Kika XII + Announcement…

Well, I was supposed to wait for 2 weeks to post this but I thought maybe I should do it now and have some rest from blogging for several weeks. So, this post would be a quick one, talking about Kika's photo-challenge for the last week; Week 12. The theme for the last week was "Reflection".
I've mentioned that already in my previous post, and I say it once more here. I think I do need some vacation from blogging for some time (even though I know the content I'm sharing here is not a big deal nor it is large in size).
I'm not sure how many weeks I will be resting (and trying to come out with more ideas for photos) but I would say it might be 3 weeks to 4. Meanwhile, I'm guessing I'll be back to work during that time and things shall get busy back again for sure. Unless the higher-ups decide something against returning back to work because of the Delta-Variant and its wide-spread nowadays. I don't want to sound bad here but I do wish for this decision, of going back to work, to be postponed for a while. 

Kika XII

Well, hope you like the new color for the subtitles here! I think I will use it from now on. As I've mentioned before (as well), the last 3 weeks of Kika's photo-challenge were busy times for me. But the lucky part, the themes that Kika picked for her challenges were, sort of, always related to something I did before. And the theme for week 12 was "Reflections" and, of course, I've worked loads and loads with reflections before!

Reflecting

Thus, I've picked an image that I've shot back in 2019 (and surely posted about it here) which revolves around reflecting on the inside and, well, watching myself in the mirror. I'm sort of used to adjust a bit in every old picture I post for Kika's photo-challenges, but at this level and for this last one, I didn't do much editing really except of some selective sharpening and maybe added a bit of contrast.
It is an old shot (from 2019) so I might just talk about the technical aspect again, in case the reader is interested in it. Reflecting is actually made by merging 2 photos; One regular one for myself and my reflection on the mirror, and another one with ND filter placed on the lens and making long exposure for one minute or so for me shaking my head. To manage the shooting here, I've used wireless tethering. So, the whole image is real but it is just a merge of TWO real photos, and the Photoshop part did not exceed the layer masks (to merge) and converting to B&W along with the rest of the usual enhancements done.

Finale

Well, since this is my last post before my "little" vacation, probably I shouldn't talk much about other photos other than the final one in the series of Kika's photo-challenges, and after all, this is the reason that I wanted to post this earlier than I anticipated (which is supposed to be a week later from now). It does sound weird for me though to make a full post like this just for one image, but well, I guess necessity has its own measures after all.
My head is now scrambled big time for many things that are not adding up together. Specially on the work-ground. As I've stated in the introduction above, we are not sure when are we going back to work; Is it August 1st or July 25th. I do wish this would be even postponed a little further.
I've submitted my papers to get a "special needs" status but so far, no news is coming back to me concerning this matter since the end of May when I did submit the requirements online. This is taking longer than I thought and it frustrates me further. Not sure what the next step would be, but I might anticipate a medical retirement if possible. I can't help but think of how ugly things might turn into back at work with me being alone there and being quite novice when it comes to managerial dealings, or even scientific ones since I didn't do a "real" scientific work in a long time. I'm really having dreams about a stress-less life; A life where I wouldn't have to worry about getting social for work matters, nor worry about getting early for work matters, and not getting a heart attack every time I see a WhatsApp message in the work group.
But a bigger dream is cooking in my head and I'm not sure if it is the dream that I really want but after the chaos I've been facing at home lately, I really dream of having my own place, which would require a lot of money. A lot…

On a side note, I've worked already with some extra panoramas; I mean old ones but in a new processing and looks. However, seems not many of them are worthy for uploading to the stocks yet. I have to re-check some of them and see if I can do more to enhance the quality, and also I need some time to visit more panoramas from the past to re-process. For this reason, and others that I've stated before, I'm hoping that this break from blogging would help me sort things out and create more, and hold the camera back again to create something worthy. See ya after a while…

Kika XI…

Honestly, I was too tired to even start typing this blog post. Thus, probably this one would be somewhat a short post. I think there is nothing weird with being tired, recalling my usual back pain sometimes, and my hectic life or routines everyday. There had been days that I wouldn't eat any lunch or dinner even. Anyway, it is time now for Kika's photo challenge, and this time with Week 11.

Kika XI

At this level of the photo-challenge, I got very busy with my brother and his studies and I barely had the capability or that piece of mind (pun intended) to work with the camera or to think of something new, or even to just edit. Well, editing is what I did but after some long time of searching and reflecting. The theme for the 11^th week challenge was "Weather." And of course, you can't speak about weather, in Kuwait, without speaking about the sun and summer. Because, well, this IS the weather of Kuwait! What else do you expect here?

Sunny

For this photo-challenge, as I've stated before, I didn't take any new shots, but I've referred back to some old shots, specifically some of those that I've shot in the shining morning sun of May of 2020, during a total lock down back then. I remember I was testing all my infrared filters back then and this particular shot was probably made with Neewer IR950 filter (and of course using my modified Canon EOS 7D). To be honest even, it seems, for some good reason, the shot was taken with B+W 043 black filter (UV-pass filter).
If I remember correctly, this image was processed differently back when it was taken in May, but for this particular photo-challenge, I've processed it again with a huge crop to the image to let the focus go to the eyes specifically. Not sure what type of processing I used here but I'm sure it is not the typical IR processing that I would usually follow which typically turns the image into almost a monochromatic one. Adding also some more emphasis on the luster of the eyes.
With this, the photo-challenge almost comes to an end with only one week left. Actually I could've done week 12 here as well but I'll leave it for another week. The last image posted for Week 12 is, again, an old one.

Bubbly

At this point, I come to the bubbles project which I've postponed previously. It's a photo shoot that spanned several days; Trying a new method or technique every now and then. The final result was more than 90 images (which have been processed and published).

Final setting

In the process, I've tried several ways to light the bubbles and also worked with 2 lenses (50mm and 100mm macro). I'd say though that the 100mm macro did fit most of the shots. Those shot with the 50mm needed a great deal of crop. Now, I don't want to go on with the story in length, but the goal initially was to shoot a bubble at the bursting moment. Though I succeeded only with 2 shots but nevertheless, the collection of these colorful bubbles was worth the lengthy work. 

Bubblosphere LXVIII
(one of the bursting bubbles shots)

It would have been better if the bursting shot was done in midair but unfortunately, as usual, I had to work alone. So, most of the work was done on a stable ground (used an oil burner as a base for the bubbles) and I've been moving around, blowing the bubbles and taking the shots.
Speaking of bursting, that calls, of course, to the usage of high-speed. However, that was not done right away. I was actually having some trial-and-errors with the lights and I've been using several lighting methods, and even a handheld beauty-dish to light the bubbles. Anyway, turns out that the perfect lighting angle for the bubbles is to be (as seen in many videos on Youtube) from above. The  final setting can be seen in the image above, where I used a white board hung over the work area to bounce the light from all my speedlites below. I had to do it that way since I don't have a softbox.

Bubblosphere XX
(shot with handheld beauty-dish)

Worth noting that despite this number of speedlites (and the supplies of batteries!), I still needed to raise the ISO a bit to get a proper lighting level in the images. Normal I'd say, since bouncing the light or even diffusing it would cause such loss of power anyway. Though at such moment I would appreciate some light source with AC input instead of DC batteries! Ah well…

Worth noting also that I've been doing some stroboscopic experiments before all of this work as well but the results were not quite to my liking but I've merged several images into a single ones (and I've posted about them few posts ago in Kika's photo-challenge about Colors).
Anyway, to summarize it all, I've made a video containing all these images. If you are reading this and wish to get any of these, you can find the full collection on my Canstockphoto profile (you can also click the signature at the end of this post) and some of them had been accepted as well on 123RF. 

 

 

Finale

As I've stated in the introduction of this post, I've quite lazy (or tired) to type down this post. This makes me think of having a break after doing the last post about Kika's photo-challenge in two-week time from now. Not sure how long this break would be but I think I just need it not only for physical reasons, but also to build up some content as I'm actually too tired to hold my camera or even to think of anything new.
As time is ticking, it seems that I will be back to work around the end of July or the beginning of August. I don't want to start talking about the stress that I'm already living in since I heard the news. I'll be back to the rush hours, and even more, more stress at work because of the events that took place there during our days off (around one year and a half). I'm all alone there and surely ugly things will be hitting the fan. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for sparkles of hope to shine as I'm looking forward to get my medical retirement if possible for retinitis pigmentosa, specially before moving to the new location which further away from my home, and it will surely cause me hectic time in driving to there. So many ideas, so many thoughts, and all cramps my brain rendering me paralyzed. All I can do is pray, and send my heart with hopes across Heavens…

Kika X…

How silly was it for me to make a post without an introduction the last time! I guess I was in a bit of a hurry to finish whatever I can in time. Anyway, I don't think there is any important stuff to spill out in the introduction, but I really wanted to make another little announcement. But well, I guess I don't need a special section for this little one, so here we go.
I've lately uploaded my bubbles collection to my Canstockphoto (which you find by clicking the signature at the end of the post) and now I've posted "some" of these images (and some few more outside the series) into my 123RF profile. I say "some" here because some images from this series were not accepted for one reason or another. Thus, the full series is actually available (so far) ONLY on Canstockphoto. I don't know much about the pricing of each website but just in case you want to compare, go ahead. Some people have one account in one and not the other anyway. As for Dreamstime, I never received any email concerning this type of upload or series or any single response, thus I have not uploaded there at all. 

 

Kika X

And up with the 10^th week of Kika's photo-challenge. At this time, I got occupied pretty much with many things, specially helping my brother with his studied. Thus, my mind was not "that" free for much inspirational work. Mind was all over the place. This,in fact, would be the situation till the end of the series of Kika's photo-challenge.
The theme for Week 10 was "light." As usual, since I didn't have the proper time to take new photos, I've searched my arsenal and I couldn't find any better than one particular shot that had a special kind of light…

Boihéamach
(bohemian)

I love this selfie because of the light in use here. It was lit with a single candle (and posted about it back in 2019 and started a project then to portraits with one candle only). Beside the quality of the light here, it was shot in infrared (hence the blue tint and eye). I was lucky here to pinpoint the focus on the eye on my own; It was a lengthy process of trial and error! However, just so I won't be re-posting a photo just like that without any edit or any effort for the theme, I've decided to do a minor adjustment. So minor but with a huge impact: Contrast.

Boihéamach (2)

The difference is drastic and made me wonder: Why didn't I do this in the first place when I first processed this image? Probably, then, I was way too dependent on the histogram and feared going out of the gamut. The contrast here was fixed simply by using the black dropper in the Curve adjustment layer box and using it to set the black point of the image as a whole from a spot near the face (or the eye's pupil).
The image became more dramatic and more drastic and I'd say more Rambrandt-ish after this fix of the contrast, with apparently uplifting the blue tint from the whole image.
I think I really need to detach myself from perfection with histogram. A lesson to be learned in my future work; If my memory and habits serve me right. So, this far is my only contribution for Kika's Week 10 challenge: Light. 

 

Back-on-Villea

So at this time, of March still, I went back to the yard trying to catch some more "extreme" macro shots, and this time for the Bougainvillea. Or should I say, Bougainvillea's blooms. This plant really proved to be hard to work with because of its stiff branch (and thorns!) and a lot of the things that I wanted to try before did fail because of the breeze, wind, or the hard-to-reach pose. 

Hyperstigma

The stigma or central part of the bougainvillea bloom is quite interesting with its cinquefoil-like shape. However, unfortunately, the magnification I was using (4.2X) was way greater than what it should be and there was no time to change and experiment (again!) so I went on and tried to shoot whatever I could. Hyperstigmata here was shot from the top and directly onto the stigma but generally speaking, it is not quite clear and blurry. Probably good for a small size representation but definitely not a large size one. Seems even with a speedlite at hand and at 1/250 of a second, motion blur outside is yet to be conquered.

Stigma Profile

Stigma Profile II

Ironically, despite not being able to shoot the stigma right on, I was able to shoot a "profile" from the side (or behind). In Stigma Profile I and II, the effect of the direction of the light is obvious. It helped on creating an isolation of the foreground without much effort; Just by tilting the speedlite at hand just a little bit!

Stamen Head

Pinkoid

Same thing goes on with the stamen part of the flower, where changing the direction of the light did change the looks drastically (and the feel as well). I kind of find it comical that the masculine part of the flower comes out in such dominant pink, in Pinkoid; A color usually assigned to the feminine nature. Anyway, the bloom itself is pinkish/magenta in color, with all its inner parts. I was amazed to know that there are indeed bougainvillea varieties with white (and probably blue?) flowers! Would be nice to have them side by side with these pink/magenta ones. The plant though is quite random and needs special treatment to let it grow in some organized manner. Needless to say, we plant them in small pots right now, so, they wouldn't grow much like the one we planted long ago when we first settled in this then-new home. Nevertheless, the branches and the blooms do just fine as they are. 

Stigma Furnace

Back to the stigma and with changing lighting conditions again, seems I got something acceptable in Stigma Furnace. However, this result was not possible without editing; A heavy one as well. This said, there are still a number of images that I didn't touch or check thoroughly. A quick look at some of these didn't yield much impression on me but probably another visit to those again, with some cropping and "surreal" editing techniques, I might get out with something out of them.

 

Finale

As I'm typing this blog post, and specially the introduction up there, I've realized that there are a number of promises that I've made and which seems like that I've "ditched". Like the one time that I wanted to do more of the old panoramas in a new suit and upload them to Mostphotos. However, lately, my psyche had a great toll on me. Maybe some, who would read these lines, would consider it such an exaggeration to talk about the mental status in the finale of every post, but all I can say is, I really don't wish to see you in such a place, in your minds. The exhaustion of fighting off such mental issues is quite physical. Sprinkle that with back pains, and you would get such a lovely combination of stalemate.
I am in a phase of life at the moment that I really don't know what I want, where to go, or where am I going. Yes, I have few wishes, but under the current circumstances they are kind of far fetched. In fact, even those wishes I'm wishing and hoping for, probably won't make me any more dedicated or goal-oriented, nor grant me happiness. Something within is very tired.

Kika IX…

Kika IX

And on with the 9^th Week in Kika's challenge, which bore the topic of "color". This theme kind of coincided with a separate work that I was planning for and working on away from the Kika series, and just happened that the photos I've shot were full of colors; Though in abstract sense. And that is my work with the bubbles. However, the work with the bubbles, then, was still in its beginnings and I didn't quite find a valid or perfect way to capture these bubbles, and yet was doing some stroboscopic and macro experiments. Anyway, I think I will keep the majority of these posts for later, but for the time being, I'm just going to post those that I've dedicated specifically to Kika's photo-challenge with "color" as a theme.

Bubbly
Some abstracts shot with a macro lens.

The first problem with the bubbles was not being able to blow a proper bubble, so instead of having one big bubble, there was a cluster of small bubbles, Not wanting to lose the chance, I've decided to shoot those anyway. With a bit of processing, colors popped out more. Not sure why, but these images brings me nostalgia for rainy winter days, specially in my old home.

Set A

Then, there are the trials with stroboscopic flash. As for Kika's photo challenge, I've posted only one set, and that is Set A. Now, the reason for this name is that this image is made up of various images and not a single one, all shot in stroboscopic flash. Because of the empty spaces in each image of those, I thought it might be a good idea to combine them altogether and fill the gaps with other photos in the series. Then there is another series, and that was dubbed as "Set B" but I didn't post it for this theme of Kika's photo challenge. I'll keep that set when it's due when I'll be talking about the bubbles project.
Anyway aside from bubbles, I still had one last try here, and posted it on Instagram on the last day for Week 9 challenge.

Pantone Eye

The idea in the beginning was far from the photo challenge really, as taking a macro shot of my eye was something I wanted to do in a long time. I did it before but usually with 50mm or 50mm plus extension tubes (which provides moderate magnification of 1x or a bit more). This time I was aiming for a bit more but with me failing to get any good perspective, I reduced my ambition down to 2x magnification.
It's not the first time I do take a shot of my eye but with such magnification it was so hard; harder than before even. I had to use a hand mirror and hold it behind the camera to see the LiveView in order to frame correctly. Barely made it there actually with few shots with proper lighting. As the lighting goes, I had to hold two 430EX II near my face (and feel the heat of the pulse!).

Pantone Eye (details)

As the title goes, I thought of coloring the iris to pantone's color of the year (2021) which had a hex value of #F5DF4D. I thought this would also be suitable for the theme of Kika's photo challenge for Week 9. Anyway, coloring was not an easy process; It's not as simple as picking a brush and go over the iris. But I wanted the iris itself to adapt this color to have a more natural look. Thus, I've color-picked somewhere in the brightest region of the iris and started twitching colors to arrive at the proper CMYK equivalent for #F5DF4D (I think that was 8,7,78,0 in CMYK). This might initially resemble the pantone color but of course these digital values would change as I downgrade the file from 16-bit, change the color space and save the file as 8bit JPG. But the visual outlook should be the same since I use conversion of color space and not assigning  the color space. In the end, for the love of details, I've created another image from the first one (a crop) to show more details from the iris. I just can't remember was that my right or left eye!

Oxeneye

Usually, when shooting macro outside, I wouldn't go beyond 1x or 1.5x magnification. Even with such magnification, it is quite a hurdle to get a stable shot. Anyway, I've decided to take this further up, using my Voigländer 20mm lens (in reverse) and reaching up to 4.2X, and shooting outside. It was March, so many blooming plants were still available, in contrast to the situation now in May, as the temperatures already started to reach beyond 40°C here. So, my work begins with the oxeye bloom, or in fact it could be something of that family but not exactly the oxeye daisy itself, as the petals for the bloom here are yellow instead of white.

عَيْنُ الأُقْحُوانِ
(oxeye eye)

I have to admit, despite the hurdles and difficulties (and the back pain) for setting up the tripod and the camera (with or without a rail), the view at 4.2X for such small parts of the flower is simply amazing! I used to work afternoon when the sun is almost gone and not shining on the yard; This way it would be easier for the camera to communicate with my handheld 430EX II speedlite via infrared. Otherwise, it would be impossible to shoot using a speedlite unless I use a cable or a radio transmitter, which I don't have at the moment. Holding the speedlite freely at hand also enabled me to change the light direction and experiment with the looks by changing the light direction and distance even. 

عَيْنُ الأُقْحُوانِ 2
(oxeye eye 2)

As I've stated already, changing the light direction can make quite a difference in looks, as can be seen here in Oxeye Eye and Oxeye Eye 2. In the former, the dark background wasn't quite to my liking (hence cropping to get closer to the stamen), while in the latter, the background was harmonious to some extent in terms of color (keeping the foreground darker a bit). All that change was done by changing the direction of the speedlite and/or its distance from the flower. And it's not only the background here in fact, but also the texture of the stamen's surface popped out clearly (well, in the former version it is clearer because of the crop). Probably with a lesser than 4.2X, such texture won't be visible much.

Cornered

Probably the awkward part of shooting at such high magnification and shooting such a subject, is fixing the composition. In fact, as I was working behind the camera keeping an eye on the LiveView, I would have snapped any clear details I could get there. Images like Cornered and Last were originally aimless without concrete composition, but I've tried to fix things by cropping, sometimes to some severe measures here. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I'm guessing that more professional photographers in the world of extreme macro photography do have their own techniques to pinpoint the composition properly. As for me, it was a mere trial-and-error and a game of chance!

Last

Finale

Something is going on with my mind and body lately, and I just can't figure what it is exactly. I've been lethargic most of the time and taking a nap after a nap, after a sleep. I'm starting to wonder if this is a normal thing to have at 40? Or should I say 42, if I want to count my age according to the lunar years. Is this part of what they call the "mid-life crisis"? Or it's just a fleeting influence or transit from the planets upon my life and would soon go away? Or maybe it's just escapism at its best? I'm hoping, as I really need to get going and work with my camera more.
I'm still going on with the process (and the bureaucracy) of attaining my "special needs" papers. And who knows, I might work on getting a medical retirement afterward, but the long from here is long and hard to speculate. I'm not sure I'm going to attain the retirement yet. It sounds inevitable though, specially with the move of my workplace to a new location which is double the distance from home almost; I can't imagine myself driving that much on a daily basis, twice a day. My body is not what it was in my 30s and 20s. Trying hard not to think ahead about it but my brain can't stop flipping the channels.
As days pass by here, I just realize how awesome it would have been if I had my own home, and yet how hard it is to gain one. Even my trials years back to settle down and get my own place were never fulfilled, and interrupted with my mother falling sick for kidney failure. I was the main carer for her for 3 years then and I've totally forgot about myself then. More chances came in later, and never worked out, and now here I am… at 40, not knowing where am I heading, nor what I'm supposed to do, or what to be…

Kika VIII…

Here we go again! I was busy typing my post for my Arabic blog so I didn't have the time to post here. Typing an Arabic blog is not quite as easy because I type it outside the blog website (on LibreOffice's Writer) and post it there because I do have more control over specific formatting issues there. Also, putting images there and typing captions, and sometimes getting stuck in translating into Arabic some English terminologies; All that really require patience and some time. Now, I'm back to the usual (hopefully), so let's get back to Kika and her photo-challenges!
Just before I go on with the post, I'm not sure I did announce this already or not, but just in case I didn't here you go: In case you'd like to check the bubbles set of images which I've created lately, it has been uploaded to Canstockphoto. You can visit my profile by clicking the signature at the end of this post.

Kika VIII

Well, I remember at this level with Kika's photo-challenges, things at home started to get busier and busier on many fronts. So, from this challenge and on, I would say not many new stuff had been created really, since I was in a race with time.
So, the theme for Week 8 was "Multiply." A theme which I can relate a LOT to since I used to work with stroboscopic flash as well as collage and stitching images manually (object panorama sort of thing).

Schizophrenia

The one image that popped in my mind when the theme was announced was Schizophrenia, for apparent reasons! Shot this in 2018 and posted it many times (and enrolled it in some contests as well). Ironically, I didn't upload it to the stocks! I think I need to do that soon (to Mostphotos). As I've mentioned already and for many times, I was quite busy but as soon as I got the chance to work on something, I went on with it, regardless of my vision about it and my assumptions about its success or failure…

تَفَضَّلْ، كُلّي آذانٌ صاغِيَة
(go ahead, I'm all ears)

The funny thing about I'm All Ears above, is that when I did it was aiming to the idea of "multiply" which was Kika's theme for week8, but then realized that it works well as a theme for Retinitis Pigmentosa! However, it was done in March, whereas February is the month named as Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month.
The thing about this shot is, I just did it. Without thinking, without preparations, without any much thought except for the core of the idea itself; Something I usually lack (and it hinders me big time but I can't help it!). I picked my camera and my Sigma 12-24mm lens outside (with a tripod of course) and sat there in front of the table and shot 3 to 4 images, then went back to my room and started to work on the collage - Just like that!
Even though my initial aim when the theme started was to use stroboscopic flash because it was the best candidate for "multiplication", I was actually out of ideas for stroboscopic flashes. Anyway, the idea of having ears instead of eyes sounded funny to me (can't remember if I was inspired by something) and it does include the idea of multiplication here!
Since my Sigma 12-24mm lens does not have much of a shallow depth of field to form a bokeh or that sort of thing, I had to do things manually in Photoshop. In addition to that, I worked on emphasizing the sharpness, contrast, and saturation of the body to stand out more against the foreground and the background. You can already tell the haste of the work by the unshaven face I guess!

Bougasso

It was a nice weather time back in March. Of course, it is spring season (even before the official start of it) but typically this is not the case here. Thanks to COVID-19, temperatures had gone down a bit. Temperatures here on May would already be reaching 45-50 degrees on occasions (and even before May), but this year (and probably the year before) temperatures are just reaching 40s.
Anyway, away with the weather forecast introduction already. My point here was to give an introduction as to why or how I was shooting photos for the bougainvillea trees or bushes in our yard still, in March. In fact, at the moment of typing this in May, they are still there though lost a big portion of its magenta blooms, some magenta still remains anyway.

Cracking Bougainvillea

For a moment there I really wanted to go crazy, just like in the old days (not that I'm sane nowadays anyway but I mean with my processing attitude). Thus, I've tried to do a collage of slides taken for one of the bougainvillea bushes, shooting these slides in HDR (i.e. bracketed then combined for HDR). From there, I went crazy with my toning. However, I've realized the crazy part was not there yet!
As I was working in Photoshop to align the images, as usual, I would try to see the automated process done by Photoshop (it does some good work sometimes!). So, after aligning, I tried the blending and to my surprise, I got something that I've totally unexpected, as you can see above in Cracking Bougainvillea. It's not something that I would upload to the stocks for sure, but it is beneficial for my brain I guess to get out of the norm and do crazy stuff; Stuff that people "usually" maybe hate and do not consider as photography. Maybe as a reminder that I'm an artist after all and photography is an art. 

Reaching Out

So, after doing Cracking Bougainvillea, I didn't find myself satisfied enough. Mainly here because the shots I've taken there were kind of random in various directions. So, I went back to shoot it again, and this time I've worked on moving the camera vertically only. Worth noting that both shooting were done with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens.
Again, with Reaching Out, I tried to get out of the ordinary and do some art and I did a "trick" here which I didn't do in a long time (I think I've done it back when I had CS3 or CS4 of Photoshop!). Ironically, I've done it also to a picture of bougainvillea, but back then it was a full tree (we had quite a suitable space for planting then). Again, like I've stated in the previous post when I was working with the pastel-like look, it seems that it would have been far better to work with such effect when the shadow was minimal or non-existent altogether, since it is making the isolation process quite troublesome; As well as the looks.

Moon's Delight

Orangina

Beside these 2 shots there were some minor shots for some flowers but I thought it would be just unnecessary to talk about them in detail, since they are simple macro shots with the usual editing process, but I'll just post them here to keep up with the "time-line," since I'm recollecting my photo-shooting memories from months ago!

Finale

It seems that I've been going through some dormant phase lately, as bed seems to be my best friend. Or maybe it is a trial to escape reality. Ramadhan is over now and I'm trying to get back to normal life schedules as before. My work with the camera is low as well and things just feel empty. Or maybe it is me who is empty. I just don't know.
Things seems to be on the way to be back to normal here after more than a year of closure and being off work. To be honest, I kind of used to this life of not going to work every morning, despite the hectic habits and sleeping times which I need to put on check. I feel that I'm still not ready to go back to work whenever they would call me to it. As things go in that direction, I'm also working on getting proper reports for my eyes condition, and who knows, I might as well file for medical retirement. Moving to a new location further away from home, as well as being sort of alone in that workplace which is supposed to be about science (but not much science in it) makes my anxiety ascend further. I just don't know where life is throwing me into, but all I can do is lay my trust in God…

Kika VII…

This is somewhat a sad post. As I'm typing these words, our canary (which I've posted about in the previous post) had died after some weird illness or condition. It's a perplexing feeling really; Part of me is sad and part of me is happy. I'm sad because he is dead, and happy because he finally left the damn cage which I wanted to take him off from but couldn't; Because no one cared, and no one liked the idea. I didn't give him a name (and I don't even know if it is a male indeed), but all I can say is, RIP Canary, I'll miss you…

 On a side note, I've also been under some allergy attack, which is gone by now but a slight cough remains. The cough, though, leaves such an awful taste sometimes; Something metallic or like breathing through some plastic pipe! I just hope I won't be needing Seretide for this. I think I had just about enough for 2 weeks of time of my life!

Little Announcement

Just before proceeding with the main post, I wanted to state that I've finally uploaded ALL the batches of images that were on the queue! And now, it is time for me to work with some NEW images that I've shot recently and prepare some of them to be uploaded the stocks. 

The new uploaded batches

 

Typically, and as usual, the selfies were uploaded to Mostphotos exclusively. The rest are spread across Canstockphoto, Dreamstime and 123RF. However, at the moment of typing this, 123RF uploads are still under review (typical) while the rest had been accepted in the same day (with few rejects). Not only that, but also one of the images (1^st in 4^th row) had been sold already via Dreamstime! I remember in the old days when Dreamstime's reviewing process used to take a considerable time but things had been faster now and even more promising!
There is still one image that I didn't upload and it is ought to be exclusively on Dreamstime and that is Killing Evil (1^st in 2^nd row) which is actually a PNG with a transparent background, and thus considered a vector. I've uploaded it several times but it is not getting through and I need to check back on that later. 

Kika VII

So, we arrive at Kika's photo-challenge for Week 7, which had somewhat a weird title for it, and in fact it was not possible to put it all in a single hashtag. The challenge was about combining unexpected items or objects. I have to admit I got my head spinning around and I didn't know what to shoot here, thus I referred back to my arsenal of shots and started playing around. I didn't want to skip a single challenge at this point!

Red Escape II

The shot was taken back in March 2020, where I was working with some random ideas of mixing feathers and water, so I thought it is the right mix for this photo challenge. I've shot many in this series of feathers and water, using both high-speed and stroboscopic flash (Red Escape is apparently shot with stroboscopic flash). The problem (kind of) was that, that I did post this photo back then when I've created it. So, just to make things a bit different I've decided to make a little edit and change the jar color to blue, which I thinks adds even more contrast better than the original (where the water was reddish). All these shots in the series are uploaded to my various stock accounts (you can check one of them by clicking the frame at the end of this post).
Things though did not stop at this photo for this challenge, just yet.

Through H-Alpha

Funny thing is that before the announcement of this photo-challenge by Kika, I did some photo-shoot in the yard at home as I was experimenting with some concepts, as well as trying to practice some editing techniques (those related to creating pastel-like images). Along the way and since I was carrying my two cameras (regular and modified) with some filters, I've shot Through H-Alpha using my H-Alpha filter holding it in front of my (beloved) Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens; By hand of course! I think this raises this image of combining unexpected items (a filter and a fisheye lens!) but also combines 2 scenes into one; A normal one and a filtered one. It did require a considerable work with layer masks and levels to correct the colors outside the circle and enhancing those within the circle as an infrared shot should be, somehow. The shot was, of course, taken with my modified camera, thus even the area outside the filter was tinted because of the infrared coming from the sun. The image originally was all shades of red!

Pastel-ization

As I've mentioned already (in this post and probably previous ones), I'm trying to work on some new technique in editing, but so far, I didn't practice much of it. Most probably I would need to work on old shots from my arsenal instead of working on new ones. However, here are some shots that were relatively new in fact and shot specifically for this edit.

عَـطْـفْ (Bending)

The work here is actually inspired by a Portuguese lady artist and photographer which I, unfortunately, can't recall her name; I've seen an article (interview) with her in one of those Google suggested pages on my phone. Anyway, looking at her images and reading swiftly through the interview, I kind of managed to take the main points of such a style:

1. Saturated colors.
2. Somewhat happy colors.
3. Bright colors.

Thus, I was working on these key features. Of course, the heavy work relies on editing rather than in-camera work. However, I guess not all subjects are suitable for this type of style. Nevertheless, one wouldn't know unless one tries!

Bougainvillian Curve

One of the key points in "shooting" the images, as the Portuguese photographer stated, is shooting when the sun is high up (noon time). However, I did shoot when the sun was just rising on the yard at home, and I think I do now understand why did she mention this point specifically; Shadows and dark tones are not good candidates for such a technique! Not only shadows in fact but darker tones in general so it is better to avoid them as much as possible I guess. As can be seen above in Bending and Bougainvillian Curve, the dark black pots of the bougainvilleas are hard to render in such technique and they feel much like being obtrusive. Just to aid the image a bit here I've added a tone or two to the black or the shadows in these images. It's clear  now why the midday sun is the best for such a technique of "editing".
As I've stated, I didn't work with this editing technique much still and maybe I did some photo here and there (one of them was posted for Kika's photo-challenge). I've been swept away with other photo-shooting and, as usual, domestic issues. Hopefully I will attend to this technique further in the future and try to have a grasp on it.

Finale

I consider myself lucky to finish this blog post actually. With all the tired body and the stack of "work" to do (not related to my actual job nor to photography) and I managed to finish this blog post - but I had to start earlier than usual! Ah well…
I'm having an idea of starting a blog post in Arabic for my Arabic blog, which I didn't post in for a long time now. The post would be about my experience in shooting bubbles, which I will post here in time, as I'm trying to go chronologically here in this blog with all the images that I've taken in the past few weeks. The bubbles shoot was a big deal and I've come out with loads of images (some of them even uploaded to stocks already). However, the bulk of them are not yet prepared to be uploaded. I'll keep that talk for another time.
I've been also taken by astrology lately; An old passion and interest that got re-kindled for a while now (even before COVID time) and I've been reading texts here and there and watching videos about topics and all that. But this is a bad habit actually and I know, because there are priorities I need to tend to. This also brings to my mind the passion for Conlangs which I didn't attend to, and specially after the lock-down of my other Instagram account, @Ayvarith. Funny how this blog was first started to talk about the Conlang of Ayvarith but then changed to other topics completely. Despite being taken over by photography, Ayvarith still has a place in my heart, and it might get re-kindled after some time, along with other Conlangs and Conscripts. Who knows?
On a domestic level, my isolation is getting tighter and tighter and I barely leave my room for few minutes (mainly to make me coffee). The mental disconnect is getting quite hard to fix in this house and nothing seems to make sense to me, neither I make sense to anyone else. On a mental level, ghosts from the past keep visit me unexpectedly with the thoughts "Why did it happen that way?" or "How did it happen that way?". Quite useless thoughts and there is nothing I can do about them, but the stress that loads on my mind because of the house keeps recalling these memories. How I wish I could just afford my own place and stay alone… At least if such memories come, they would visit without a stress…

Kika VI…

Busy weeks, and Ramadan is already in. It seems that I do have to start typing my blogs very early just when one post is published! My busy schedule, by the way, includes helping and studying for my brother's sake as well as trying to nap intermittently to do these chores. I, too, have a new load of images that I really need to process further and make ready to be uploaded to the stocks. All that while there is a list of images to be uploaded to the stocks already! I wonder if 24 hours a day are still enough.
I've uploaded previously 10 panoramas and made them exclusive to Mostphotos, and I do have plans to add to them. However, because of this hectic life I'm leading right now, this won't be any time soon I guess. I've been trying to promote these panoramas by sharing them over, but seems this method is not working well. Or maybe people are just not interested in such things anymore. Ah well…
I've been struck with an allergic attack out of nowhere this week and my health is kind of up and down (again) but seems things are getting better, though slowly. I just hope it doesn't relapse to something worse!

Kika VI

As the Retinitis Pigmentosa project is over with, I'm going to jump right into Kika's photo-challenge this time and then continue with other shots that I've done before or after or during the running of these photo-challenges (which are over by last week by the way). So, the theme of the 6^th week's challenge was Growth.

 

The Two (re-make)

In the beginning I was quite blank about this idea and tried to brainstorm and come about with some unusual ideas. I did in fact come with some sort of idea but the execution failed. For this reason, I thought maybe I should just re-work some old image resembling something about Growth and I did find this image indeed; The Two. A shot I've taken around my workplace back in 2019. I've posted this shot on Instagram long time ago and in order not to be repeating myself, I've decided to edit it in a different way, pushing more on the artistic side rather than the "proper" photography side. Thus, I didn't care much about removing that brick on the right side and the photo was edited in a trial to mimic the pastel colors style. I've tried this editing style in a number of photos but honestly I didn't go deep with such experiments. I think I still need to do more about it.

Anyway, after posting the photo on Instagram, I found out that I still have time - I was too busy with other things that I've doubted I could do my idea in time, specially that is an idea that requires a lot of Photoshop work (or magic, if you will!).

 

صَدَقَة (Alms)

 

The idea came about from a Hadith (reported speech from prophet Mohammed, PUH) which goes like: Never did the money of a servant gone less by alms-giving. Meaning that when someone gives charity, his or her money grows back and do not get lesser.
The execution was a bit clumsy in terms of the hand movement (I don't have flexible muscles). I've used a table covered in black cloth and made the gestures behind the far edge. The lighting though was a bit problematic and I had to struggle with it to get some proper angle. I was too lazy to use more than one and in fact the idea would NOT require more than one. Whenever you think of "drama" always think of "one light". This is my tip for you! The position of the lighting was quite critical to avoid lighting the wall behind me as much as possible. I would be able to merge the photos in Photoshop after all but it is just wise I guess to reduce the workload and the problems as much as possible in the shooting phase. The rest of the tale is, of course, a Photoshop tale; Merging various shots together (and discarding unneeded ones) and playing the game of layer masks, and adding a touch of lighting effects. Luckily all of this was done and posted on Instagram before the announcement of the next photo-challenge by Kika! (which occurred typically on Thursdays on her Youtube channel). I consider myself lucky for finishing this little project in such a short time, with all the mess that life keeps throwing at me! The question remains now as whether I should upload it to the stocks or not, specially that it is such a large image file. Anyway, I better put that on hold as there are other batches of photos that needs to be uploaded first.

 

Gesture
One of the shots that I've liked in my first attempt with this little project.

 

Rolling Back

After indulging so much in these photo-challenges as well as with RP project, it does sound a bit hard for me to roll back to where I stopped with my random camera working! Among the little announcements that I've used to post for a while, it seems that the latest post of some real camera work was done back in November 2020 or so when I used to stroll around morning times and snap some images around my area. So, What I'm going to do here is to roll back to February 2021.

 

Meditative Behind Bars

 

Typical for such a lockdown (or without it honestly), I often look around to look for something to shoot and back in the day I've picked our poor bird (which I think is a canary). I say poor because, well, I really hate to see birds behind cages but I'm forced to let it be so since I don't own it; Yet, I'm trying to take care of it as much as possible since no one in this house would. I don't actually think anyone here thinks of animals like the way I do.

A Concept of Freedom

The shoot was done using Sigma 70-300mm lens, and my old 7D camera (i.e. the normal one not the modified one). It can be noticed though that I've focused on the pinkish theme here to add some softness and gentleness to the harsh reality of being behind bars (and no, it has nothing to do with feminism nor the feminine side of the bird). There is, supposedly, a trick that would hide the bars but I think I would need special preparations and another lens. I've picked this lens specifically to be able to stay away from the cage and shoot, and the minimum aperture here is f/4.5 (goes to f/5 when zooming). All in all, it was a good practice for motion handheld shooting with AI Servo drive!

Canary (3D)

One of the benefits of shooting a bit further away from the cage (even though the bird does not have much freedom here) is to keep the bird moving and follow him in a close-up. I think it would be such a good practice for people who are into wild-life photography at some stage, but for me it does not exceed the limit of enjoying and practicing the camera and the hold. Since I was shooting in a continuous (burst) mode, there was a great build-up of images with chances for creating 3D anaglyph images as in Canary (3D) where the movement of the camera OR the bird was subtle, but the difference is capable of creating a parallax difference and hence a 3D illusion; This is mainly because of zooming in. In addition to that, some artistic rendition can be made later on (with a tick of inspiration when that comes) as in Desperado.

Desperado

I guess you can see how much I feel sorry for the bird. In fact I've tried to let it go but I've discovered that he was not able to fly and feared it would be devoured by some cat out there, thus we got it back to the cage. In Desperado, the collage was made of images shot continuously for the bird as it was trying to clean itself or something. There was a load of images to check out as well as a load of them to be deleted for the apparent shake. So, again, I consider myself lucky here to have these successive 4 in order.

Finale

Well, Ramadhan is here and I'm absolutely grateful to the fact that I don't have to go to work. Even though, I do have personal troubles and setbacks on the other side of the spectrum here, but well, trying to keep looking at the bright side of things.
I've got here load of things to do (beside typing these posts every other week), mainly helping my brother and attending to Mom a bit. In this mess also, I'm kind of swept by astrology, as I'm trying to learn few tips and bits from here and there. Well, mainly to understand myself really but I do dwell on other aspects from time to time as well.
I really wanted to talk a bit about my "bubbles" project in this post but I thought I should roll back and make things a bit chronological as this project is just recent and worked with in the past few weeks of April. So many images I've processed in this project that I'm going to need some time to prepare them for the stock (and let's hope they accept them as some works of abstracts). I've even made a video for a quick view for all of them. This said, there are a number of them that I've set aside to be processed later (not sure when) as they didn't quite get along the others. We'll see about that.
Days pass now, and my isolation increases by the day. An isolation that strikes in the mind and the heart before in body itself. And this has nothing to do with COVID and the lock-downs, though related in some way, but it is something bigger than that. I wouldn't mind if this isolation was somewhere out there, somewhere green, somewhere with fresh air and singing birds. But here? I just don't know how long I can stand this…

 

Retinol VI…

Life life life… what to do to get one. I'm typing these words as early as possible because my shoulders are getting more loads from various things; Home, personal life, responsibilities, and the last thing I would need right now ― work.
In this post, I'll be talking about the last shot(s) in the series of Retinitis Pigmentosa for this year, as well as, as usual, talking about Kika's photo-challenge for week 5.

Retinol VI

The last idea for the RP project came about quite suddenly and unexpectedly, somehow. In fact, this shot was also intended to be shared for both, the RP project as well as Kika's photo-challenge week 3, which was about "framing". This is because the main structure or composition contains such framework (no pun intended).

Prospect

The whole thing started as I noticed a little jar or vase where my sister keeps some dried pink flowers near my room. I liked the color first specially with the sun light that seeps through the balcony behind this squared-shelf. Eventually, as my eyes kept gazing, I followed with the lines and it was one of these "Aha!" moments as I thought right away of framing (which was the theme of Kika's challenge back then). Probably I should have posted this back in the post about Kika's photo-challenge week 3, but I've totally overlooked it, as it was more dedicated to the RP project. Now, despite the pleasant look in the morning with the sun being out, the shoot was performed at night time, and to merge the two ideas (RP + framing), I've decided to stand there out of the balcony and just extend my arm with the blind-cane as symbolism for the unknown future and prospect of people inflicted with RP, like me.

Now, Prospect did not go exactly as I wished or planned in the very beginning when the idea was formed. Originally, the idea was to merge a bright and a dark shot (the ones above) AND with each being of different focusing range, as a resemblance of changing from bright to dark future and the uncertainty that looms around us, people of RP. Anyway, aside from the "semantic" talk, the technical aspect of the idea didn't go well, with Photoshop failing me and my skills in editing the layer masks probably was not up to the level. But let's be realistic; After all, the two shots are quite different in blurriness and that affects the "virtual" displacement of the objects in the scene, so it is definitely hard to merge the two smoothly. Should've known that beforehand! Anyway, as an intermediate solution to the dilemma, I've decided to simply put the two images together and merge them by changing the blend between them, as the blurry outlook would somewhat deliver that idea of confusion and the unknown, supposedly.
The funny thing is that some people liked the outcome (though not much for me) so I've decided to post the single images (above) separately on Instagram. People do like bright and warm stuff I guess, specially when pink.

Kika V

As for Kika's challenge for Week 5, it was about "Every Day Items"; It was a bit vague though and hard to put in a single hashtag as it is. I think Kika realized this fact later on and she has been putting the theme into a single word as much as possible lately.
Anyway, for this challenge I was a bit puzzled and baffled, beside being limited with my time. I was honestly going blank with ideas back then and didn't know how to come up with something creative for such an "every day item" - I mean till this very moment as I'm typing this, I really couldn't think of something creative in that venue! So, I had to go back to the old trick: Check back the arsenal.  

Thus, I rolled back on the memory lane and I thought that the best candidate for this photo challenge is to be a high speed image done in 2019, by the name Telaki تلاقي. Well, we don't use candles daily I suppose so it might not count as an "every day item" but in my defense I would say that the elements of the shot are the essence of the theme: Fire and Water. We use both daily… of course…
Anyway, so just not to leave the image as it is and quite a replica or a re-post of the original image, I've applied a quick channel swap (applying the Invert adjustment layer and changing its blend to Color). I did that for the flame only but then reversing the layer mask it applied itself to the body of the candle. It was perplexing to choose only one as I really liked them both. So, I've combined them both in a single image. Anyway, only the original photo is available on the stocks; As I didn't (and don't) think of uploading this new version to the stocks as well.

Finale

My queue stack of things to do is growing bigger by time. I remember I've stated that I need to prepare some images to be uploaded to stocks; Technically a 4^th batch. However, everything (almost) in my life is on hold with my chores and responsibilities, beside the upheaval in my sleeping pattern. The good thing (sort of) I could actually slice out a piece of time for myself to do some shooting, indoors and outdoors. The "funny" thing with this is that I'm actually adding to my queue stack of things to do by doing some shooting, because definitely some of these photos has to be added to the stocks later, and even ASAP!
On the other page of my life, I have work and work issues that had been stepping on my nerves lately, for real, despite the fact that I'm not going to work at the moment (for a year now) unless it's needed. With my colleague retirement decree, I'm left alone in the place, and apparently some loads of quite "unscientific" stuff that I need to do, and which I'm not ready for nor I want to be ready for (because, simply, I'm not an admin, nor an economist). My job, in time, moved from being a scientific job with hours spent in the lab conducting experiments and preparing samples and take readings, as well as going on field trips – moved to be a behind-the-desk job and dealing with numbers and terminologies that I don't understand NOR have any interest in. Adding salt to the wound, it seems that I'm the first person to come in the manager's mind (even with my colleague being around) to do any socializing, interacting, workshops and do tasks outside; As if he does not know that I do suffer Retinitis Pigmentosa, and as if I don't have life problems on my own.
For all of that I've decided to take one step regarding Retinitis Pigmentosa, which probably I should've taken long time ago, and that is trying to get a certificate of "special needs" which is given to people with, well, special needs of course. The certificate to be given after medical check-up and reports and a decision to be made by a council. It's a long path, and I've just stepped my first. This said though, I'm not sure yet if this would be followed by a medical retirement issue. At least such certificate (which some members of my family has already and for the same reasons) do provide some useful privileges (e.g. parking in specific parking lots for special needs personnel).

Meanwhile, with all that mess, I'm trying my best to live each day on its own and work with my camera as much as possible and create art to the best I can. Things aren't easy on that plane for sure though, as I'm kept busy with other chores, and exhaustion. This house is stepping on my nerves with each creeping day…