Again...

I lose. Again...

There are times when the world seems to have no meaning. Plain... boring... and inside you just lose the ability to feel emotions; yours and others'. A week that begins with a panic shouldn't be considered a week on your calendar. Started this week off with realizing the fact that my passport is missing, and after looking around for 2 days, at home and at work place, it didn't show up. I was going to inform the nearest police station about the missing passport (the procedure to get a new passport here), or should I say I did go indeed, but they told me that I have to come by day time in the official working hours and not afternoons. Then, as if by a miracle, ta-da and the passport was in my hands. In the place I've least expected: my camera bag. Why? Don't ask me please.
Seems I'm growing a trend of "geekalization" in my blood. Why do I feel so comfortable going around in circles in ACE hardware store? I have to say that just looking up at tools (even those in the pet section) might, at any moment, spark some ideas for your camera. I'm going there from time to time just to check the latest WHILE looking for some tools that I do need indeed.
Even though I've decided to have a vacation from my camera for some time, still, I'm working with it somehow, by force, as my brother wanted me to take pictures of some products to help him in some graphic design he is working on for an ad. Not that my brother forced me to do it but I had to do it to help him out, using my softbox and my humble desk lamps and shot with my Tamron 70-300mm macro lens. The challenge was in using the flash unit (strobe as some call it). I'm still not mastering the lights, and needless to say, I don't have the right equipments. Is it time to order EZcube? I don't know...
As a new break to my vow, I made a trial with this "spiderpod" that I've got from ACE last week. I was afraid that it won't bear the weight of the camera, but it was fine. It can bear the heavy weight of Canon EOS 7D and a lens attached, to some limit, until you lower the camera level so much that the legs don't stand a chance for a support, then you might need to use your fingers or something at the base. Spiderpod is useful for many other situations of course, because of the flexibility of its legs, but for the time being, I just aimed at using it for a ground level photo shoot. The target: my car.

Seat Altea 2006
I didn't notice the cat until I began processing the image!

And just a glimpse on how it looks to be using a spiderpod on the ground...

Spiderpod in action

I took many shots from different angles in this experiment, but I've decided that the best angle is what you see above. Also, I was aiming for a focus stacking. My fisheye lens was configured on f/2.8 which means a shallow depth of field, and this is the effect I wanted in fact but I wasn't sure how to focus specially with the spiderpod being so slow (I'm not going to lay on the ground, would I?). Here, I've used the Manual Focus and rotated the ring according to the approximate distance as measured by my eyes.

Canon 15mm Fisheye lens. The focus ring and the distance indicator can be seen.
Source (B&H)

Despite the fact that we use the metric system, and all our education is in metric system, but sometimes it is useful to use the imperial (?) or measurements in feet instead of meters. This is because, as the name implies, the foot is indeed approximately more or less, the same length of your own foot. When I used to go for some field trips for my work and I needed to take some long measurements and the measuring tape would fail me because it is short somehow, I would simply count my steps and divide the number by 3 (if I'm having a calculator at hand that would be 3.3) and my steps are converted to meters now. Of course the whole thing is not supposed to be precise, but to give an estimation. I think we really need to distinguish between cases in our daily life where we need to be perfect and where we need to be, simply, practical. Well, Maybe matters of the heart are an exception.
However, this is what has been done here, the distance between me and the car front is about 0.5 meters with my own eyes, but I took also shots fixing the focusing ring at distances longer and shorter than 0.5 meters, thinking that I would go on focus stacking, but I realized when I checked the shots on PC that there is no need for all of that. One final shot was enough.
Photomatix, again, played some weird role. This time even though the slide was a single slide, and I'm not doing any batch processes, it did show white edges. The edges were not removed until I turned on the option to crop the images after aligning. The thing is, the pictures are aligned by the virtue of the spiderpod. I just keep the option to align the image on all the time because I don't like to change the options often when I work in between the projects. Cropping your images when doing a batch process in Photomatix, as by means to prepare for stitching a panorama later on, might cause you some headache. Most of the panorama stitching programs would give you a notice that the dimensions of your images are not equal, and maybe some of them won't stitch the images at all because of that (I remember AutoDesk Stitcher would display the images with equal dimensions only and neglects the different ones).

Trying to find some means not to work with my camera as before and take a break, I turn from time to time to my arsenal of images from Ireland (2009 and 2010) and the Scientific Center, unless some idea pop up in my mind and makes me on the go and MUST use my camera. This will happen soon with the arrival of the sound trigger that I've ordered. For the time being, I've been re-submitting some of the old sketches I've made during the boring meetings or simply when my mind was having a walk in its own world...

Africanus

Zombie Survivor (renamed)

I remember saying to myself that I want to take a break from my camera in order to handle other things that are hanging around, like my Ayvarith conlang. I've started already recording some verses but it was a slow start with some technical problems, hopefully though I will fix this soon. I was recording my voice in 16bit format, but seems I have to do it in 32bit, just to make the transition smoother, as the 16bit recording appears to be cut sometimes into some fragments. Either that, or simply, my PC processor is so slow at the moment! However, just as an example for how Ayvarith sounds, you can get a little MP3 file here. And just in case you need to follow up as well here comes the English and the Ayvaric text...

English:

Once upon a time in the dusty past
when tribes dominated and hatred spread
the destiny was waiting and waiting it was
for the man of might who will come and unite
so destiny chose a man called Alexander
far away from the land of Caqobdar
king of kings whose father was Pilippán
ruled with just and spread the wise word
the kingdom of Caqobia now is unite
the kingdom of Caqobia now is mighty

Ayvaric:

wáħád maąiþ baZmén hú ğabrán
baMat xawanim sabíŧún ąaramramún mağ maskamah
xawan e-qazalzul minŧár vi-minŧár hú xawan
leAdam vu qáħayluþ yi ga-yiyawħad e-ħayyúþá
kazá e-qazalzul baxtar adam hú ąališgandar
mí hínhín, mí ąiric húþ Caqubdar
malík e-malíkún yi avvú xawan hú Pilippánút
yi dakal vi-našŧar e-miąšavúþá mağ ąadnakút
malakúþá Caqubdar húþ haylá mayawħadiþ
malakúþá Caqubdar húþ haylá qavíriþ

During reading some of these verses, I've noticed that my perception for the vowels' lengths had slightly changed, or it might be affected by my desire to say things in a hurry to sound like a fluent speaker of Ayvarith. The experience here is that, in the beginning of the creation of this conlang, I was concentrating on each individual word and how it sounds (to me of course), but the story was changed completely when these words are added together to form sentences; the level of hardship in pronunciations got elevated. Nevertheless, I'm on the way. Who said a language doesn't evolve? I realized even that the original UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights), that I've made in the early beginning of the creation of Ayvarith, is considerably wrong to the current state of Ayvarith and its grammar.

Well, for now I'm going to finish The Playful Brain, as soon as I can, as my shipment is on the way. It is here already but waiting for the clearance to finish. If I'm lucky (huh?) then I would be able to pick it up today. I've been trying to write something with a gush of emotions, and made something out of the haste...

It was but in these eyes,
one truth above my lies,
when everything scattered away.
Trying hard not to cry,
though my heart is set to fly,
from me, far, far, away.

Now it's like from above,
cruelty won over love,
wishing you good luck over my pain.

A tear on the cheek
laughter is all I seek
now, it's all over again
it's all over again
Learning how to survive
digging for a life
it's all over again, now
it's all over again
My life is beginning,
all over again...

Weird things happen, I know,
but to be lonely again, no, no,
I'm not identified, again.
Shadows of my past,
and the gloom they cast,
am I scared of love, again?

Now it's like from above,
not a thing to be thinking of,
two hearts dancing in the rain.

A tear on the cheek
laughter is all I seek
now, it's all over again
it's all over again
Learning how to survive
digging for a life
it's all over again, now
it's all over again
My life is beginning,
all over again...
all over again...

Alexander 6, V80.

Finally! I got it! I got my passport! An occasion worths a party indeed. Nevertheless, it was a tiresome day indeed. I'm completely dehydrated now and I hate to cut the fast now. I spent two hours roaming the streets in this sun from one location to the other and finally, to get my passport. The traffic jam got me by a surprise... EVERYWHERE.
Now, it's time to settle things with my visa application and keep going! I had a nap in my office for one hour in hope that I would remain awake at home a bit in order to work on the visa application, and tomorrow I would send over my documents over by DHL. I've sent a single book today with a weight less than 1 kg (2.2 lb) only for 45KD! That's around 154 dollars!! Now you know how we get rocketing salaries and still we remain poor people. Sending the documents to the Irish embassy in the near by Riyadh, would cost even 55KD as far as I remember.

Worked for some time after getting back home yesterday with my VR head and trying to fix it over the tripod that I have already. Unfortunately, my idea for wrapping and stuffing some plastic sheet in between the two didn't work out.
On the other hand, I noticed some extra nuts and arms with some of the other tripods that I don't usually use, because they don't fit and also broken. However, one nut, worked out like a converter from small bolt to big bolt!

This nut, from an old tripod, was then fixed into the body of the VR head and it fitted perfectly!

The VR head was then tightened to the tripod...

The set is not completely stable though and needs careful rotation when working with the camera. So far, I've attached the camera on top and it was stable still. There was a tiny problem though later on, that is when I removed the VR head, the nut was hard to remove from the body of the VR head after tightening it, thus I had to use pliers. All is left now is to calibrate the camera with my fisheye lens and take the reading on the scales to refer to them at any time I decide to go on with this head and with the fisheye lens. Of course, I can do the same with the other lenses I have, but now for panoramas, I do use mostly the fisheye lens for the wide angle view. Although I always read about a calibration to find out the nodal point (or no-parallax point) for the lens, in order to avoid stitching errors later on, but I always thought it is a horizontal process, i.e. done for the camera when it's rotating in a horizontal plane. Here, with the manual of the Manfrotto 303SPH, I find out that we need to do a vertical calibration as well.
The whole thing is shaky for the time being but I might be able to test it at least for the time being. Who knows though, I might get myself a new tripod fitting for all the fuss I'm having now...
___________
1897. then Kaliván continued and said: but I wonder!
1898. where are you from O stranger? you do not know all this?
1899. thus Alexander smiled and rested his back on a tree
1900. and he started to tell his story to Kaliván
1901. and Kaliván surprised more and more with every event
1902. then Alexander told him how he got into this world
1903. and what happened before in the village until he arrived here
1904. thus Kaliván said: a man who catches his own Cadid is a hero!
1905. and you are a king, thus you are a doubled hero!
1906. I think I know now why Aramramátáníth chose you,
1907. with your faith, it seems you are the only one to help us
1908. Alexander thought for a moment and said to Kaliván
1909. "the Jawsamályá as you said is responsible for balance, right?"
1910. and Kaliván answered: yes, it is to be so
1911. then Alexander said: but do you not think that it is more than that?
1912. this tree is weirdly acting as if it is alive, and not only sick,
1913. it is as if the core of this tree is inhabited with something
1914. then Kaliván replied: I agree, it should be a sick tree only,
1915. then what do you suggest O hero of Caqobia?
1916. Alexander thought for a moment and said: let me check,
1917. I need to get closer to the tree without being caught,
1918. any way you can think of O my little friend?
1919. Kaliván felt a bit of anger with his new title
1920. but forgot about it rapidly and started to think

Alexander 6, V79.

 Monday with a diet. This is what today is, and my passport is still not ready and I'm worrying about being late to submit the visa that might take more than 8 weeks (2 months that is) in order to get it! Welcome to a new level of stupidity for how things work in this country.
My mind is shut and I can't write anymore right now. Trying to get inspiration like I used to have it last week, but no luck. There are other things that I'm concerned about at work but I'm needing this visa application to be sent and get rid off to settle down a bit with my thinking on other things.

At home, I've tried to look for something to fit my Manfrotto head on my tripod still, but no luck. Not until, by coincidence and while I was playing a game that the idea jumped to my head! The game is "Art of Murder - The Hunt for The Puppeteer." At some point in the game, the heroin of the whole thing tries to fit the cap of the radiator from one car onto another radiator in another car, but it is bigger. I unconsciously put on a disposable glove from the inventory which I've collected through out the game, and put on the radiator and closed the cap to hold still. I don't know why I did that unconciously and it worked in the game, but I never thought about it in reality for my tripod! I was thinking of other things and even fixing a piece of paper or anything like that, while the solution is simply, a nylon or rubber!

The game is not the sort for fainting hearts by the way. Well, not that violent but lot of things there that might not be suitable for sensitive people anyway.

Hence now with this idea in my mind, I've borrowed some plastic wrapping that are sort of hard (and not the type used for tables, this one is thicker) and I will try to stuff it in between the hole and the bolt and see if it's going to work now. Hopefully. I'm afraid though of the heavy weight of the VR head (around 2 kg). The whole thing might collapse while working with it or something! Headache, headache, headache.

Nothing special for today, only proof-reading the text and fixing the Ayvaric grammar and spelling wherever I manage to remember the right thing! I made a simple sketch for my proposed webpage, but I wonder if this sketch is possible without using Flash this time. I've decided already that I don't want to get back to Flash, and I don't know if this is possible the way I'm thinking about it right now.

I leave you now, with some catches from Ireland...

__________
1849. the two sat down beside one tree, with the Cadid
1850. and Kaliván just noticed the Cadid beside Alexander
1851. and he shouted so out loud: Cadid!!! you have a Cadid!!!
1852. Alexander answered calmly and said: yes, he is my servant
1853. but Kaliván stepped back and shouted: what kind of man are you?!
1854. Alexander replied: calm down O Kaliván, or else!
1855. under this pressure from Alexander, Kaliván got back
1856. and with a calm and humble voice he said: yes O good man,
1857. what are your questions? I hope I will answer all I can,
1858. but later, you should tell me your story as well
1859. Alexander agreed to the terms of the dwarf
1860. and then he asked: what is Jawsamályá?
1861. what is Mikanazzar and what is Aram... ?
1862. the dwarf man then answered calmly but in surprise
1863. "it is indeed a surprise that Aramramátáníth chose you!
1864. but what can I say in front of the will of the Great,
1865. and I wonder how come a man do not know these!
1866. however, I shall answer you as you requested"
1867. Alexander kept a careful eye on Kaliván
1868. and for his answer he was waiting patiently
1869. but the time was traveling so slow in that moment
1870. thus he could not keep it inside his heart
1871. and he had to yell at the little man out loud
1872. "Kaliván! hurry up! we do not have all day!"

Alexander 6, V78.

 Calm day relatively after one fussy week that just passed away. Surprisingly, I didn't notice that I've made a new wave of images from Ireland, or a pack of 30 images, like I usually do. I spent the whole day, yesterday, trying to organize them and send it all over to many recepients as much as possible.
Despite the lessened frustration, but the day didn't pass without annoyances because of the bereaucrats. I was supposed to get my passport back today and her highness, the girl over the counter, said that it will be ready by 11 O'clock (it was 8:30 already). After all what I've suffered just to get a parking place in that hellish place now she asks me to get back at another time. I spent more than 15 minutes roaming in circles like someone lost in a circular labyrinth and at the end I've parked in a no-parking area in front of the police station! Hilarious!

I've finally managed to get my Manfrotto 303SPH from DHL and still trying to get used to it but unfortunately I've been struck with unpleasant fact: it doesn't screw properly on my "old" tripod. But I'm working on it at the moment and will try to see if there is some way to go around that.

Manfrotto 303SPH

My writing mood had been switched off again because of the dizzy things here and there and I barely have the time to write something even when I think of some lines in my head. I don't carry a note with me now wherever I go. Typing down as well is not as good as writing down on paper. The pen and paper got some classical sense on them and somehow, strangely, help on with the flow of words. With me at least.

I've spent some of my day now adjusting and fixing some of the stuff in the Ayvarith dictionary and trying to proof-read the Ayvarith version of Alexander 6. I have to go through the whole document and emphasize on some aspects of the grammar, specially the present tense formulation from 4-letter-root verbs. I know I made a fuss in this category. Meanwhile, there had been some corrections in the manucript as well for some duplicated use of some words but they occured in different ways in Ayvarith. While doing all of this and that, I'm planning and trying to put some primitive idea or design for the general webpage in the near future. To do this, I have to seriously now consider ending my continuous fasting because I will be needing lot of concentration starting from the morning or after that a bit, at work. Most of my stuff about Ayvarith are done at work not at home. At home I'm mostly busy with photography and other things, plus, gaming!

I leave you now with some photos from my last email...

__________
1849. the two sat down beside one tree, with the Cadid
1850. and Kaliván just noticed the Cadid beside Alexander
1851. and he shouted so out loud: Cadid!!! you have a Cadid!!!
1852. Alexander answered calmly and said: yes, he is my servant
1853. but Kaliván stepped back and shouted: what kind of man are you?!
1854. Alexander replied: calm down O Kaliván, or else!
1855. under this pressure from Alexander, Kaliván got back
1856. and with a calm and humble voice he said: yes O good man,
1857. what are your questions? I hope I will answer all I can,
1858. but later, you should tell me your story as well
1859. Alexander agreed to the terms of the dwarf
1860. and then he asked: what is Jawsamályá?
1861. what is Mikanazzar and what is Aram... ?
1862. the dwarf man then answered calmly but in surprise
1863. "it is indeed a surprise that Aramramátáníth chose you!
1864. but what can I say in front of the will of the Great,
1865. and I wonder how come a man do not know these!
1866. however, I shall answer you as you requested"
1867. Alexander kept a careful eye on Kaliván
1868. and for his answer he was waiting patiently
1869. but the time was traveling so slow in that moment
1870. thus he could not keep it inside his heart
1871. and he had to yell at the little man out loud
1872. "Kaliván! hurry up! we do not have all day!"

Alexander 6, V73.

Ever felt that your brain is melting, or let's say you have no brain at all? This is exactly the situation we are having today. Hours roaming in the sun here and there to get things in order with a black shirt and a white sport-like suit, while fasting and not willing to put that down just right now, all of that made me just like a dizzy fly hitting the walls while walking.
I've discovered, or let's say re-discovered, that my passport is to be expired on September 26th, while my flight booking is for September 28th! Hilarious! I had the whole year but I didn't realize the situation except at this moment! This morning I had to go on taking photos of myself and running to the nearest place to place an order for a passport. When all of this is done, I will be able to complete my visa procedures accordingly.

Away from the fuss, I've been working little bit on my MySpace just to show some samples of what I do. Been doing some photos again but in different settings for HDR and tone-mapping, because some of them, or many of them, were done at the time when I didn't have most of the tools I have now nor the knowledge that I have now. One of these new-old images was the panorama for Soog Sharg with the marina façade:

Soog Sharg Marina (new)

The main changes to this one is that the temperature of the colors were set to fluorescent before combining into HDR, and also, the color profile to work with was set to ProPhoto. Personally, I was afraid that ProPhoto profiles won't be viewable by web browsers, but it was all OK. I had some problems with Photobucket with uploading files and I thought it is a problem with the color profile as well, but it turns out that it's just some glitch in the website itself. Morever, the picture was cleaned of noise and sharpened with NeatImage and Noise Ninja. For the time being, I'm inclined to convert everything to ProPhoto, because it is the color profile with the widest gamut or space. Just for a comparison, here you go with the old paniorama:

Soog Sharg Marina (old)

The difference is clear. More contrast for the new panorama, and sharp edges (on a large scale), and also, the tone-mapping is more "wild" if I should say in the new one, while the manual tone-mapping in the old panorama makes it more like dull bright. Is it the time to go over some old shots now and try to fix them? Hmm...

Beside working on these photos for my MySpace account, I still do work slightly on some images from Ireland and trying to use those who were corrupted somehow (shaky or the like) and find them a place in my collection. While some photos were there, was like it is the first time I've seen it at all, even though I'm the photographer!

Winter Garden - Brigit's Gardens in Co. Galway.

Now with this fuss I'm in right now, I don't think I would be able to work more on anything related to my Ayvarith, but before I go on with my tasks this morning, I've thought of some words to write. I called it Glutching Ghetto. It is a reflection on memories I had, and how some of them are hard to be just left alone. I'm trying to move forward from the phase of writing poems to more flexible lyrics, and it is hard to do with without a background in music or anything related to music. All what I have is my brain and imagination and writing down these words.

I think I will drop for a nap in this office, again, after the noon time prayer just to cool down this body after being grilled in this sun...
__________

1729. the hero lost the count of time when he slept
1730. then he found himself in the darkness under the tree
1731. he realized that he fainted rather than slept
1732. and beside him was the Cadid sleeping as well
1733. Alexander checked the chain and it was broken
1734. seems the Cadid broke it by his fierce power
1735. he raised his eyes up to heaven so slow
1736. and there lied the three moons on the tops
1737. each moon of them took his own mountain top
1738. he got his bag of food and had some as he was starving
1739. and he put some food for the Cadid as well by his side
1740. he felt calm and felt restful because he is on the path
1741. he checked his feet and found out no blood was there
1742. but only scratches and injuries on his skin
1743. in a hurry then he made a fire from some woods
1744. because he was afraid of other creatures in this land
1745. while the Cadid woke up and started to eat
1746. by the light of the fire, Alexander started fixing his sandal
1747. and explored the place with his eyes, left and right
1748. he started to think about his next mission
1749. what Biryári meant by coming to help?
1750. the thoughts raced through the mind of Alexander
1751. until he fell asleep back again under the tree
1752. and the Cadid stayed beside him to protect