to improvise something: a hard paper bag with a hole at its bottom for the camera lens. However, this method didn't work out properly because the body of the camera is not uniform and the result is a tilted camera dangling from the light fixture; a situation that persisted in all situations almost. The camera could hardly be balanced straight. Probably it is time for more of DIY solutions with some metal work - or simply order something! I already had some hard time doing the same procedure in my bathroom. Anyway, I did take a twisted picture but I won't post it here for the time being.

Shots like Above Hall aren't something that I applaud but it did teach me some aspects about taking such shots in terms of composition. Probably a congested place is a good thing for such shots, because in Above Hall, the hall was empty almost and not many features are presented, making the shot somehow boring, unless you appreciate the minimalistic approach!

Geometrical Amuse
Canon EF 50mm, f/16, 8^-1sec, ISO800.

Not all shots, however, were for rooms (and I think I presented some 2 weeks ago). This time though I continued my work with the stairs but since shooting was awkward from upstairs to downstairs, this time I decided to put my monopod to some good use. However, using such a method and dangling the camera (with the portable monitor connected in hot-shoe) calls for a higher ISO to fasten the shutter speed ad get a stabilized image as much as possible. Geometrical Amuse is one portion of an image taken this way (with others being shaken and blurred). The crop changed the perspective of the whole image from landscape to portrait. Again it is a combination between abstraction and minimalism I suppose. Still, I didn't get enough amuse from such shots yet. Probably I should consider doing "zenith" shots frequently as much now with the hardships taking such nadir shots. I have to concentrate also on doing nadir shots on objects and other minimal features and not necessarily rooms or landscapes. Landscapes, however, are a good target for a monopod raised up with the camera!

Micro Macro

After such many failures doing nadir shots, I've decided to move my point of interest into another field: Macro photography. Or maybe I should say, Extra Macro Photography.

Source: Amazon

R.I.P.
Tamron 70-300mm
Source: B&H

This change of interest in fact resulted in a disaster in the beginning. My Tamron 70-300mm lens got broken as it was connected in reverse with the Canon EF 50mm. I'm not sure what went wrong but seems I've used some power where it shouldn't be, specially that the body of the lens is plastic. What has been broken is the mechanics for zooming in and out. Thus, with any connected material to the front of the lens, it might make the lens front be dragged forward. However, I can still pull in and out the lens and the focusing mechanism is still working (manual focusing that is, I didn't try the AF!). It did some nice job for some time, but anyway, for the time being, it seems it is time to get a real telephoto lens other than this cheap choice. It was a matter of time. Anyway, with Tamron broken, I do get some choices now and maybe I have a bit more guts to manipulate this lens further somehow (and maybe try to disintegrate it and see what's in!).

Cutter Edge
Canon EF 50mm (R), Canon EF 100mm macro + 36mm extension tubes,
f/32, 60sec, ISO400.

As you can see from Cutter Edge, I really didn't have much of good targets. In such trials I just picked the paper cutter to shoot at some of the corrosion on its surface. I made several trials here with Tamron and Canon EF 100mm macro lenses, but this is my first time to use extension tubes in such macro shots, and I'm not quite sure if this is really effective in increasing the zooming power. I need to do a comparison between the two cases and see if extension tubes do really help. Extension tubes are normally used for macro photography but with the purpose of reducing the minimum frontal distance between subject and the lens. The situation here though when reversing two lenses is different though. Just to note, with direct measurements the distance between the 2 grooves in the image above is about 0.5cm (~0.2 in), and when the image was taken the distance on the image was around 22.6cm (~8.9 in). By finding the ratio between the two, the result is 45.2. Does that mean that the magnification factor for the whole system is x45? I'm really not sure how this is calculated. Anyway, we can still get awesome results!

Fibers
Canon EF 50mm (R), Canon EF 100mm macro, 36mm extension tubes,
f/32, 60sec, ISO400.
Portion of my blanket!

In the meantime, I'm trying to understand the processes behind reversing the lenses and seems I got the general image:

1. Seems the first portion of the system is supposed to enlarge the subject with the reverse method. In my system this is done with the Canon EF 50mm lens. There are adapters, however, used to adapt a lens directly to the camera body in reversed position and they are efficient as well.
2. The second part of the system is to enlarge the image taken from the reversed lens in step No.1, at least this is how I understand it. This was evident when I changed the lenses from the Canon EF 100mm macro, to Tamron 70-300mm and trying the lens at 300mm. The blade of the cutter in the first trial above was magnified further with the increase in the focal length of this portion of the system.
3. Two problems, however, occur when trying out greater focal length, and/or trying to add teleconverters to duplicate the focal lengths: a) shake, and b) dispersion or chromatic aberrations. The shake of the system is so sensitive that I had to use the intervalometer (plus the timer in the camera itself for 10 seconds) to delay the shoot for around 30 seconds to give time to myself to step away from the (shaky) system. The system is so sensitive even to the steps on the ground nearby. As for the dispersion, this was magnified in Tamron, and this is natural because of the low quality (hence it was cheap lens). Also, teleconverters are made of low quality glass relatively, usually, and they do add to such distortion. So far, the best result is as seen above in Cutter Edge by using the Canon EF 100mm lens directly with reversed Canon EF 50mm lens without any teleconverters.

After these trials, I'm thinking now of building something like a glass table that would help me further with my macro experiments. Some methods and tips are mentioned in Cyril's book (cover above) which I've read some weeks ago. I need to go over the book again quickly to get some ideas and inspirations; not only for the macro shooting, but also for the nadir project!

Finale

Source: Amazon

There are stuff that are on hold for the time being. After finishing the books in my arsenal, I've been almost idle at work and too lazy to do "work" itself. I didn't even write any reviews concerning the books (left and above) that I've purchased some weeks ago, or any reviews concerning some of the gear that I've got some time ago from B&H, like the RoundFlash. The RoundFlash specifically needs some time to be tried out and have some thoughts as it can be used for portrait and macro - two fields that I'm not quite friendly with (portrait even more). I thought of using the RoundFlash for my (extra) macro projects in the near future but seems to me that the length of the system of lenses attached together would hinder such addition useless.

Source: B&H

For this reason, right now, I'm thinking of building a small glass table which be lighted from below. Of course, it would be useful for transparent or translucent objects and not opaque ones but that's not a big deal. I'm sure there are ways to light opaque objects from the side or above without using the RoundFlash.
Further more, I've read an interview with Jonathan Boakes, one of my favorite game developers, and in my process trying to seek inspiration whenever and wherever I can, I think Jonathan sparked (again) the fire of photographing old deserted places (which are abundant on Failaka island). On the agenda as well, a trial for the new IR gel filter to make a panorama, but of course it would be a panorama at broad daylight, when possible!
I've been stuffing my schedule with games in the past 2 weeks (and writing reviews about them) and I think the trend is still going on. I'm not sure what is still going on in my mind but there was something that felt severe. Something I just needed to vent through games. Now with the probability of developing Retinitis Pigmentosa, it seems I have to push myself to do more photography before it's too late.

Digging In The Past...

Here we are. Almost gone with my vacation and back to work. I'm going back to work by the 20^th, just after the Eid holiday. Enjoyed it? Definitely no. Had some rest? Sort of, but not completely.
With such holiday all I could do is work with old photos and photos that I've long forgotten to work with and process. I'm not sure what happened, but it's like nothing works out as planned, or at least to ease itself out. Just to list some of the hassles...

• Mom's dialysis schedule really made it feel like no real vacation.
• My car never got fixed and I'm still waiting; and probably will never be.
• My new shipment faced some delays in reaching my US box originally, and eventually it reached here (and paid extra for express service) and yet, it didn't pass the customs before the holiday - so I'm waiting for the holiday to be over with to get it. In other words, I paid extra, for nothing.
• Just with the start of Eid, my AC went off as usual with any slight humidity in the air. I'm passing the time in my room typing this with a fan on my side. Does a nice job though. Only problem: it's noisy somehow and I can't hear sounds from my monitor easily.
• With such harassment from fate, I really lost the capability of receiving some inspiration and the appetite to hold my camera; even though the weather outside is relatively nicer.

My only joy, as it seems, for the time being is to play games. Games, games, and games. It's a sport for the lazy but at least enjoyable. No new books to read and no new gear to try and no ideas to photograph; what else could be done except of playing games.

Re-Visit

As I've mentioned before, I've been spending my time going through some old shots mostly, specially those that I didn't process before; and others that I've processed before but tried to do them differently. This is all beside playing some games of course!

Sonnenuntergangsstadt
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/??, 30^-1sec, ISO200.

One of the images that I've been struggling with was Sonnenuntergangsstadt, which is a shot that I've taken some days after my return from the US in 2012. The struggles with this shot is mainly the composition and the distortion because it was taken with Rokinon's 8mm fisheye lens. Probably the strongest reason that I didn't want to upload this to the stock sites in the first place is the view of my tripod near the fence along with my backpack! Anyway, just to amuse myself and not to upload it to the stock sites, I've started to fix the distortion with DxO as much as possible, and adjusting the WB (which gave me some hard time as well) and then trying to centralize the view (with cropping). Without cropping, the left and right portions of the image would be highly stretched because of the distortion fix earlier in DxO.However, cropping was to centralize the horizon and the central line within the wooden boards and make an almost perfect symmetrical image. The colors anyway were a problem to settle with!

At The End of The Tunnel
Rokinon 8mm fisheye,
f/??, 250^-1sec, ISO200.

Another shot that I've re-processed was a shot taken inside one big pipe in a marble factory that belongs to Sadeem. This shot was processed previously with DxO to fix the distortion of the fisheye lens, but now with new vision and new ideas, I've decided to make it a simple circle inside a square frame. I think back then I was a beginner with DxO and I was thinking about each shot taken (specially those by the Rokinon fisheye) within the framework of DxO. This process kind of gives me a lesson for not getting swept by new findings and try to keep control on the process of the thoughts when seeing through the photos. I particularly like the new simplistic touch rather than the "undistorted" and stretched version (which looked like panoramic view in fact for its width). I'm fond of Minimalism.

Waiting A Prey

Waiting A Prey (selective)

An Fhuinneog

Then There were some few images from Ireland (2009 and 2010) for which I've paid a visit and got some astonishing results, like the spider on some leaves, snapped on my way back from the Swiss Cottage back in Cahir town, Co. Tipperary. That was in 2010. Anyway, the original is the full colored one of course and now with more understanding for the nature of the color spaces I've decided to play around to pronounce the green tones more in a vibrant way.Then, and just by coincidence during the process I've got a hint that a selective coloring would make it a good idea and helps the spider to be more eye-catching with its yellow tones. I was lucky here mainly because of the tones and with the help of the Color Range command in Photoshop which helps on selecting specific tones exclusively. It is bad enough that I didn't have a macro gear back then in 2010. What a loss. Anyway, with EOS 7D's 18 megapixels, a crop can be made in a suitable manner to get a closer look at the spider with somehow a reasonable resolution, but of course it is not expected to yield large prints if such thing is needed one day. This made me arrive to another visit to a very old challenge: An Fhuinneog.  An Fhuinneog (Irish for The Window) is a fenster or a window-like structure (forming an arc) in the fields of Aughnanure Castle in the outskirts of Oughterard, Co. Galway. Back then, I barely had any knowledge about panoramas or even photography and perspectives. However, I had fun with this structure with my 18-55mm kit lens (and back then I only had 2 lenses: 18-55, 55-200). As I was rushing through the old folders I've found out that there are 66 HDR slides already there and not deleted (like I usually do with old HDR slides, to save some space). I've stitched this naive handheld panorama many times with my old PC and that was a big struggle and a time-consuming process (and mostly with Photoshop) and I did have some progress but the main challenge with this panorama is the sluggishness of the process itself by which the panorama was taken. It's handheld, and it's not a spherical but a composite of a flat object (with focal length at 52mm) and, to my bad luck, there was apparently a gap in the sequence thus the prime stitch would appear as if the image was torn at certain spot. My love for architectural details pushed me to some hard lines! I really wish to visit this place again with the gear I have right now!

Anyway, the new An Fhuinneog is somehow an exact opposite of Waiting A Prey (selective) because we didn't eliminate green but I kept it and eliminated everything else. I arrived at such process and look after getting tired trying to find my feelings through tone-mapping the stitched final panorama from the original HDR slide. Green was vibrant in a pleasant way yet other colors were wither too dark and stealing the eye-view, or simply too bright and competing. Thus, I decided to silence all and keep the pleasant green. I'm fond of the Green after all!

Stroll

One day, some weeks ago, I've decided to do some strolling outside like I used to do in colder days before. The weather was not cool enough though (like this week) and I ended up sweating a river. Because of the lacking of the seeing capabilities and not being in harmony with my mind, as it seems, things didn't go well but this is understandable anyway. One should not expect to have a load of good shots in every outing, or in every photographic experience.

Tie A Knot
Canon EF 50mm, f/5.6,
800^-1sec, ISO200.

In the urban nature, abstracts and images of vivid thoughs (or let's say not-so-clear thoughts) are abundant. Unlike the photographic experience outdoors in natural trails, probably the urban structure has more of a linear style. At least to me this is how I see it. I think nature has more of a curvy form and probably abstracts are not easily obtained in the open area - but the mind has to be clogged with some scenery composed of lines. Anyway, this is just a thought that I'm not quite sure of.
However, as soon as I've noticed a trashed car in one of the neighborhoods I just realized that I have a strong chance for some abstracts. Well, even though I've tried to imply some ideas from the contemplative photography book but probably I've failed in the part where it says that my mind has to be clear from any prejudices prior to the photo shoot. In other words, I must not think of concepts but see things as they are without relating them to ideas or words! This part sounds tricky to me and hard to achieve. As soon as I saw the trashed car my mind was going: Aha! Abstract!!!
After many shots inside and outside the car, I've finally settled with Tie A Knot which was shot at a low level and thus needed lot of work to correct the perspective (keystone correction) and even harder time trying to settle down at the crop. The crop had to be a square to hide the outer frame of the tire, but how and where to place the knot. finally, I've settled down with the upper right corner of the center for the knot (and used some bits of cloning on the edges of the frame to hide some outer features). The total vibrancy and saturation were increased to get rid of the dull look that was caused by the harsh light at noon time. I do like the combination of the yellow, blue and green tones vibrating through the image.

Green X Green
Canon EF 50mm, f/11,
160^-1sec, ISO200.

Not far away from the trashed car, there were some trees (yes, trees, in Kuwait). Such trees are not as impressive as the oaks and hollies in Ireland, but what I liked here is not the tree itself, but the graduation of the green shades as you see in Green X Green. Yes, this shot is abstractive in nature but I was not thinking lines or shapes back then. More like it, I was thinking of color and light regardless of the lines and shapes. I think such shot can be used as a brush for Photoshop as well! This shot as well was cropped into a square, probably because it gives more harmony to the overall view?

Network
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 1250^-1, ISO200.

Lines and Bars
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
1250^-1sec, ISO200.

My stroll went on and on and took many shots in fact but I barely came out with something that I can say pleasant to my eyes at least. Two shots were taken almost at the end of my strolling around in the children playground, not far from my home. Both of these shots I used the really shallow depth of my 50mm lens at f/1.4 for various reasons. While in Network my aim was to mimic a great depth and to concentrate the view on one of the pucks only, in Lines and Bars my aim for using such shallow depth was to blur the bicycle tire that was in the background - anyway, the tire was eliminated after all when the image was processed with DxO to straighten the lines and make them more parallel (i.e. the 2 vertical bars in the image). The cropping afterward simply eliminated what was in the background. Anyway, they are simply ideas of abstract and I can't say I'm so fond of them but, well, they got accepted in some of those stock websites.
After that day, I'm trying to go out again but to no avail. I would be either tired, or simply busy - sleeping sounds more like a work that must be done as well right now! You might have noticed that all of these shots were taken with my 50mm lens and at ISO200. This is mainly for the fact in strolling I like to be light without my equipments and I have to choose one lens only. The 50mm lens is the best for such occasions mainly for the wide range of apertures available in such lens as well as it is a normal lens; it's perspective almost matches that of the human eye. It is also advisable in practices of contemplatives photography that you use such a lens because it matches the human vision. The ISO200 is fixed at this rate mainly from the last session before the stroll but I didn't change it back to ISO100 as I was thinking of situations when I would need to take a shot in the shade and I might need a little raise in the ISO eventually. I didn't raise it further to avoid excessive noise level (specially with such heat that day at noon time) and didn't lower it down so I won't be busy fixing the ISO while I'm thinking and seeing the shot. It is a good thing to work on the shutter and the aperture (and preferably the shutter speed only) in case an idea or some inspiration is just revealed in front of you and struggling with the ISO can be a bit of a distraction (because in my EOS 7D, controlling the ISO is not done directly by the dials like the aperture and the shutter speed). Let's see if I can do another strolling outside at any time soon...

The Raven

Since I have no mood or mind to work on my conlang, Geltani, I've been playing games here and there as I've mentioned before. One of the latest games I've played was The Raven which is composed of three chapters or parts. I'm specifically mentioning this game here because I did indeed like the storyline and the action in it. It's an adventure game and not a real action game but with a sense of Agatha Cristie's touch. In fact, even the main character in the game has some similarities to the typical look of Hercule Poirot in Agatha's novels - specially the twisted mustache. Anyway, the main character in the game, Constable Zellner, is a Swiss, while Hercule Poirot is Belgian. The difference is, though, Zellner is no psychologist and his story take a dramatic twist in chapter III, but I'll keep the surprises for me right now! It is a game that you MUST play if you like surprises and appreciate a good storyline. Click the title of this section to go to the page where you can view, buy and download the game.

Screenshot (source: The Adventure Shop)
Constable Anton Jakob Zellner

Finale

Here we are then. A life that is barely going on, a vacation that I barely used and had fun with. I'm expecting right now to have some financial drainage because of the many expenses building up on my shoulders, like fixing the car that took like eternity right now, and like the AC that suffered some short circuit as it seems and I'm not expecting myself to be that lucky to have it fixed in the easy way - most probably there will be whole parts to be changed and 100s of dinars are involved.

Voigtländer Heliar
Ultra-Wide Angle
12mm f/5.6
Source (B&H)

FotodioX PRO
Canon EOS Adapter
f/VISOFLEX M
Is this the adapter I need?
Source (B&H)

Seems that my ideas of getting a new lens, preferably a wide view lens with flat perspective rather than a fisheye, all of these ideas should be postponed for the time being. Further more, I'm having some crazy ideas for getting out of the circle of Canon lenses (and their equals). I've been thinking seriously of having some rangefinder lenses or at least lenses from some other brands for other types of cameras and use it with the help of a special mount on my EOS 7D. Not experienced in such field but it seems from my little research that it did work for some people and it is very common in fact. The thing is, I'm still not sure what mount to use specially for those rangefinder lenses that are assigned to Leica M mount, or Bayonet M, and I'm not sure if these two types are the same with two different names. I need to ask more about this so I can get a proper mount along with the lens. Anyway, rangefinders are expensive lenses and probably this is a long term plan, which I don't know if it will come true one day! I can keep dreaming though for the time being. Such lens with such quality and flat perspective, and combined with panorama processing can prove very powerful, so I believe. I can think of another 50mm lens along the line as well.

Dreams, dreams, dreams. I'm going to keep dreaming, at least this is the thing that I can do well beside playing some games to sooth my nerves and ease my mind. But for the time being I'm going to have one dream in front of my eyes - have my car back. Simple dream, but dearly missed. Traveling? This is a delayed dream, probably for eternity...

Tranquil Ireland

What is "Sleep"?

I can't believe it! I'm seriously typing this blog now not because I have to, but just to pass the time and leave work in around one hour from now. Not much was going on except that I've been going around images, old images, and can't find anything new or any idea to start on with with my camera! Besides, I'm having sleeping problems galore. Mostly, as I think, because I can't keep myself awake after getting back to work. It is something that I needed to master in many months of hard work and, of course, coffee drinking. Now? Because of fasting, I can barely walk when I get back home. I tried so hard to keep myself awake by playing games and working on some photos, but the problem is not in being tired at all, as for the thirst or hunger, I've seen worse days in the past when I used to fast in mid-summer with a long period of working hours more than it is now in Ramadhan. The main thing is psychological. Working or playing, I just need something to release my stress with, and that is usually a drink, or some snacks.

On my games list now I have now a queue waiting, as well as on the books that I've downloaded, I can barely read something. I noticed that I do read PDF magazines better, maybe mainly because of the design and the layout (and the many ads!), and mainly, if there is some topic I'm not interested in, I just skip it and that's it. On the games side, I'm currently playing "Delaware St. John, Seacliff tragedy, volume 3". An adventure game, which unfortunately I didn't play it from its beginnings, but apparently it is about someone with some psychic ability and keeps seeing visions. Seems there is a side-line story about his life and history and where did he come from, but all, I guess, would be present in the previous volumes that I didn't play.

Generally, the game looks nice with a spooky theme, but I believe the controls are somewhat weak. Sometimes it is a hard task to find an object in some scene, and hence I've been using the walkthrough a lot. The graphics are moderate I would say, still, it is nice and not too lousy. I'd give 4 out of 5. Other games now on the list are the Dark Fall 2, or which was renamed "Lights out". One of the creations of Jonathan Boakes. Despite the fact it is relatively and old game (made before the amazing Lost Crown), but I didn't get the chance to play it still. I've downloaded it for now, and kept it on the queue to play with it after Delaware St. John, or, I might take a break with some hidden object game, like "The Haunted Hotel - The Lonely Dream".

As for my work with images, specially those taken from Ireland last year of course, I've noticed that now, I'm less dependant on the HDR capabilities in forming my images. I still use it though, but not as frequent as before. This perspective was also pushed forward with strange erratic behavior from photomatix and photoshop, which produced some weird noise over the windows that I could barely see the images displayed or the controls and sliders, but in Photoshop it was there, but less problematic because it all concentrated on the upper side of the window. Now, the problem had gone suddenly without doing a reboot, and I remember I've turned off something from the "processes list". Yet, I can't remember exactly what it was.
However, I'm trying to find those shaky images and, since I've taken triplets most of the time, I try to take the most stable version of those and work on it hard with the RAW converter to make a suitable one. If all fails (or sometimes without it being a failure), I just flip to black and white and enhance the contrast then.
One of the images that I've re-worked and unfortunately, was not accepted for the second time now, is the arched wall of Cong's Abbey, which the chromatic aberrations took the best out of it. On the way of Jonathan Boakes here, I've tried to make a vivid image out of it by converting it to black and white, yet, it was not accepted still in stock sites I know, but some people liked it, and I guess mainly because, as I think, they could see the minimized version only which almost hides those noises.

Cong's Abbey Arch (vertical panorama, originally in HDR)

Other than this image, there had been lot of photos that I've been working with. Some of them I've even discarded without saving the file, and some were only uploaded to my Photobucket. One of the images however, that frankly, I didn't expect stock sites to accept it, is an image I've called "Valhalla". Valhalla in Norse mythology is the court of gods or the place where gods live. Something like mount Olympus for the Greeks. I don't know why I thought of this paganic name (because I do hate to use such terms), but the clouds were so gorgeous here.

Valhalla

The scene was taken afternoons. It was not a storm, nor it was rainy or anything, but simply clouds passing by in various colors over Lough Corrib. I expected this image to be refused for many reasons, but well, I think I was lucky! This image was composed already by HDR, but I tried my best to show the details of the clouds and not make them plain, while in the same time trying to keep a somehow natural look. The tree and the far-side shore made a problem with the noise level in these areas when the RAW file was edited alone which made me think of making it a silhouette scene. Yet, with HDR the problem was almost solved, but with some minimizing to hide the artifacts! HDR itself produced me a problem when some banding in the blue color in the topmost portion of the image persisted. I had to choose that portion and go with gaussian blur as minimum as possible to hide this banding. Isn't it gorgeous? I remember myself literally raising my hands up feeling like I'm touching the clouds with my bare hands. I do miss Ireland already...

Another image, single RAW this time and not HDR, was the mushrooms beside the oak tree in Brigit's gardens. I took a triplet of those, but they were mostly shaky with one being stable somehow. I needed excessive sharpening to get it, somehow, into normal.

Yet, I didn't feel quite satisfied, so I went along and converted it to the typical mysterious black and white version. Gives me an impression of witchcraft on the go...

Both of the images above were submitted to stock sites. I've noticed recently though that I'm just too lazy to add a watermark on my images. I wonder if this is... right? or wrong? I don't know. But it is there on the mushrooms anyway. Some people said to me directly and openly that they are downloading my images after viewing them in Photobucket, but anyway, I don't mind since most of them are watermarked.

Well, time for me to pack things up and leave this place at once. I need a real shower today!!!

Alexander 6, V16.

My sleeping time had been screwed again. With my powerless efforts to stay awake till 9 p.m. yesterday all failed and I finally fell down at around 6:30 p.m., and thus, here I am, awake since 1:30 a.m. . It's not all bad actually, the only thing I'm concerned about is being here in my work and staying awake for a long time. I might end the day with having a short leave and never come back to do the damn fingerprint scanning.
I spent the night until the rise of dawn working on photos and fixing them according to specific sizes and made them ready to be printed out, and later shall be sent to Ireland. It's going to be costly; around 9 images on A4 size, 2 on A2 size and one on A0 size. The last one is the Aughnanure Castle disk. I'm not experienced with the printing process though, and I might see them getting darker since these printers usually use the CMYK system and images tend to be darker. Just thinking about it now, maybe I should've done and prepared everything in CMYK? Blah!

Later

In order to put some meaning into my life, I've went to the barber to fix this hair then to the printing shop (not a press but a printing shop). The previous damned barber made a fuss out of my hair that I think he was a gardener before being a barber. This is the first time I see some barber who, literally, pulls the hair instead of cutting it! I've promised the guy in the printing shop to come after the prayer's time. I hate to go out at this time but well, I can't wait all that time over there... I'm an honest worker and they need me in my work place :) (said who?). Moreover, I've told the guy to enlighten the images a bit since they are going to be darker if they are printing in CMYK. Although I'm afraid of the consequences of not supervising it myself, but let's say I have the faith to lead me through. If an image is so dark, darker than usual, well, I'm going to have to send it that way after all. And may they forgive me!
I reached the lines of 1500s in my transliteration. Transliteration sounds easier of course than translating before, but still, I can't do more than 2 pages (verses) per day. I tend to finish these 2 verses and enjoy my time for the rest of the day as much as I can, or, do other obligations related to my work here. I want to progress more with Ayvarith, and to start a new webpage, but since my time working on Ayvarith is only in my work place (which means I work on it 5 days only, and in the daytime), everything is actually slow. After the transliteration I have to think of building a new webpage and also I need to add new words to the dictionary before that. My time in the morning is devoted to Ayvarith, otherwise it is devoted to photography and gaming. I remember my old days though, when I started with Ayvarith like 3 or 4 years ago, when I used to work on it day and night. Well, back then, I didn't have a Canon in my hands! :)

Well, I'm posting this earlier than before, since I have to leave the office in almost one hour from now. I leave you with Alexander for now...

__________
361. then Alexander asked Ikilis the shepherd
362. about the reasons behind his laughter
363. thus Ikilis answered with a smile on the face
364. "O great king, one of the justice and might,
365. we heard a lot about the Ayvars from ancestors,
366. but we always take them as some legends,
367. some legends, that elders tell their children about,
368. but to see a mighty man like you take the risk,
369. going here and there in search for them,
370. I cannot say but that such a thing is amazing,
371. and I never thought of before or saw before!"
372. then Alexander took a moment to think then said
373. "did you not meet the hermit on the southern Tells?
374. he claimed that he is the grandson of the Ayvars!"
378. and Ikilis answered directly: you mean Náwi?
379. he is merely but an old man hallucinating I suppose!
380. then Alexander asked Ikilis to tell him something about them
381. and then Ikilis started to tell some of the legends he heard
382. and he said: many things are told about the Ayvars,
383. so much that you need days to know it all at once,
384. but I shall tell you what I have in my mind right now

Alexander 6, V3.

Unfortunately, no pictures for today, although I made one experiment with my censer again. I can't say all the results were fine but I didn't try much to tone-map any. I made 2 versions (as far as I remember) and all saved in EXR, but I didn't go on further to tone-map and other stuff. The bad thing here is that I missed the sparkling effect of the flame, and the censer image was somehow... normal. Anyway, I might add them for tomorrow, as for the time being I'm a bit busy in re-making one of the panoramas for one of our labs, and also busy with... playing some games... YES!
__________
49. his heart was relieved and the smile got back
50. and then he asked the old man about his identity
51. who are they and why they asked him to come
52. the old man began his speech slowly
53. and said: I am the mortal son of immortals
53. I am the ancestor of the tribes
54. I am Náwi bir Nowayi Ayvárí
55. a son and grandson of the Ayvars
56. brought to Earth from the unknown
57. and I grew up with the nomads
58. until the Light brightened my soul and heart
59. then I married from the tribes of Earth
60. thus I am from and into the tribes
61. I am a branch of Eruvians and Huberians
62. and the Capallese and the Qalaqach
63. I am the father of Kharkhaz and Urev
64. and the grandfather of the Dulukh and Noahim
65. I am the son of Ayvars who lost his fathers
66. I lost the count of time and age
67. thus count my age as much as you like
68. and these are the chosen of my sons
69. and the chosen of their grandsons
70. and their chosen of their great grandsons
71. we are the root and the branch
72. from the seed that disappeared long time ago

Belleza Bendita

Today was a day that ran like a train in my life. Beginning with the early morning in the office changing samples and running devices, and then I spent a plenty of time working with photoshop over a photo of one cute girl (no names to be mentioned) that I called, Belleza Bendita. I made a mistake though in the design as I typed "bendito" instead of "bendita." She is a girl from somewhere with latin and italian roots, so imagine the shape! :)
Belleza Bendita means "Blessed Beauty." This is just what I see in her, and the most fascinating thing, in the whole thing, is the hazel eyes.

Later this morning, I had a call again from the Irish embassy asking me to fax some papers. They called me back on Wednesday asking me to do the visa online (which is something I checked for but I didn't find any information in their site confirming that)... however, I had to run here and there and back home to get the papers and sign them then send them by fax from a photocopy shop.

Got lot to do with photos these days, from people and from my own camera. The photo above is a minimized version of the panoramic view that I composed on the seashore Thursday's morning. The play of colors is, of course, made up... don'tell me you didn't figure this out! The actual size is around 3 meters by 1 meter (WxH). I think that would be somewhere around 9ft by 3ft. I wonder why don't they use the metric!!! It's easier!

Beside fixing photos and doing designs with photos, there is a queue of games that is waiting, and that makes me be idle for sure from completing my story. Games have their own priorities! :)

The yield for today is 2 pages of translation. Also, I discovered a new type of mistakes this time! A reptitive number sequences! YUK!
The repetitive sequence of numbers means that the verse is already more than 24 lines somehow, so if we assumed the total number of lines (after the previous mistakes were found) is 2997, I guess the number now would be 2999... well, closer to 3000, the supposed original number! But still, more mistakes to be found I guess...

As I was trying to type something for my story I figured out that the time doesn't help now, so I went on typing this entry instead... hoping that I might be able to do something at home with my story.
I had some thought of living some tiny adventure by trying to go to one of the islands, namely Miskan, where an old lighthouse built by the british still survives there, beside the new one as I read once. I don't know how much does it take to reach that place, but I heard that I can rent one of the boats lying around in some marinas. I need to re-think about it... specially with such a hot weather now.

It's just amazing, that feeling when you make someone smile... and from one second of dispair, you do make them fly... I think being a single man until this moment of my life, is paying back in a form of virtues... despite the devil that lives within me from time to time... Alas! Life, and so shall it go...