Plethora…

With Summer course coming to an end, things are becoming quiet in my workplace, which is good. Now, if only I can turn this oven off for such a weather. The quiet time has come over to my activities with the camera as well, as I've finished documenting most of the small shells collection and I'm trying to do some experiments regarding an "artificial aperture" if I can call it so. No need to talk about it for now, and somewhat I feel it will fail but I didn't finish experimenting still as I'm typing these words.

Shellelagh

Well, I know, the original word is "Shillelagh" but changed here on purpose. In this section, I just would like to list some of the latest shell shots I've made; And some of them seem interesting. I think I did have another collection elsewhere but can't remember where did I keep it. Anyway, for the time being, I'm going to satisfy myself with this one and, who knows, maybe re-shoot it again at different angles or with different magnifications... etc.

I did mention in my previous blog post here that I had a problem with my Bolt LED ring light, and that problem was that it could not be fitted on Vello's macrofier which helps me on reversing the lens and achieve greater magnification at the least effort, and with better focusing range. Well, as you can see here, the problem seems to have been partially solved with some electric tape. I had to tape the edges of the adapter ring to the macrofier (and secure that with another strip of tape on the circumference of the macrofier). Only then, I was able to click the LED ring onto the macrofier. The situation was shaky, and the main problem was the quality of the tape itself; IT SUCKED big time. That's why I needed to secure it with a strip across the circumference. Anyway, I did take some shots in this setting and things were interesting as well!

The previous two shots were shot using this DIY solution with Bolt LED ring. Of course, at f/11, I didn't use the flash property of the ring, but rather kept it on (like a modeling light on regular speedlites and strobes) and each shot for the stack did take few parts of a second (still longer than 1/250s, the sync speed). Another problem rose up here is the bulkiness of the ring which sometimes made it cumbersome to do focus stacking at specific angles, but I blame that on the setting I'm having already to shoot these shells. As I get closer and closer to the shell, there is a chance that the LED ring light would hit the edge of the box or the table upon which the shell would be residing. All in all, it is a promising venue and I might find myself using it again to have somewhat balanced lighting around my subject, as well as some interesting luster as in Shell Fudge. The baby oil here did some good job. Anyway, after shooting these two, I was back to using my speedlite to shoot.

The main reason for switching back to the speedlite (with light bender attached to it) was to add some unidirectional light to give a sense of depth to the subject this time. The grooves on this shell, as can be seen in the documentation shot above, called for some depth. Not saying it won't be beautiful under a flat light like the one from Bolt but it is just the role of the idea, and I wouldn't be able to judge for real until I see the final results and compare between the unidirectional and the flat light. Anyway, after the documentation, it was the time to do some work, as usual, with focus stacking.

Because of the relative size of the shell, I didn't wish to go with extreme macro and lose sight of the fine lines here, so I just used extension tubes to get closer to the shell with my 50mm lens. Ironically though, it does seem to be quite a magnification (by looks) despite being less than 1x even! I think it is the power of Abstract. I can't remember how many shots were taken to do the focus stack for MacroPiping but the speedlite's main batteries were dying out already, and when I started to work with An Fathach later, it went down completely in the mid of my work. So, I had to satisfy myself with that much of shots and do the focus stacking for An Fathach at that level alone.

It was a good thing that I used baby oil here but in a different technique. Instead of dipping the shell, I used cotton swabs (those used to clean the ears) to pass the oil on the shell in every possible way. Adding to that, the shell was left for a relatively longer time than other shells before to be exposed before shooting it, and that somehow made the oil get "absorbed" or something. Anyway, the luster was not harsh like before because of this AND because of diffusing (using a paper) and using a relatively lower power for the speedlite (and somewhat raising the ISO a bit).  Well, despite the lower power, still, the speedlite died out as I was working on An Fathach! Worth noting here that An Fathach was worked out using the LAB technique to enhance and pronounce the colors further. This is all for the work with shells so far but I might work further when I find more shells hiding in my room or something! I'm sure I did have more those small ones.

Stroll

As it is quiet in my workplace, I decided to take my camera gear with me (minus the tripod) just to try the new Neewer infrared filters which I got a while ago. I didn't have much in mind to do really, but the shots I've made proved to be "awesome" in their own way, as it came clear later on.

One of the goals I had in mind, though, is to try to use the high IR filters (of thresholds starting from 820nm and beyond) to show the blood vessels. Showing the veins using IR is common now I presume in the medical field, but I'm talking here about mere photography using infrared filters. I tried to use the speedlites (well, more like the on-camera flash and high ISO) but seems it didn't work well. I thought, then, that we might need some higher intensity of infrared, and thus thought of shooting my own hand as you can see above, under the blazing sun around my workplace. Why my workplace? Well, this is the only time of the day that I have time, power, AND mood to work under the sun like that. After going back home I'll be completely exhausted and barely able to touch the camera even. Hand Veins was shot using IR950, which supposedly has a threshold of 950nm and the veins did show clear under the thumb (mount of Venus as they call it in palmistry) as well as some tiny veins around the index and the little fingers. The image above had been cleaned off noise a bit but still the veins look clear. 

I tried to shoot my own foot as well and see the veins, and they did show a bit actually but probably the distance didn't help here (using my Voigtländer 20mm lens here). The look was pretty interesting here; The black sandal turned white, the blue pants turned white, and the white nails turned black! I did take several shots trying out to adjust the focus (manual here, no AF) and eventually turned these shots into an anaglyph. The illusion of the depth is not bad either.

The remaining of the stroll spent on trying various infrared filters as well as the H-alpha (dubbed as "Night Sky" filter!). I like to call this filter a "weak infrared" since it works in the range of the Reds and infrared. Worth noting that all these shots were shot without calibrating the white balance in-camera, and all was done while processing the RAWs. 

While processing these test shots for IR750 and the H-alpha filters, I've increased the Vibrance of the colors intentionally to show the faint colors. Well, they were not so faint with the H-alpha filter in Alienizing but it was for the better. Moreover, channel swapping gave the leaves that distinctive reddish look and turned the sky blue. If I want to talk about those artistic infrared filters with their colorful look, I would say that the H-alpha filter is the one to pick for this mission here! My old B+W 092 infrared filter (threshold about 650nm or so) did render some colors as well but probably not to this degree. My stroll at work did not end there, though, and there was some more to come, but not till I had to go back home and check these test shots again and again.

Plethora

In that stroll at work, there were many test shots for other infrared filters like the IR850 and IR950 again and again and they were rather random. Some of them were even out of focus a bit (ir's hard to focus using LiveView under the harsh sun). However, it was a chance to play!

I'm not sure how things started with this play, but probably I was under the influence of the Islamic geometrical arts (naturally, I'm fond of them but never practiced them). I've been reading about some of the details of these creations, particularly in Andalusia, and I do follow already some artists who perform such arts (and they are not Arabs nor Muslims). It is mesmerizing indeed, the way of combining those abstract lines and then create complex regular patterns out of such lines. Frankly, I could never understand it. Anyway, all I have here is simply Photoshop and a single photo in front of me, with which Octuplum Abstracta and other patterns or textures were made. In fact, I already envision Octuplum Abstracta as a design on a tile or ceramics of some sort and used for building. Not sure how this is done and how it's possible but if I can I would. This actually lead me further to more abstracts, starting with Octuplum Abstracta just to envision how a tiling using this design or abstract would look like…

The result is mesmerizing. I wish now if I have a room (or even a bathroom) with this complexity (with maybe some vibrancy to the colors added). The possibilities are endless, and you can still get some regular shapes and lines with every setting you might think of; Just like in a kaleidoscope.  All of that was just from a single photo alone, but yet I had to check other photos as well (mainly those which I couldn't make out something out of).

While Octuplum Abstracta was somewhat random in its creation, Black Magic was not. Not completely but I did have this idea of creating a 16-fold star or polygon out of the photo, unlike the eight-fold done in Octuplum Abstracta. I did read that 16 points stars in the Islamic geometrical designs are not common, and probably those of 24 points are even more scarce. Thus, I've set my mind on creating 16-fold polygon out of this photo and so the work on replication and arranging the copies of ONE image were all somewhat calculated and not random completely. I can't remember even what was the original photo! In Black Magic, I inverted the colors by the end of the work and it proved more dramatic than its original almost dull blue or cyan color (typical color for processed infrared images). I was not disappointed. Now this design, I envision it to be on some sort of fabrics as well as ceramics. I don't have a commercial mind unfortunately, but these 3 abstracts above are uploaded and accepted already in a number of stock websites like Canstockphoto, Dreamstime, 123RF, as well as Mostphotos. I might even consider working on some old photos to create abstracts and textures, but I also have to make sure not to forget about my camera and to do some original photos as well (which I'm trying hard during these days as well).

Finale

I've probably talked about this poem which I was thinking of jotting down in my previous blog post, and after some hard mental work (with the help of some randomness from some brainstorming websites) I did pin down something, which I've callled Smashed. 

Smashed

The poem was originally inspired by the looks of a shell as I was doing my work on documenting them (as you can see on the left). I loved its shape, its colors (channels swapped here) and the stripes, despite all the breaks and holes in it. I think it even lost its topmost tip. Yet, it still looks beautiful. I was moved and I have to say that I don't usually get moved by a static object like this and typically I would need more to ignite my writing appetite. But well, let's say challenge accepted. 

Smashed

Common as it appears to most
an apogee had never risen up
But how often obviously hidden
truth of matters out of a sudden
Beauty need not to boast.

Such as a Palestinian home
deprived, and setting off a ghost town
Attitude never deemed it hollow
on the struggles, it has to follow
A home sweeter than Rome.

A rider over the heart-breaks
mending it life-long as you are
By the cracking, the shimmering glow
elegance, of hope, of which you show
Despite the mistakes.

In swiftness pass over my cheek
the glamour, and all that keeps me warm
By the touch, which in holes is filled
and by sweetness which you've fulfilled
Smashed and so is unique.

The rhyming scheme here is ABCCA. I've stated before that I use Verse Perfect to write poems and it has many aids including rhyming styles, yet ABCCA is not one of them. I'm not sure why I picked this style really but probably things were initiated in that way from the beginning of the writing (typing) process. I did find some samples on the internet as I was searching for more information about this style, yet it didn't really have a name it seems and samples of such a rhyme are rare (in my case I've found only one). Yet, after reading it further and further, I might apology with some regret for the (B) part in the rhyming scale; Probably should have turned it into (A) to be AABBA. But is not that rhyming scheme so common? The rhyming here is not the end of the story actually. The hardest part for me was to keep a static syllable count for the verses as much as possible, and that was kept at (8,9,9,9,6). I'm not sure if readers usually pay attention to the count of syllables when they read poetry, but my thinking is that keeping them concrete and static does help the harmony in some way, specially if the syllable count was the same between supposedly rhyming lines.

Putting this now, I'm still working on some pinhole experiments, which unfortunately didn't work out well till now but in hope that I might be able to post about it in 2 weeks or so. We'll see. I do need to write a poem as well. Many feelings are there in the air but it's just the time needed and the focus to pick up one of these seeds and grow it in a soil of thoughts; Plus the work of course. 

In a bit more than 2 weeks from now, my birthday is coming and I'm turning 38. Ironically, at this age, I don't know where I'm going or heading. With all the blessings I have, despite the things that swing my mood like a golf club, I'm still unable to focus nor really enjoy what I have. Not sure why, but maybe I'm tired of everything? I know that I have a lot of things to be thankful for, yet I feel there is something missing that without it, all is nothing. Probably this is what they call Midlife Crisis? I don't know. Travel, travel, travel... if only I know when or how, or where to. A change of scenery is long due and I can't do anything about it yet…

Extrema…

Well, the matters had officially went into a disaster zone. It official now that I do have a sleeping crisis, which makes my "whole" life is idle. Well, in case I can call it a "life" anyway. Not only I've skipped my eye appointment on 13^th, but I had to stop writing my Arabic blog for some time and I'm seriously considering making it on a monthly basis, for the lack of topics so far and the hardship in organizing my thoughts. Needless to say how that affected my other projects as well concerning Languages and Conlangs. All what comes to my mind right now is sleep, sleep, and more sleep.

Extreme

They say we had a "supermoon" this week, specifically on July 12^th. It did sound like a good idea to try out my Rokinon mirror lens of 800mm, with two 2x teleconverters (for a total of 3200mm). However, and pardon me, just thinking about working in this weather and heat (even at night) with my cumbersome schedule now, did sound more like a fantasy! And with "fantasy" I mean something to be found in children's book or Hollywood movies.

Rokinon 800mm mirror lens.
Source: B&H

Instead of doing this astro-adventure, I thought for a moment about the possibility of doing an extreme macro experiment with this mirror lens like I used to do with other telephoto lenses before. If we combine 800mm with 2 teleconverters (2x each) then we are assuming that total focal length is 800x2x2 = 3200mm. Now, if we combine a 50mm lens in reverse to this combination, we are supposed to get 64x magnification (3200/50=64). Logically, this is supposed to mean that 1mm dot in reality, should be projected as 64mm on the sensor (or 6.4cm, 2.5in). Despite my trials, the situation was hard to achieve mainly because of the design of the Rokninon mirror lens. This lens resembles the catadioptric telescope in its design and the large difference in the diameter of the objective (the front of the lens) made it hard to combine another lens in reverse. Even though I tried to place the 50mm lens in front of it to some distance and covering the gab with black cloth to block the light. Here, I was working in horizontal manner instead of hanging the camera high up as before and dangling it over the specimen. Anyway, It was hard to work that way and technically nothing was to be gained from such setting. I had to go around it in some way. The answer to the problem then knocked into my brain with Tamron 70-300mm, which is damaged and lying around, and another (useless) lens in my pack; the old Canon EF-S 18-55mm.

The final setting. Teleconverters and not shown here.
Click to Enlarge.

I didn't want to use my Sigma 70-300mm here. It's relatively new and I didn't use it often. It has a better glass quality compared to the cheap Tamron, but I don't want to risk it in such setting. According to calculations, Tamron at 300mm plus two x2 teleconverters should yield a total of 1200mm. When combined with 18-55mm at 18mm in reverse, then the magnification should be (supposedly): 1200/18=66.66x, or approximately 67x. Meaning, 1mm dot would be projected on the sensor as 67mm (6.7cm, 2.6in), which is slightly more than what has been calculated in the previous proposed setting (of 800mm mirror lens and 50mm lens in reverse). This case was easier to be done as you can see from the image above. I had to spend some considerable time trying to improvise a way to hold the sample in this experiment and to provide a strong light source at its back (I tried to cast the light from the front but to no avail). Focusing is pretty delicate so I used the macro rail to move the sample in some way, and I ended up using the Bulb mode and managing the time empirically without doing any calculations. Just trial and error. Maybe with some considerable time, I can enhance this setting.

Manfrotto telephoto support
Source: B&H

The good thing about the horizontal position is that the weight and the pulling force on the camera's body (the lenses consequently) is significantly small, while the whole system was carried by Manfrotto's telephoto lens support. Usually it is a problem because in many occasions this support would make moving the focusing ring (or even zooming) cumbersome, but it's not a problem here because everything is set and the lenses are not supposed to be touched. The only thing to change here is the macro rail distance to move the specimen. I had some problems with the rail itself too, since the screw to move the rail was knocking on the lens' front - but the focusing required kept this screw away from the front for some considerable distance. Anyway, that doesn't mean it might not be a problem in the future!

Results

The results were not much of artistic nature nor a clear variety. But it's a beginning. Probably if the lenses' qualities were better the images would have been better? Who knows!

Sun Side

Shade Side

Shooting in RAW is absolutely a must here. Using a remote and a portable monitor is also a must. In using Bulb mode in the camera, the LiveView (which is transmitted to the portable monitor) mimics the light conditions a bit to see through what to focus on, but this is of course in no way the final result to be expected - Bulb mode is about arbitrary timing. This is one of the benefits for working in Bulb mode in such a situation because using other modes like Av would make it hard to mimic the light. ISO-wise, I think it's hard to expect something below ISO400. Long exposure can be done but it's not advisable I'd say - we need to do shots fast relatively to avoid any sudden shake.
It is a common practice in (regular) macro to use a stop around f/8 and more to gain some acceptable depth of field. Here, however, I don't think this rule of thumb holds - in fact I'm not even sure if a higher stop would do any good, but anyway I used the highest f-stop possible. It is recorded as f/72 but this is a false reading because Vivitar's teleconverter doesn't communicate information with the camera's body. Thus, by re-calculating the f-number under the new focal length (1200mm), the value should be around f/128. You can see from the images above that even such depth is not really strong enough which makes me suspicious about the usefulness of raising the f-stop here. If using a low f-stop would yield almost same results, then it might be fit for this experiment to allow more light in and make my life easier!!!

φ

Been some time trying to polish some simple mathematics in my brain. I didn't use my brain in a while! It had been a while now as I was trying to find some relation between the rule of thirds (ROT) and the rule of golden spiral (RGS) in terms of the difference between the two "power point" in both systems.
One of the major difficult points here is that the two systems are adapted for different ratios of frame. Previously, I've worked with a frame of 3:2 ratio, as it is the ratio usually adapted for most cameras nowadays. However, it was a bit cumbersome in terms of some mathematical identities, thus I've decided to work with φ:1 ratio and adapt the results I could get as an approximation. Numerically, the (3:2) ratio is equivalent to 1.5, while (φ:1) ratio is equivalent to 1.618, meaning a difference of around 0.1 unit; I guess something that can be neglected.

In the beginning I had to use an approximation for the power point in RGS, which I've found in this page. As can be seen in the page, the power point or the center of the spiral can approximated by two diagonals: one for the whole frame, and one for the smaller rectangle after rectangle rabatment (marked with the blue line). The ROT is marked with red lines. The segment I'm seeking here is SG and the angle θ. One of the good points about having such ratio for the frame is that the ratios AB:AG, and AG:AB is equal to the golden ratio: φ. This postulate makes it easier to do some mathematics here. Well, not going to list everything done here, but it turns out that:

• The angle (θ) is equal to -31.72^o. The negative sign is to mark it as going under the x-axis. This angle would of course change by changing the location and perspective (in relation to the x-axis); it would be positive if the power point under inspection is the top right one, and it would be 180±31.72^o for the left side.
• The segment under question, SG, is approximately equal to [(φ-1)√(1+φ²)], or it can be marked as [φ^-1√(1+φ²)]. This is because (φ) as a numerical value is equal to (1.618), and consequently: (φ-1) and φ^-1 are both equal to approximately (0.618). Going further with more decimals seems unnecessary in this occasion.
• Numerically now, the segment SG is approximately equal to (1.176), or expanded little bit it would be (1.1755).

What I'm hoping for is to use this simple information item in various settings, like in the camera's LiveView for example, or in Photoshop itself, even though I heard that newer versions have several systems implemented for cropping. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this, specially in Photoshop, but it surely needs a lot of experimenting with various photos. Another interesting method would be the diagonal method, which was developed (or discovered) by the Dutch artist Edwin Westhoff. The Diagonal Method specifically is well suited for 3:2 frame. Would be interesting to see this kind of grid available for work in the coming generations of digital cameras.

Finale

Here I am, just waiting for the month of Ramadhan to pass. It's not something weird to happen in fact; I do suffer from insomnia and sleeping problems all year long and it doubles every Ramadhan almost, but the thing is different now with extra annoyances at work, and a tiresome body. I think this is what they mean by "getting older".
When this is all over, there is so much to do as well. Schedule a new appointment if possible, and prepare for my travel. Though I need such a travel to rest my mind a bit and enjoy my photography, I do wish if I was accompanied by someone. Someone special...

Geometria...

Here we go, another week, with not much of activity, but at least I'm trying to grease the engine slowly. In the meantime, I do have something for mathematics and geometry still going on in my mind so far since the time when Mom was in the hospital, and that made me think of some weird stuff - simple, but weird I'd say. I'll come to that later on. Also, the group sent me (or maybe I should say put me in front of the cannon) for an interview on TV regarding aluminum prints. Ironically, I have nothing to do with this, except that I was "supervising" the printing process for the expo back in March. It went well (and short) but I have problem getting and viewing the video from the TV channel's youtube channel, mainly because they used a copyrighted topics and issues in their show which made the episode unwatchable in Kuwait! Thank you guys!

As for Mom, her health is progressing, specially that she started to head to the kitchen often and THAT is a very good sign in general, yet, personally and for my own state of mind, I won't feel comfortable until the number of dialysis processes that should be done per week is reduced. At the current time, we have to pick her to the dialysis center (luckily near my working place) 3 times a week, and each session takes around 4 hours. As far as I know (and some by logic), doing dialysis on the long run can cause more hibernating to the kidneys (because dialysis is doing what the kidneys should do) and that would weaken the body even more, beside weakening the immune system naturally. Two things that I don't wish Mom to be acquainted with.

Grease:

Source: B&H

It's been a month or a bit more since I've got the Ubertronix Strike Finder Elite for triggering the camera (or flash as it seems), but unfortunately I'm still unable to work out any ideas to work with it. Sure, water drops and splashes seem to be an obvious target but they are cliches by now. I was trying to find something new or some creative venture within these two topics (water drops and splashes). Since I couldn't think of any, I've tried at least to do some testing for the device.
The Ubertronix seem to work fine except for few awkward delicacies!

• The wires of the sensors (for sound and motion) are short, but probably can be lengthened by some means.
• The device contains no controls for the sensitivity of detection (specially when it comes to sound detection).
• The port used for connection to the camera also bears "Flash" on it, but in the instructions manual there is no explanations involving triggering flashes instead of cameras. Could that be with the help of the PC port in the flash itself?
• Motion and Laser detection seem a bit unpredictable. 
• The sensors for sound and motion with their short cord are also hard to be placed. Probably duct tape is due in some situations. They are in a bulky rectangular box shape and because of the sturdy cord it can be hard to make them stay flat on a table for example or make them still on their sides.

These might be some awkward points, otherwise, the device works in a wonderful way. I think even the Laser detector can be used as a motion detector but I'm not sure of that yet and I need to do more experimentation.

Rising Eye
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm & 35mm tubes, f/11, 400^-1sec, ISO100.

On the other hand, I was trying to catch some eyes with the help of extension tubes but my trials with other people were in vain, so I've tried to do it on my own eye. Of course it is not like a piece of art (specially with all these reflections of flashes on the iris). I've been fascinated with the lines formed on the iris and I thought maybe the best way to do this is to use extension tubes. Using speedlites, on the other hand, was problematic but it was a must; otherwise no light is available in such narrow corner! Doing the whole thing on my own eye is a really hard task, specially with using an external portable monitor to judge the focus and the composition. After many shots, I've decided to pick Rising Eye to work on its RAW and filter it a bit more. I like this version mainly because the iris is situated in the corner (and I cropped a little from the top right corner to emphasize this fact) and it breaks the monotonous look of the iris being in the middle of the frame (and I did take shots that way as well). I've never imagined myself going so deep with the macro field, but it might be time to plan for some rails for fine adjustments?

Geometria:

With my sudden amusement with geometry and mathematics (not something new in fact), I've been playing around with circles and rectangles, along with squares of course. Needless to say I had some crush on Schläfli and his symbols.
From that perspective, I've been thinking of ways to organize my composition or the way I see things in my pictures. I'm quite a believer in what Bruce Barnbaum mentioned in his book The Art of Photography about the myth of the law of thirds; something that I would beheaded for if I talk about in here inside the photographic community in Kuwait! Bruce, however, had his own points and logic indeed. Anyway, for me, I do tend to think of the law of thirds and the golden spiral as means to merely organize the objects in the scene but not a critical tool to get the attention of the viewer. I'm aided with this point by the common belief among photographers that Rules are made to be broken in general!
Stemming from this point of view, I've been working around to base some order based on geometrical means rather than visual means opposed to the theory of the thirds and the spirals.

Red: Golden Spiral.
Blue: Law of Thirds
Green: Diagonal-Circles

My first trial was to draw quarter circles from the corners of a 3:2 rectangle; with 3:2 being the usual ratio for imaging sensors (at least for the APS-C cropped sensors?), and the radius of these circles is half the length of the diagonal. Thus, the quarter circles would meet at the center point of the rectangle, and by drawing the diagonals of the rectangle we can specify the points of intersection between these circles and the diagonals (green on the image above). Now, would these points make an interesting composition? This, I wouldn't know without trials. However, I do imagine it is a good starting point for circular (specially overlapping circles; e.g. in a rose) subjects. But the intersection points seem a bit far away from the center which makes me skeptic about its use in general, but again nothing can be talked of without trials.

Red: Golden Spiral.
Blue: Law of Thirds.
Green: Diagonal-Circles.
Yellow: Central Circle.

Another thought then occurred to me is to draw a central circle within the 3:2 rectangle in such a way that the center of this circle is shared with the rectangle, bearing in mind that the radius should not exceed the height of the rectangle (the y-axis length). Then, drawing quarter circles from the corners like before. This one diagram is unusual for me because it shows here more than the usual 4 intersections; in fact we have 8 intersections. However, four of these intersections don't seem to be practical (the two central intersections up and down) because they touch the edge of the frame itself. Probably, after removing the 4 central intersection points, we are left with the other four that are close to the diagonals and work more in harmony with the law of thirds and the golden spirals (yet far away from the diagonals-circles intersections). I guess placing a subject in these points won't make much difference visually since it is close to the other perspectives. However, those points close to the edge of the frame which I've omitted in the beginning might make a difference if they are to be included in the rules of the composition. Notice here that I'm talking about placing a subject in ONE and only ONE of these intersection points, whether it may be law of thirds, golden spirals or any other perspective I've been mentioning so far; but what if some of these perspectives, specially this last one (Central Circle method) would work as a whole, meaning that intersection points are to be used all together to organize subject(s) in the scene and not one subject only? You think this would be visually interesting? Again, only trials would prove if it's appropriate or not.

Red: Golden Spiral.
Blue: Law of Thirds.
Green: Diagonal-Circles.
Yellow: Central Circle.
Grey: Diagonal-Central Circle.

By the end of my thoughts chain I was almost going to forget about the result of intersecting of the diagonals with the central circle. Not strangely, these grey points are in harmony with other perspectives like the thirds and the spirals, as well as the central circle intersecting points. In fact, I think the four perspectives or divisions: thirds, spirals, central circle and diagonal-central-circle do all make clusters for one position at a time around the center of the frame, and if we have one big subject within the frame it would be covering these four points in one corner at one time probably. This leaves two main questions of how affective these perspectives are when it comes to the Diagonal-Circles perspective (Greens) and the central intersections of the Central Circle (those closer to the edge). Well, as for the central circle perspective, we might, as I've mentioned before, work with the 8 points altogether (or 4 of them at a time) to place a certain subject. The greens, however, might have been tried before from my side without noticing like I did with one of the shots for some roses and petals.

Die Sanfte Ringe

Probably Die Sanfte Ringe reflects in a way how the Diagonal-Circles perspective would work - but I have to say here that this shot was taken long time before thinking about these different geometrical plays within the 3:2 frame. Yet, it does coincide somehow as a subconscious drive I presume! Notice that the Rising Eye mentioned before does somehow imply the Diagonal-Circles perspective and again it is as if it is a subconscious drive within my mind to do it that way, specially when it comes to circular subjects or rings and loops. There is a difference though between the Rising Eye and Die Sanfte Ringe in that the former is indeed a 3:2 rectangle, while the latter is a square. Not sure yet how to think about the visual impact in between these two but one step at a time - I think there is a plenty of time to think about these crazy geometrical means. As for now, I need to work a bit more on more serious stuff!

Libros!

I've exhausted all my arsenal of books by now (and only one or two short stories are left). I've been working on my queue of Arabic books that I've purchased some months ago from the books fair back in November. Back then, I did purchase some stories just to rest my mind little bit from the technical aspects that I usually wander on. Now my eagerness is back to the technical side and I've decided to purchase 3 new books from Amazon. As usual, I've decided to take up 2 books about photography and 1 about science (specifically archaeology).

Source: Amazon

One of the books that I'm eager to read is Lens Design Fundamentals by Rudolf Kingslake. The book is cheap and in fact I was going to order another one which costs around US$150, but judging from the contents, I believe the latter is way too advanced for me for the time being (it appears to be too academic in style). Thus, I changed my mind and picked this one since it's cheaper as well as it is aimed for beginners. I'm not sure where does this lead me but I've always wished to gain more insight about the make of lenses and where the power lies in the design after all.

Source: Amazon

 The second book deals with Tabletop Photography, by Cyrill Harnischmacher with some twist about using speedlites. From what I reckon about its table of contents, it is dedicated for people who don't like to work in studio environment, and eager to use some tricks with their speedlites. Not sure how much I will gain from such a book, but I'm pretty sure that I won't be disappointed as it is the case with most of rockynook publishing.

Source: Amazon

The last book is something attracted me mainly because of some formulae inside! The Handbook For Classical Research, by David H. Schaps, seems to be a general overlook about humanitarian sciences and how mathematics merge into them for purposes of studies. I was looking for a pure archaeological book with pure scientific prospect, but unfortunately most of the books I've found were novel-like and don't deal much with the scientific and mathematical side. This book, however, bears much about studies and how to do them and how to analyze data in such fields like anthropology and archaeology, in different sub-fields. This is, at least, what I've regained from reading the table of contents and some few pages in between the covers. I don't think I would be disappointed here though - anything that has some numbers in its language can be quite interesting in the current time!
The only problem that remains now is how to manage my time between these 3 books. I think I'd read the rockynook issue first, because they can be over with quickly, usually!

Conlang:

In the meantime, I'm not forgetting my beloved conlang(s) in such frustrating times, but actually I'm not putting ideas onto papers or notes - but simply everything is going on in a mental note. I need to enhance my memory about some basics about the Bulughman conlang as well as Betenic.
There had been an idea of a funny or a comic version of English as a conlang. I thought about it long time ago and proposed it to Simon Ager, the author of Omniglot.com, but as he said, the priority is for conlang with conscripts (i.e. artificial and new scripts) while my version was simply using modified Latin alphabet. From that point I've been thinking of inventing a new conscript indeed. Priorities for now, however, is for the Geltani project that seems endless. Sometimes, I do think I need a wife not to love or share dreams together, but simply to organize my time. Might be a plausible idea, but I don't think I would call it a marriage, can I?

العين التي رعتني
The Eye That Cared For Me

Sorry...

Another week without much productivity I'm afraid. I didn't have any guts to touch the camera. I thought when Mom is back home things would be calmer a bit but in fact they are still busy almost to the same rhythm but in another timing, since Mom got dialysis to do 3 days a week and we have to pick her to and from the dialysis center. Moreover, we are doing a regular check up and checking updates with her doctors behind her back - she doesn't know much about the situation, but we are working on it and we get highs and downs from the doctors. Good thing that she is moving more often, and her spirit is getting back slowly and she started to get into the kitchen slowly! I think I can call this good news.

Because of this mental stress and continuous thinking about her condition, my mind is lacking of ideas for photography (specially with my new Ubertronix trigger that I got a month ago almost), and also little plans and thought about what to do next with my conlangs projects. Completing the Geltani is of course a must, but I was thinking also of studying Ayvarith back again to refresh my memory about the words I've made already. In hope this would make me a more fluent speaker of my own conlang! I think it might help me as well to make a stronger sense of the language as to make some words even without referring back to the basic ingredients: Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

Beside all of this mess, there is the real or the physical mess that is in my room and around the house that I've set my mind to organize and fix, yet I can't do this for the time being with this exhaustion and busy mind and body. All what I can do for now is to hope for some productivity by next week. As for the time being, I'm going to read a bit more about mathematics and geometry...

Grace...

Mom is finally back home right now, but that doesn't mean the end of the story. In fact, I think the struggle had just began now to elevate her spirit and make her cope what life throws at her, specially with boring hours of dialysis.
We are hoping now that the dialysis process is a temporary procedure until Creatinine is reduced to some level. All we can do for now is to pray for her and, of course, be on her side as much as possible. The other challenge from our side is to cope with life's schedules and rush with an added responsibility like this. We've been managing for the past 3 weeks by having leaving from work and changing shifts among family members, but at a certain point, I believe Mom has to be alone at home, probably with the maid only to help her out.

One of the greatest challenges for me right now is to try and work on with my camera after being mostly idle in the past weeks. Not completely idle, but I was aiming at various things without thinking just to try out my camera and not stop using it. Mainly I was aiming at geometrical shapes in flowers, specially those sent to Mom in the hospital. I won't bother you with the technical details here, but most of the images here were taken with 50mm lens plus some extension tube(s) beside using one or two speedlites (580EXII and 430EXII).

Blooming Alone

Sanfte Aufbau

Zentrum Aufbau

The Dark Side of Beauty

Introvert Petals

Lumini

Vortex

Floral Fractal

Mother's Heart

Die Sanfte Ringe

New Toys:

With the rush of the events lately I've ordered some new toys for my camera that I've barely touched or experienced something with. I hope in the coming days I will do this accordingly.

Source: B&H

One of the simplest "toys" here is a step down ring which is aimed at fitting filters on lenses with different diameters. My ring here is a step down from 62mm to 58mm (62-58mm) which I got specifically for my Tamron lens (70-300mm). Most of the lenses that I'm using have a diameter of 58mm and hence most of my filters (polarizer and IR for example) are ordered accordingly to this diameter. In order to make these filters somehow complete and fit all, this step down ring can do the job. The only problem here is that it sometimes gets stuck in between or stuck into the filter read itself. Typical problem (and I'm planning to get special wrenches to detach filters from lenses).

Source: B&H

The other toy is an eyepiece from Polaroid which acts as an extension at a right angle. It is supposed to be quite useful for shooting at waist level but I didn't test it for long. One of the hardships in this piece is how to fit it into my camera. It comes with plenty of adapters for various cameras (specially EOS cameras) but unfortunately, there is no direct adapter for EOS 7D camera and I had to make several tests. I could hardly fit one of the adapters into my 7D and I'm not sure it is quite useful for shooting at waist level but probably more useful to shoot on sides (i.e. to be on the side of the camera and look into the eyepiece). I will leave this for time to sort out its benefits.

Source: B&H

Maybe the most important toy for me right now (and didn't try it yet!) is the Ubertronix Strike Finder trigger. Some years back I got a cumbersome circuit to trigger the flashes by sound (and needed the PC cable to connect it to the flash but never got this cable). This trigger now is all-in-one type: sound, motion, laser and lightning. The difference here though is the fact that it is a camera trigger (and it comes with N3 cable to be connected in the place of the cable remote into the camera). Without trying it all seems good, but with one thing: the short cables and sensors. I want to try this as soon as possible but yet I didn't formulate any ideas on how to do so. The trigger box contains a jack port saying "flash/camera" thus I do believe I can connect it to flashes (speedlites) by special cables too and it's not limited to cameras only. Among other models, this brand was the only one probably to support Canon EOS 7D. In a twist of options, it has the Laser gate, i.e. triggering the camera with the change in Laser reception as I understand it while other brands depend on infrared gate which triggers the camera only when an object crosses in between a transmitter and a receptor. I'm not sure though how I'm going to use the trigger for Laser but according to the instructions it works as well for infrared just that way, as well as for lightning photography. Too bad the lightning season is over right now!

Thoughts:

In the passing weeks, with Mom's sickness and up till this moment, I had some weird urge in geometrical wisdom and started to read whatever comes my way from Wikipedia; specially the schläfli symbol. There were many stuff that were complicated of course and my mind couldn't digest but reading about simple stuff could spark some imagination. Reading about mathematics and geometry can never be in vain - it is up to you of course!
I'm trying in the meantime to look at the problem with Mom's health as a test for something; probably to change my attitude toward the world, probably to test my capabilities of challenging the world with increasing responsibilities and yet keeping up with my own projects and photography. Mom cared for us as a mother would do, and her memories still race in my mind at the moment; memories of some time when I was 10 years old or less and how she used to dress me for school. Despite the health problem is upon her, but it is our test, her children. Probably God wants to see how we do care for her and I'm lying my hope in succeeding in this test. After all, I arrived to the realization of the fact that at some time, at some moment in time, there should be that point of departure between her and me as it is the case always with every living thing. My only prayers go to make this point in time just far away; far enough in time to make me stronger to bear it. I've realized as well the fact that just wishing to depart life before her so I wouldn't have to see her leave me alone in this world is a mere selfish thought. Mothers can't bear the departure of their kids from her sight - it is me who has to bear it all instead...

New Addiction...

A slow week this time. Started to fast and that makes it one hard week to cope with. Hope it is just for some time, till I get used to it. My work with the camera is lesser than before but I did some work with it in the beginning of this week (Friday morning). I just felt sleepless by the morning and quite active, thus I decided to head to the beach area, my favorite spot, by the sunrise time and take pictures. However, lot of things are on hold or seems to be so, because of my fasting AND, my new addiction to sudoku! I don't know why, but this game is completely getting my full attention. I think it can organize the files in your brain automatically. Detectives must play this game often! I play it on DKMsoftware website. They have a nice applet.

Despite the fact that I didn't work much on my camera this week, and only 3 pictures are available online from the shoot on Friday morning (and the weather was dusty), yet I've spent lot of time checking my old pictures from Ireland (2010), Co. Tipperary, and trying to figure out more stuff to do with them. Specially that I'm slowing down my pace with HDR usage. With the advantage of converting color spaces of the image (and not assigning them) in Photoshop, I think I've grabbed some rescue point here. But under the light of what I'm reading at the current time in George Barr's book, Take Your Photography to the Next Level: From Inspiration to Image, I'm trying to be more critical for what I see. Cropping and dividing the image visually into lines and corners and/or studying patterns for various things including the light is a new practice now. I can almost say that I feel insane already... well... that's not new, is it? Ah well...

 

Back to the beach session last Friday, I've done some shots for HDR and made one HDR, but that was only for a specific effect I wanted to achieve. Two images added to my online "gallery" as well and they were single shots with RAW enhancements. Despite the dusty weather and the yellowish hue, there was a glimpse of colors in the horizon with the sun rising. I've decided that the best move to do now is something I've (almost) never done before, and it is somehow dangerous for the camera's safety; shoot near the water line with low angle on a spiderpod.

Mare Nostrum (our sea)

The shot above, despite my trials to blur the movement of the water by applying a longer shutter speed, it was captured with 1/100 (ISO200). I was not intending an HDR shoot from the early beginning (but done later) and I was relying heavily on the belief that ProPhoto color space will provide me with the power! Well, guess I wasn't disappointed. It was just a matter of adjusting the RAW file little bit and boosting the saturation somehow. Now to the problems, or maybe what I think is a problem ('cause lot of people liked it already):

• There was a little pump in the lower right corner made by the water line. It was easily fixed with cropping a bit. That pump gave me an impression of an incomplete curve and should be removed. So far so good, problem solved here I guess!
• Then there was the problem with my attention. I was focusing on the sun and trying to put it in one corner of the image (using a fisheye lens). I think my approach here was wrong. I guess I've eaten up the depth with this move. I believe I should have made the shore line longer, and if possible run from corner to corner (lower right to upper left). Even the sun, as I noticed just now, isn't quite in the upper left corner.

Well, some people liked it already and I do appreciate that from them. I do ask myself though what is the limit for being hard on myself with my images. There must be a reasonable criteria to judge myself and my work. Well, all I hope for is my own knowledge, and my own sense of spatial arrangements and organizing. Yes, I'm a single guy with  messy room but I do still have some ordering of lines in my mind!

The other trial was for HDR this time, without a specific vision of what will happen later or how I'm going to tone-map it, but a simply play with the RAW file made me capture an idea, when I changed the Temperature for one of the bracketed images and noticed how it looks and feels...

New Hard Day (Begins)

As the name suggests, you know my vision of it now. This is the HDR version that I've made later in same location. Of course there are adjustment layers added later to enhance some colors or looks. It is dark, which I think most of the stock sites won't accept it that way (except of MostPhotos) where some people liked it already. The colors (and the haze that was there already) made me feel the hardship and the hard life caused by the weather we have here. I didn't care much about the sharpness of the image and even the blurred motion of water here made it almost invisible. All what I was concentrating on is, color...
After that tour close to water, I put on my Tamron 70-300mm plus the teleconverter (x2 the focal length) and went on chasing for pigeons, trying to catch something useful. Pigeons on the beach are common here and aren't really impressive to me, but I thought of trying out my luck. It was hard with all the tools I was carrying. Anyway, I managed to capture some stuff and finally settled down with one image that, to me, was a bit of funny, but oh how much I miss the birds of Ireland by now...

The World Behind Me

Maybe the least liked by me. All what I like about it is the stand of the pigeon and the show of "carelessness" to this world. Like I do. Using manual focus here didn't work out well, as the focusing area was more to the pigeon's back instead of being on the pigeon itself. However, some people did like it too. Always keep the faith in your worst. You don't know when people do give it a meaning!
At this point, and after the many pictures that I've taken for birds on the beach and most of them aren't to my liking, I came on hesitating. Reading different books now made me brain twist some aspects of what I do.


Hollenbeck states in his book (or their book, as I think it was authored by Cliff and his wife, Nancy) that you should toss off the failed pictures, mainly for space requirements and secondly to take your mind off of pictures that won't work. Well, that's an opinion of a freelancer and I hold it true.
On the other hand, photographers like George Barr in his book mentioned above, advises that you keep the photos that you don't like (specially with prices of storage devices coming down by time now), because you don't know when you get an idea or suddenly, just like that, you might love the image, or something about it! Of course that doesn't mean keeping those totally blurred images (unless this blur is intentional of course). As for me, I tend to go on with Barr's methodology so far, but who knows, I might change this way when I become a true freelancer? God knows... As for the time being, I'll just toss away those blurry images and keep the bad ones just in case. A glance to what I did so far makes me think of... a stronger telephoto lens.

Back now to my images from Ireland. I'm preparing the seventh album from Tipperary. Too bad I'm not going this year, but I will try to have my joy with my memories from there as I look at my pictures. I thought that I've exhausted all my options with these images from last year, but I think I was wrong. I'm digging left and right, up and down, and trying to find something, or least experiment with, and it was there!
One of the images that I've previously forgotten about was a shot from some farm. It was cloudy day and the mode was Tv (shutter speed priority) and the ISO was high. It is bad already when seen on full size, maybe a bit better when minimized, but I wonder how it would look when printed?

Companions (ISO2500)

The problem is, I think, is that we (or I) spend so much time on the digital venue and forget about the other representations of the image. I need to sacrifice one more glossy paper and print out the image above to see how it looks on A4.
I remember one time in some restaurant, there was a huge image hung on the wall of some old ships, and the image was nice and clear. However, when I got closer and looked, there were obvious chromatic noise (red-blue dots). Anyway, from far away, and its normal for such huge wall picture, the image was fine! I need to work on making some visual remarks of how much noise is acceptable in a printed A4 form, on a glossy. Can it be that bad?
I'm not happy with the image above though. I've used some cropping to make a visual division of the image (on the trail of Barr), but I didn't like the idea of removing the red patch on the upper left corner. I visualize the image as divided into 3 unequal thirds, but the wooden pillar and the fence. Go figure...

The thing I'm afraid to do now is to stare too long on my previously made images from Ireland or elsewhere, for the fear of being too critical about the distribution of spaces and lines in them. Ah well. We are on the way of being better I guess. I shouldn't be scared, should I? I'm aware even now that I don't like much the first image I made for the seventh album!

Tower in Vane
I don't like the position of the tower now. Could have used some cropping.

And in vain trying to find some hope with my geometrical view of things, I've found out one of those images that I've never looked at before; for noise, for blurring...etc.

Solitarius

The crow here is blurred, and it was indeed my aim when I shot this. I got sort of disappointed when I saw that the crow was blurred and not clear enough. However, with a mind twisting games and ideas, I thought that the tree itself has an interesting shape; something raising from the lower corner. Thus, I kept concentrating on these branches and their colors and sharpness, in hope that they would catch people's attention instead of the crow. It is of a course a single shot not intended for HDR, or pseudo-HDR.

Squeezing my mind hard to write something and came up with something I'm not totally satisfied with, as usual, but oh well. Something! I've called it, The World of Broken Hearts. As for the Ayvarith project, I'm still trying hard to do something about these technical problems. This is getting longer than it should. Fasting also makes me a bit harder to follow up with it, but with some time management I guess everything is possible!
And to someone dear, I dedicate this...