Is Cuma Liom.

Irritation. A general theme of this week. Every single day of it sounded like endless for one reason or another. I thought my sleeping pattern is scrambled because of the fasting I'm doing right now (when fasting you need to sleep to rest), but then, last Monday, I didn't fast, and yet I woke up 4:30 a.m., and I've remained awake up till 1:00 a.m. the next day! More than 12 hours, and I did not sleep in the afternoons.
I feel uneasy in my own skin. I just wish to escape everything, and my mind is the first of them all.
This week was hectic in terms of time management, and I was not able to do much with my vocalization project for Alexander's story. But I didn't leave it all anyway and few progress was made. I'm getting closer to finishing the whole thing. Just think of the plenty of time I would have when this is all over!

Business-wise, if I can call it so, I've been writing up a proposal letter for the Heritage Village in Failaka island, and I'm still polishing the letter. Some say it is good, and some suggested some editing, however, I've given the letter to my photography teacher to see how worthy is it.

Danach (After that)
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/22, 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, and just trying to give my life a bit of meaning via working with the camera, I had a trial for a long exposure. I was planning for this long exposure trial for some time since I didn't do them since winter time is over. However, I've met many setbacks and the only trial I could do is not to my own liking.
The beach area where the elevated place lies, and where I was planning to take the long exposure from, was a crowded place in the weekend. I had to go to that place twice in fact. When I saw the place was so crowded at 2 a.m. I've decided to cancel, but then I went on to check again after 4 a.m., around one hour before the sunrise. The place was fine, but some (annoying) people were still there. As you can see from the picture (large one, I didn't minimize it) the people left a ghosting effect on the beach's sand.
Not many trails were recorded as it was in the other areas in winter time, but merely two lines (probably one of them is Saturn).

Technology
Canon 100mm f/32 1/500

On the other hand, I keep my eyes wide open for any chances of anything of "meaning" around me. That's when I've glanced a chance for some silhouette just in front of me when I was waiting in my car, when I parked around the place where my flash workshop takes place. In fact, the first thing that made me notice this chance is the clouds. Clouds in summer? in Kuwait? It's either a dream, or a joke, but a reality, and in front of me? It can't be! Needless to say that this area is not on the seaside where I usually shoot for the clouds. The sun was bright and harsh, and I've shot several shots of different speeds, in portrait and landscape, this is mainly to see the best speed for dark foreground and relatively bright or not-so-dark sky. The LCD is not a good tool to judge, so I decided to take several shots of different speeds. There had been a change in the WB too. Of course there were some editing for the RAW as well.

Communications

Going Crazy:

Well, it is not something new in fact (being a crazy already), but this time I've decided to take some extra mile. I've been fascinated, for a while, about the bathroom in my work place. Mainly, this is because of the checkered tiles (specially when the bathroom is cleaned and shiny!).

My Life!

It was indeed a challenge to have a panorama from that tiny place. The challenge was not only in the area (1x1 meter) that I have to work in, but also the fact that the shiny tiles can reflect my image in any direction. I thought, however, that it is best to work while keeping my body low. Another challenge was the timing to do this (and I surely needed more time than the regular panorama!).
For this panorama, I've decided to take some metering reading with my new light meter. Using the incident light method, I've started to point at my camera from different angles. I think I've made a mistake with this type of metering mainly because we have two light sources in the scene: the bathroom's light on top, and the outside light through the window. The difference between the two is great and the problems showed later on when merging into HDR and stitching the panorama together. It is one of the rare times when I try to work completely on (M)anual mode. I'm trying to adapt to this workflow slowly and to make my own decisions based on this method, because, simply, it gives complete control over the camera; provided that a good metering is done in the first place!

Toilette

The first flat version of the panorama was done just to check the erratic zones in the panorama (beside the nadir point of course which passed through several adjustments). Because of the metering problem mentioned above, a big portion of the wall on the right was technically bleached out and without any texture and patterns. With some change in the blending priority in PTGui, the effect was reduced, but not completely removed. It is a mistake to learn from anyway, and I can say the challenge was passed successfully; that is to work in such a small place like this!

Hello World!

There were several stitches (and a tunnel view that went wrong), however, I think I'm satisfied so far with what I've done. I was thinking of doing a QTVR out of the flat version, but up till writing this post, I didn't feel like doing it. The nadir point here got an extra challenge added: not much place for a logo! However, you can see there is some dark patch on the ground after a hard work of cloning.

The titles are kind of sarcastic. Call it a reflection on my own life and how things are turning around for me. I'm truly living a mess, and it looks like swimming against the current trying to settle everything down. It is a phase in my life where I don't feel a thing in the world in fact; no politics, no bullshit, not even a care for other people's feelings. I simply want to leave everyone, 'cause I know no one cares already...

Re-Discovery...

I've been devouring my new book this week. Not much was done in my projects and even the Ayvarith text that I wanted to vocalize, still not touched. However, my reading for this book now, seems there will be lot of re-considerations for some plans I was aiming at.

This book is a real mine of information. Not something weird to expect from Alain Briot. The thing about this book, it is not only for marketing fine arts, but I think you can make it a universal approach to any business, or even read it when you feel down. Chapter 15 specifically contains a lot of motivational quotes from Briot himself with examples from his life and how he turned it upside down from low to high.
The motivational words by Alain Briot were important for me specially in this critical time, when it seems that every week comes with a new burden over my chest and back; from home or work. It made me re-think my projects and think of what to do in the near future. In the mean time, I'm still waiting for a response from the Marina Mall administrative office, to whom I've submitted a request for a permission to take photographs from the mall and also included a line about offering my services (with a little non-professional folio). I might visit (not even call) them to check about the status of this request.

While I was reading Briot's book, I came up to some page full of motivational words from Briot himself, and one line that really captured my attention and in an instant I got the idea of a photo; from this page itself.

Inspiration
from "Marketing Fine Art Photography" by Alain Briot, p.210.

In fact, I've sent a message personally to Alain Briot asking for permission to allow me to submit this image to stock sites, in hope of a response soon.
It is a time to re-think my approach to my pictures and to emphasize my emotional connection to them, i.e. my emotional connection in the process of the creation, before the shutter click up to after the processing.
On the other hand, there are some thoughts of how to be able to achieve this high quality of prints while I'm here. Things are available in the US or Europe (papers, print shops for fine arts...etc), but here things are not that easy. I can print my photos on canvases but still, they are not of high quality or known brand. Some people gave me out a thought of being the first to bring such papers and use them in printing (or even be a sponsor for such paper types), but I believe for the time being this is too much. I'm supposedly an artist-to-be, and not a merchant-to-be.

While this week was idle generally camera-wise, except of the image above, there are some trials to make a new panorama from the balcony, which is not ready yet as I'm typing these words. In this new panorama, I'm trying to achieve an idea, and in fact I didn't aim at making it perfect.
Beside these two "experiments" (the image above and the panorama), I've tried to visit some old pictures taken from Ireland in 2009 and also some images taken in 2010 and 2011 from Failaka island. I've re-edited two images from Failaka specifically. After the change in some of my views about how to do things and how to process images, I've decided to re-discover these images.

Περίπλοκος (Complicated)

I couldn't find an older version of this image when I first processed it, but seems anyway that I didn't upload any version for it. This image, was taken with WB Tungsten making it bluish. Back then I had an idea of being blue, mysterious, sad; but now, I think all of that is just unnecessary. I even tried to do it on HDR to give a dramatic look before this time, but now all what I did is simple RAW editing.

Eagerness

This image was done before as well, and I tried to make a twist to it with HDR technique. In fact, right now, I like this version more than I like the HDR done before.

Lonely (old version)

The image was taken with my 55-200mm Canon lens, which is malfunctioning at the moment and I'm not sure it can be fixed. Trying to fill in the gap in the range of focal lengths in my collection by using the Tamron 77-300mm, but still there is a tiny gap in between (55~70mm).

Aside from the camera, I'm also doing some experiments still with glossing prints. I've discovered that the spray I got some weeks ago was stamped as "Satin" instead of "Gloss". Seems that the owner handed me the wrong can. It did give a little sparkle however in one of the prints. The process costs some money for sure, but without experimenting I wouldn't know what's the best choice to make.
When I realized this mistake, I bought another can and I made sure it is a gloss spray - and it was entitled as "acrylic gloss". I've used it on a print I've made for Φοβία (Phobia) for several times (over 2 days period after multiple drying times), and also tried the Satin spray after the gloss spray. The results seem promising, even though I was expecting more contrast.

Φοβία (Phobia)

Now, I'm going to post this (well, scheduled post) and sit and wait for my new shipment to arrive. The new shipment from B&H includes:

Kodak Gray Card (9x12")
Source: B&H

Gossen Digisix Ultra Compact Digital & Analog Incident and Reflected Lightmeter (finally!!!)
Source: B&H

Canon Telephoto EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Autofocus Lens (interesting?)
Source: B&H

Unfortunately, after I've made this order, I've received a newsletter email from B&H listing some items, and I've figured out that there is one item that I really wished to have for some time, and probably I would have ordered it instead of these items:

Sony CLM-V55 Portable Monitor
Source: B&H

This item specifically would help me a lot in the non-conventional situations which I like to drop myself in, usually! Not cheap, but I think it's worthy.

With these orders now which I deem as essential, I'm trying to reduce my credit card debt step by step, and in hope I would be able to go out in a vacation. A vacation that I really need, before my mind goes astray...