Well, it's been such a cold weekend, or whole week actually, and I kind of feel something is wasted for not going out to shoot in such weather like in the old days. Alas, I have to accept the reality and satisfy myself with cozy warm room, long sleep as much as I can, and songs from the 1990s when something called "Romance" did exist, at least in songs.
It seems that I've already finished talking about my activities in December 2022, so I'm supposed to hop into what I've been up to lately in 2023, where I've done 3 strolls (sort of). However, since it is February, Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month, I've decided to post about my single experiment (so far) to shoot something for this occasion. I'm not sure if I can shoot something else in this narrow time gap till the end of February but anyway it shouldn't be such a limitation in case any new ideas came about later on.

RP 2023

As usual, the beginning was hard. Ideas simply didn't come about however I tried. I've tried brainstorming using some websites to create random thoughts and hence random ideas in relation to the topic of Retinitis Pigmentosa, but all the trials just failed.
The idea (and only one so far, at the time of typing this) didn't come about till the family here wished to do some grilling outside!

Grilling Night

I shot Grilling Night from the balcony with my Huawei phone. It did take some considerable time to rectify the image as much as possible but I guess there are still some tilted lines in it. Anyway, this shot is not that important (though I really like it!), but it was about the beginning of the inspiration when I saw that sack of coal lying around. 

The black color just triggered many things inside my head, and not just in relation to my Retinitis Pigmentosa. Thus, I've set my aim to do something with that coal. Luckily, I do have an acrylic transparent board which I keep for such "photographic missions" whenever I need it. The initial thought was to take a picture of my eye, looking through the darkness, in a symbolic gesture for coping with the loss of peripheral vision. However, talking about it proved to be WAY easier than doing it. 

Roundflash Softbox

I decided first to work outside in the yard (the one seen in Grilling Night above) and it was just my luck that rains started to pour down on and off for about 3 days. To add more to my troubles, coal proved to be hard to break and I didn't have proper tools and preparations (gloves and towels and other stuff) to work. The least to say about the situation is that it was a miserable one! All these conditions, beside lacking the means to let the coal really stick to the acrylic board (I'm not ready to sacrifice it and I need to wash it afterward) - all of these issues made me realize that probably I should put "authenticity" aside and just do the whole thing as a graphic design, combining two images; one for the coal, and the other for my eye.

The other issue was with the lighting. In the beginning, I've wanted to use speedlites on the side of the coal to give out some texture but then changed my mind in order to work faster (because I'd need to make a setup for the speedlite on the side) and decided to use the Roundflash softbox which is something I didn't use in ages. It is ironic how it is now publicized as a "softbox"; When I got this item years ago, it was supposed to be a cheap macro photography solution, which proved to be an awkward claim and it was completely impractical for such a field. It is still impractical here in this situation too because of the size and the bulkiness, and using my 50mm lens made it hard to stabilize this whole item on the camera and speedlite (it requires a somewhat longer lens to fit in the middle). Anyway, with all these hurdles, this tool still had its nice effect on the eye when shooting portraiture.

The final coal layer on the acrylic board

Now, there was another problem for using this Roundflash to shoot the coal, and specifically directly from above almost at 90°, which didn't yield much details for the texture. I have to admit though at this moment I was reliant on my capabilities with editing RAW files and doing other tricks in Photoshop; Something that a photographer shouldn't just take for granted when working on projects because bad surprises are, well, abundant in that category of work. Anyhow, I've decided to shoot 10 images (actually didn't count them it was just random) and I was moving the coal pieces around the acrylic board to create some textures with the hope that one image from all of this mess would be the "one". Later on in Photoshop though, I've realized that I could stack all these images and merge them into one smart object and set a specific mode for stacking. After trying several ones, I've settled with median (and mean mode was also good). 

The eye layer

Now I though working with the Roundflash would be an easy task with the camera on the tripod but I was completely wrong; It was even more cumbersome than when the camera is handheld, because of the tripod legs which obstructed the Roundflash which had a somewhat large diameter. Anyway, I've managed to work with it anyhow despite the Roundflash not being completely straight and round. It was hard to shoot my own eye in that manner so I had to use the help of my brother to check the location of my head using the LiveView and also I had to use 12mm extension tube with the 50mm lens to get as close as possible to the lens. In fact, I was going to get even closer and use other tubes but as I got closer, it was hard for the Roundflash to light my eye, so I had to satisfy myself with this and rely, again, on post-processing to focus on the eye. I had also to use larger f-number (I think it was around f/13) to ensure the sharpness (or the depth of field that is).

Through The Darkness

I won't go through the post-processing mess to create Through The Darkness here, but probably you have noticed how the coal layer turned green-ish. It was even greener but I've reduced the saturation and I really wanted to turn it to black and gray, but seeing how the green helped a bit in giving a texture, and also kind of balances the red tones in the eye layer (which of course underwent many post-processing techniques), I've decided then to just let it be green but with lesser saturation (as it is supposed to be the "darkness"). There was some resizing involved as well to let the gap narrower, and to make things a bit "realistic" to some extent, I've decided to add a touch of shadow to the coal layer. 

With this, my work for the main image for RP 2023 had ended and so far, at the time of typing this, I didn't quite think of any more ideas to do regarding this topic. I might use these test images for other projects though; I think they'll be useful somehow in the future. The shot got "relatively" higher number of likes on IG which makes me somehow satisfied about the results even though my perfectionist side is still nagging deep inside of me for not doing things in-camera. 

Finale

Some storms are calming down, and I'm hoping not temporarily. My sleeping schedule had been screwed up again just like the sweet old times, where I stay awake all night and sleep most of the day. I guess it's just my natural defense against the hurdles of life and the way i seek quiet and calm atmosphere in this house.
I've left myself with the question "What's next?" but as usual, I can't find an answer to this question. People talk about traveling here and there but I really don't know how would they think about such a thing under the current crazy situation worldwide. One might say "just travel to near by countries to change scenery"; Easy said than done. This region is just out of question (and order) and I really would need a place to escape my reality, for a bit.

On the other hand, I'm still thinking as well about my next move with the camera and what ideas I might try work with. There are many old stuff crossing my mind at the moment (like finding a way to capture a 3D anaglyph video using DSLRs or phone cameras) but I do feel some kind of pressure for doing something concerning photography in the first place. So far, I've been out strolling and trying to capture images from the neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods twice, and I might make it for a third and fourth time as well, but all I can do is to hope. In addition to that, I still have the issue of my Arabic blog which I didn't post anything in for months (already breaking my resolution so hard).

As for now, I think I'll just waste some of my days listening to some memories-sparking music from 1990s…

Arabic Day…

Well, I'm here, after finishing all the procedures for the retirement (with few things left to sort through). One would think at this point that I'm going to have a pleasant time with myself and have more time to work on whatever projects or hobbies I have in mind; But things are not so just yet.
I'm writing these lines right now with pains coming and going and seems it's some colon issues. Been having some carbon pills and they did some good job but yet some work need to be done! I just hope it's not a complicated matter other than simply "color gases". 

Anyway, in this post I would like to talk about few things I've done lately (well, not things but a "thing" mainly) in correspondence to The Arabic Language International Day, which was on December 18th. 

Lingua Arabica

I was lucky to have a memory that aided me this year to remember this day. December 18th, The Arabic Language International Day. This day is considered the international day for the language because on such a day, the UN admitted Arabic as an official language in the institution beside 5 (or 4?) others.
In the past years, I didn't do much (since knowing the fact that there is a day dedicated to Arabic) but merely posting about it on the media with some logos or anything I could find. This year, though, I already planned to do something, despite my currently-low inspirational fit and the frequent fatigue. But this was a start, as along the way, it inspired me to do something else (which I will state later).

I've spent quite some time to get inspiration, and tried hard with some "games" online to brainstorm some ideas out, as well as surfing Pinterest to be inspired. I've noted things down and I've already had some handful of ideas, but then I picked one to work with. I'm thinking about the rest of the ideas that I've recorded already; I might work on them later if possible, when I get the time (and the health) to do them!

Trial with 8mm fisheye lens

The idea that I was inspired with is something I've seen on Pinterest, which was about an eye with the pupil or iris being shaped into specific shapes. In the beginning, and because I was not quite in the mood to work with my macro toys, I've thought maybe shooting with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens would be a suitable choice; Like, shooting in close distance (about 30cm) and then crop the image to focus on the eye. But I was completely, absolutely, wrong!

Another one with in-camera flash!

It was fun though and I even worked a bit with in-camera flash (i.e. the built-in flash) and seems it works well as well providing that I would change the power of the flash to balance it with the ambient light. I think typically we tend not to think about using any type of flash when going wide, or extra wide, but it is something worth trying in the future I guess.
Anyway, from these few shots it was clear that there is no escape of dealing with a bit of macro. Maybe not "real" macro but nevertheless, something to get me close a bit to the eye. And in case you are wondering why I don't just take a picture of someone else's eye, well, the answer is obvious by now I guess; I have no one to work with.

One of the shots done with 50mm + 12mm tube, cropped.

Thus, I got my 50mm and a 12mm extension tube. Such combination is not aimed for a real macro job as it doesn't reach even 0.5X magnification (by crude calculations). But it was just about enough to break the closest focusing distance of 45cm for such a lens. Now, I don't know at what distance does it focus with this extension tube but it was surely enough to include some adequate portion of the eye and part of the face (which was cropped later).
I've made a number of shots for the eye with this combination of lens and tube, but seems the last 2 or so were the sharpest on closer check-up on PC. So, the one shown above became the base for my work with this little project. 

ع
The final image.

Of course, on RAW level, there were so much to be done and many sliders to move and click, but all was somewhat a routine. The heavy load of work and meat was mainly in Photoshop itself to mimic the pupil and replace it with the letter (ع). The work with this effect did take a lot of time and trial-and-error attempts mainly because I didn't know what I was looking for here. Finally I've settled down on a specific font (mimicking the Farsi or Nastaliq style) for its swift curves. Worth noting also that I picked the color of the pupil from the original image (after editing the RAW) so that it won't be pitched black and closer to reality. I also copied the flare from the original shot and pasted it (with little modifications) on the edited version.
I would say the rest of the work in photoshop focused on color corrections and adding emphasis on the pupil by shading the surrounding areas (using reflected gradient), besides, of course, sharpening. 

I've posted the image on Instagram with a lengthy caption to make the post informative a bit beside being artistic.

This little project (but lengthy in processing) inspired me to expand it a bit further and make a whole set of such images to include all 28 letters (a bit more than 28 in fact) but yet I have to test further fonts to see which one might work better, as well as turning the image in a simpler format.

On a side note, I worked also on another "design" for this occasion (i.e. the Arabic Language International Day) but I don't feel so proud about it, since it is so simple…

اقْـرَأْ
(read)

Originally, the idea for Read was to do some art by hand using the Verse 1 of Chapter 96 from Quran (the first verse to be revealed from Quran). However, my calligraphic talent is so mediocre that I just forgot about it and turned out to do the whole thing digitally. I picked the background from some old shot for Quran, taken back in 2012, and the rest is a plain text (with a bit of struggle here since my Photoshop does not support proper Arabic text, so I had to deal with it as a path-work). The whole image was tinted with so-called Islamic Green (Hex: #009000).
I wouldn't say I like the whole thing as it is completely different than what I had in mind originally but at least I did something I guess instead of letting things sink deep at the back of my head and just get forgotten there. Who knows, I might visit this design and do it as I intended to originally. However, one thing I've realized from all of this experience, and that is: I do need to install more artistic Arabic fonts!

Finale

So, this is something done quickly for the Arabic Language Day, and I'm still cooking some ideas at the back of my head; Like creating a set of letters with a similar design for the stocks. I'm also planning to do some post for my Arabic blog concerning the process of creating (ع) but I'm not quite sure about it yet as it would require a number of technical and lengthy talk. Still flipping the idea…
On the other hand, I'm still going on here and there to do some chores regarding the finalization of my retirement and the pension, but this should be almost done around the time of typing this; Almost. I'm so eager to take my morning walks this winter after missing them out in November and December. However, I'm thinking of early morning walks before the sun is above the horizon, with H-alpha filter on the lens; Just a fun game to see how things turn out. Unfortunately, I'm confined in time because of my mother and some of her health issues that bounds me to her in the morning in order to get her ready for the dialysis (or the trip to the dialysis center). But all in all, I think this is doable, it just needs some time.

With retirement, comes some kind of a rush of ideas or desires to work with the camera even though the ideas are lacking. Thus, I'm spending time right now to brainstorm from time to time in order to get some ideas. Ironically, most of the ideas that get into my head are those involving people so I just erase them right away from my head. And yes, I won't be really hiring a real person to do such ideas because, well, they are not for business and it doesn't sound a good idea to invest money in something for nothing in return in general. So, I would have to rely on selfies, whenever such visiting ideas permit so. I have to mention also that astrology had been occupying some of my time now as I'm investigating this realm and testing theories.

All in all, retirement time seems to be, or would be, some busy time more than the time when I was employed, but I'm still not sure if I still can time-manage the whole thing or not, but I would have to for sure, sooner or later. Along with that, I need to put my hopes in-check, as some of them do sound a bit unrealistic, for now, or later…

 

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…

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…

Unconventional II

With the sudden surge of such a busy schedule and load of work, I don't know if I'm going to post this in time, but here I am trying. I'll to make it short as much as possible. Well, kind of. I want to continue a bit about my last blog post and the "unconventional" trend and then move to something that I thought I'd leave for now but curiosity got the best out of me and I think, just think, that I've made a breakthrough!

Unconventional II

After posting my previous post here with the "unconventional" representations of photos, my appetite for collages, or let's say, "unconventional" art was ignited a bit. The field of work, of course, was the yard again where most of my inspirations are drawn. I also prefer to work during the daytime to have a faster shutter speed; The night view of the yard is also awesome but at such time I'm usually lazy and tired. Also, at some point, as I'll go through some images, there would be a need for speedlites (and all are packed and in need to be installed!).

3 Suns 1 Wall

Benro MP-96
My monopod

My first trial was with the wall in the yard (facade) which I think I've posted a panorama of at some time previously in this blog. I'm just so happy that the swimming pool had been removed so I could move easily here! Anyway, to make things systematic as much as possible, I've used here my monopod with 3 tiny legs and at a low level, and of course, with a fisheye lens on camera (my beloved Rokinon 8mm). The shoot went on for HDR, and HDR did I tone-map, and tone-mapped images did I blend together to make 3 Suns 1 Wall. I had to save the main file as PSB since it did exceed 2GB in size.
The shooting ran relatively smooth, but I had to squat a lot to minimize my shadow in the scene and also to drag the monopod on the ground slowly (taking the lines between the tiles as a guide and a measure). The plan was not to make a panorama-like image but a collage. However, I've found myself drifting in that direction for no reason (yes, really), and blending the images that way did help with eliminating my shadows. The image above still has errors because shooting in such a lens do distort the perspective a lot, and it's hard to make ends meet. Anyway, it was a lengthy work and such a worthwhile experiment despite the "stitching" or blending errors. 

إِرْثُ آدَم (Adam's heritage)

However, the real trial was not for that wall, but for the side wall which extends along a narrow corridor leading to the side door into the house and another one into the kitchen. This long wall is the most greenish and it's longer, and it was my target in the first place before shooting the other wall with the window. The narrow place made it hard to move (with delicate movements) to stabilize the camera's direction as much as possible. All in all, squatting and dragging the monopod across the tiled floor in a straight line as much as possible for the two session provided a good exercise (and pain for days!). I remember working for about 2 days or so placing the shots; I tried to do my best to seek balance between systematic and chaotic placement for the shots in their positions together, or if I want to rephrase that, to make the collage random yet reflecting a full wide image. Also, with tone-mapping the HDR slides, I've tried to make the images look sunny, warm, tropical somehow; All that in purpose.
To add somewhat a 3D sense also, I've picked some specific shots and moved them the stack and used the layer effects options to drop shadows. That way some slides are supposed to appear "floating". 

The Grand Mulukhiyyah

I do like how Adam's Heritage turned out. It was saved as PNG of course with transparent background (and it should appear as such here I suppose). Some places like Facebook would still fill the space with white and apparently the image, being PNG, converted to some sort of JPG when posted. Anyway, this was not the end of the story with collages and composite images, as there was something even "bigger". This is what I called The Grand Mulukhiyyah. Well, in case you didn't know, mulukhiyyah [ملوخية] is the Arabic name for Jute (or Mellow jute?).
The shooting of this "stack" was done using 50mm lens this time at f/2.8 and quite randomly (handheld). I was just holding the camera tight to my eye and following the main stem of the plant (from the bottom of the pot) and going along the branches and then back to the main stem and up a little and then along another branch and so on, until reaching the top.
Processing this set of images came on stages, with editing the RAW files (collectively, copying settings from a single image to all). Maybe some images in this set did not appear "correct" per se (e.g. the pot at the base because it's too dark) but nevertheless it was a surreal job to be done.
The next step was to minimize the over all size of the frames or images to something around 1000 pixels in width. However, I had to pull back and restart again when I realized that the final result would not produce a big body of an image. The size is kind of important for me here to have more control over the final result. Also, I've realized that manually placing the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle was NOT a good idea, so I've sought help from Photoshop's Align option, using Relocation method (using the Auto mode did produce distortions that I didn't like). Anyway, it was apparent that I do need to work with the original files with no resizing, so I'm back again to working with PSB files, with a range of sizes between 2-4GB! In order to make some "illusion" of depth or 3D, I've applied white frames on the slides and applied shadows to some (or all?) of them.

The Grand RGB Mulukhiyyah

This did not end here though as my juices were still flowing and I hated to end the adventures just at putting some photos (33 of them) together. I started to divide the stack into 3 groups, and assigning a color from the RGB palette to each group. I've called it The Grand RGB Mulukhiyyah - well, a name fitting the funky looks I guess; And there is more to come by the way. With this method of coloring the slides, it seems there was no need for white frames to visually separate the slides, so I've removed them. Also, the red tones were too saturated (working with ProPhoto color space mainly) so I did a little tweak of Hue/Saturation to the whole image. Looking at this image through the anaglyph glasses almost gave me a headache! Don't do it!
Again, things didn't stop here. I decided to do something I didn't do before "at all". And that is: Working in CMYK instead of RGB.

The Grand CMYK Mulukhiyyah

I don't have much experience with this system (if any) but I do know that it is the common system in use in presses for mass production. Besides, there were many options in Photoshop for such a system to convert to! I picked one which seemed to be the "default" in Photoshop, and I don't know what the heck does that mean or how it is different from the others (the one I picked says US, while there are others related to Europe and Japan). It was a complete dilemma to me. Anyway, I did it.
In this instance, and because CMYK, apparently, is composed of 4 rather than 3 channels, I've had to group the slides into 4 stacks instead of 3, and assign each stack a color from the set of CMYK. Thinking about it, I probably was able to do this within RGB system but it would be a lengthy process somewhat. My method for assigning colors to the whole stack or group is by controlling the channels of the group (via Group Properties) where I turn off all channels save but one.
Now, there is a minor setback and that is, images cannot be saved as PNG when in CMYK system, so a conversion back to RGB must be done. I won't go into details here but there are certain options must be activated to ensure that the looks of the image won't change when the image is converted.
Personally, I do like the CMYK rendering more than the RGB, and who knows, I might do more of such "art" in the future. It is just colorful and more vibrant as I see it more than RGB is. Also, I might try to discover other systems, if possible! But for the time being, I've been busy with many things (work, home, other photo ideas). So, I'm not sure when to try this idea out.

Finale

Well, it seems that the post had gone longer than I anticipated already so I will keep the other part, about panoramas, for a later time. Hopefully in 2 weeks time from now. There had been some images also that had been marked as "inspirational" on YouPic, but I think I will keep them in time (and one of them would be in the next post hopefully). I'm now 3 images short of completing my next set of 10 inspirational images. If that happens at any time now, I will be preparing a special post about these 10.

I've been going through some busy times (though at home) lately and some upheaval combined with mood swings as usual. It is as if I'm hitting a new ebb every few days. On the darker brighter side (as ironic as it sounds), I was able to compose a poem after some long time of dormancy. No need to post the poem here, but in case one is interested in reading it, it can be found here. I've called it Lion's Heart. When I read it, again and again, I do somehow find it hard myself to follow my emotions through it, as if I cannot connect with my emotions with which it had been written. All I'm sure of is that it was written at a time of a severe mood swing that made me otherwise stunned and paralyzed except for writing this poem. Now, how many mood swings do I have to endure to write another poem? God only knows.

As a direction, I don't know where am I heading with my camera, or with my life as a whole anyway. Trying to take each day as it is and trying to think of a new project that I can bear with, with my camera. There is no lack of ideas in fact, but a lack of power and will from my side to just get moving. Probably I'm better just sitting behind a desk and do the ordinary office job? After all, this is how I did make some money to get what I have right now of gear (though it's pretty old right now compared to the new stuff coming to the market).
Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts... and all my mission is, every single day, is to fight back and stop them as much as I can…

The King…

Well well well! Here I am after a little vacation away from blogging (and shooting!). Meanwhile, despite this vacation, which was supposed to help me calm down, I did have my own share of stressors away from the camera business; Work, house, personal life, you name it. Oh, mentioning work, I'm officially considered to be "working from home" though I'm not doing much really, but there is quite a mess in the management that leaves me wondering if everything is alright. Really; attendance record must be kept by my director (yes, though we are at home, don't ask me how or why) and other things.
On the other hand, I'm trying to get some "life" for myself. I'm processing old images in some new methods and techniques, I go reading in the morning in the yard to get some sun exposure (beside having some supplements as well with meals), I stroll through languages, and I water the plants almost daily as well; Well, though it's done under the harsh sun of 7:00 a.m. or so, still it has some refreshing feeling specially when you see those little buds grow bigger and bigger. On the side, I'm also having sleep as much as I can, almost whenever I want!
Meanwhile, I'm also wondering these days about the future of my Ayvarith conlang (which ironically this blog was supposed to be about it) after the Instagram account for it (@Ayvarith) had been hacked or simply stopped (just not sure what's going on there). Anyway I don't think I will be having another Instagram account just for Ayvarith, again. I'm done with this stupid platform. So, I'm wondering what's next on that plane.

The King

So, in this blog post (the first after some vacation here) I want to showcase some images that I've shot for a project that started by a coincidence, and ended (unfortunately) abruptly. I've talked about this little project in my previous post (or posts) I guess but didn't show anything from this series I guess. So, this post is for these images, which were done some months ago.

Quarantine Day 54
King of The Bathroom

The whole series started with an idea for a single shot back in the early days of quarantine (back in April). The idea struck me at the spur of the moment when I thought that maybe I should clean my bathroom after months of neglect (ahem). I had an eye for humor in this shot from the very beginning, so I was thinking of something artistic and funny away from the "contest culture" and the seriousness that I would usually work with, so I went on with shooting for HDR. The space in the bathroom was quite narrow so I had to take refuge in my Sigma DG 12-24mm lens (which proved to be one of my favorite lenses for shooting portraits!). I could have used my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens here which has a wider field of view and could have saved me here as well BUT such field of view will be problematic, as it will include so much from the surrounding area and eventually I would have to crop so much, and the image would become smaller and probably insignificant.

Quarantine Day 67

Soon, however, ideas from that single shot started to stem out and my mind started to create a story in fact. Ironically, a story that I've imagined its ending but not its progress so starting from this shot for Quarantine Day 67, I've actually started to fill the story gaps somewhat.The crown, the green robe, the toilet seat and the pipe all occurred to me as "trade mark" for this series starting from this shot. Also from this shot for Day 67, I've stopped giving titles, but rather captions right away. The caption for Quarantine Day 67 is: I don't get it, I should've been a superhero according to this...!

Just for the record: I didn't buy any astrology books in a long time. This book you see here is a gift from a friend.

Again, the shooting for Day 67 was done in a similar manner: HDR, Sigma DG 12-24mm, but the location this time is different. It was my brother's old bathroom (not used much and has less clutter and no bathtub).

Quarantine Day 73

 And so the story continues actually and another part of it was made, with Quarantine Day 73. By the way, in case you are wondering by now about the number of days here, I'm actually counting the days indeed (approximately) starting from February 25^th, 2020; around which the whole quarantine vacation started (and that was the National Day break). Now, Quarantine Day 73 was somewhat hard to do and I'm not quite satisfied with it as I think the ball with (my) face should have been clearer (and terrifying more). Anyway, the caption that went with this image was: I made a new friend. His name is Corna... Crona... something like that. He's nice.... I think?
Again, Day 73 shot was made in my bathroom and I did work quite some time to clone out stuff behind me and stuff on the ball itself and then add my face (which was shot separately in another shot and copied from there to the shot). I'm not including here the talk about the HDR rendering or tone-mapping as it is a basic process right now but worth noting that I do spend quite some time trying to find a tones that I like for each shot in this series; They are not tone-mapped under the same settings every time. Each one processed differently. In Day 73 shot specifically I've striven to tone-map the HDR slide in a way mimicking the ink sketches or comics as much as possible by brightening the tones and darkening the shadows while reducing the saturation of the skin tones a bit.

Quarantine Day 80

Then comes the only shot in the series where I used mt Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. I was forced because of the angle I wanted to use as well as adding a dramatic look, and of course the narrow space. I should have used my brother's bathroom again here but for some reason I can't remember right now, I didn't. At this stage, I've already broke many taboos: Editing in Photoshop, HDR unreasonable tone-mapping, and more. So, I've set my thought on doing a collage between two shots showing myself being sick of myself. The caption that went with this shot was: The whole kingdom went into total lock-down. Sitting by myself reflecting trying to find solutions, but apparently myself is... sick of myself.
The blend of the two images was not easy as well and actually I almost wanted to abandon the whole idea altogether or shoot again (and in the back of my mind I did envision this shot differently actually). But with a lengthy work with layer masks and cloning, I think I've kind of pinned it down, even though I wished for two separate heads sharing a neck (go ahead and imagine that!). Worth noting that it is at this image that I've decided to stop my Instagram account. Actually I've posted the image and barely received any likes for about 24 hours, so I realized that I'm really wasting my time with the so-called Instagram's Algorithm and trying to expose my work to others. Thus, I've completely abandoned the idea of posting to that platform altogether.

Quarantine Day 92

Despite stopping Instagram posts, I've still had some more ideas to work with this project, as I had somewhat a story going on in my head. The phase now is at the king is escaping his enemies. For this, I've made Quarantine Day 92 that you see here with a caption that goes: Escaping the enemy with the kingdom in total lock-down drove me to some unprecedented measures. Thank goodness, I kept some water supply.
This photo included more work than the previous 2 shots here. Two shots combined, and a lot of work with the wrap and puppet warp tool in Photoshop to fit my body inside the fridge (and adding some shadows to make it as realistic as possible). But probably the real struggle was to cut the head and lower it down without much artifacts. In fact, on a close inspection some motion blue is prevalent because shooting HDRs in such position is not something... I want to try again. A shaky body was inevitable. Another struggle here was matching the lighting conditions (to approximate the looks, I've shot myself in front of a window so the light would hit my back like the light inside the fridge). The rest was a work of toning and adjusting contrast. 

At this point, the series ended abruptly. I had more ideas, but I didn't have the power to pursue them further. I wanted to continue the story with the king escaping through various locations around the house (had an eye for the washing machine), but all that I had to stop as I didn't have more power to do all of that, specially that I'm working all alone. The mood swings and the conditions at home all had their toll on me that I seriously needed some peace of mind. In fact, as I'm typing these words, I didn't touch my camera seriously all that time except for few shots just days before I start typing these words, doing some macro shots in the yard, just out of curiosity. 

Finale

Nostalgia

Now, this is the series that I've talked about in previous posts. On the side, there are a lot of old images that had been re-edited, some of them were neglected and completely forgotten (and deemed useless), but suddenly with me learning new techniques and ideas in editing, I've started to check for possible chances, going back in time as far as 2011, like this Nostalgia shot taken on my way to work back then. Anyway, I don't want to proceed further or I might go on and talk about many past images that have undergone a re-make!
Work-wise, I'm considered "at work" as I'm working from home, supposedly. But not much to be done really (like in normal situation anyway). But I had to go to work for mundane tasks that, as I deem, just plain stupid and unnecessary since we are not going back to our offices any time soon. The tasks involved, simply, opening doors for the janitor to clean (in the beginning I thought that there would be a professional disinfection and sterilization process). I was asked to go again to run a test on some device which for some reason I was not told about when I was there, which made me mad and I've refused to go all the way just to do a 30 minutes work.
Strangely, during such a lock-down and being at home most of the time, and the recent incident, all that made me feel sick of work even further even though I'm not going to it. I've realized as well that there are some people who can be quite annoying when they are not around more than when they are around in fact. Strange how life works. 
Meanwhile, my feelings of isolation are growing; That is, inner isolation and not being connected to anyone, or anything (well, almost). The idea of having my own home where I can live as I like, without annoying or being annoyed by any, had been occupying my mind for almost every passing single day. Yet, I'm not sure how this is to be done specially in a place like this. Would it be that my dream cannot be here and elsewhere, away. If so, I just don't know how this is done either, nor how my finances would sustain such a leap… in God, I trust.
 

Collective…

As a starter, I'm really not sure how am I typing this blog post with my continuous sleeping problems which are adorned with marvelous migraines from time to time during this week. Anyway, since I don't have much material for this post, I think it will be somewhat a quickie one.
In a continuation for my previous post, I'm still working on my project of shooting profiles (side shot) in infrared using only a candle. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in my previous post, but I've decided to call this project The Candle People. Things are now out of the profiles section as well, and I've started to shoot some face-front shots as well, upon request.

Abdullah A. (profile)

Abdullah A. (halfie)

So far, there had been only two requests to re-do the candle shots and change the profile look to the face-front look. Both from nephews. My first nephew did not like the look of his nose in such profile. Well, I guess many people are displeased with their noses nowadays (me included but I don't tend to hide it). However, I'm not expecting from people to understand the artistic values the way I see it through. In profile shots, I do appreciate the contour and the dramatic light and look of the face rather than the "beauty" of the person. Personally, beauty has nothing to do with this little project of mine. It is about evoking emotions via light and contour with no or little facial expressions. However, I've complied to the request and I still like the results. My first trial with him was to shoot a "halfie", but this halfie is not exactly done by cropping the face (even though it is a little) but by implying heavy shadows to half of the face (mainly by editing). This halfie might have a strange effect on the size of the eye here; I didn't change the size of the eye while editing, but it seems to me that is kind of large. Might be my imagination?

Abdullah A. (front)

Anyway, the other frontal shot here for Abdullah A was not exactly a halfie. Too bad though I had to crop a little too much here to balance the image because while shooting (using burst mode) the head was moving and one of the ears did not show completely in the image, which in turn forced me to crop a little from the other (and that meant cropping from the whole image and just from the side because I tend to keep the aspect ratio). On purpose here, I told my nephew to look up which I think gives a better emotional expression (at work with the forehead lines). To have some dramatic look (or to increase it so to say) I've resorted to an old technique which involves the usage of the High Pass filter in Photoshop. This of course exaggerated the noise level as well but I didn't bother to clean much of it here because the image in the first place is not intended to be "soft" in looks. This look, upward, seems to be a "hack" on its own to have a dramatic look. I've applied already with my other nephew who requested a re-shoot and seems to be OK. As I'm typing this there are still some from this series that needs to be processed yet.

Collective Ideas

Meanwhile, as I'm trying to work on the Candle People project, a flow of ideas somehow ticked my mind lately. At some level, I think the Candle People is one of these projects that just doesn't have a dead line. But it is ongoing whenever the chance shows up. Anyway, meanwhile, I think I will be back to one of my old passions, and it is a tiresome one actually, and that is: High Speed photography.
I didn't formulate a concrete idea about the subject but I'm intending to use the full set of speedlites in my arsenal (7 at the moment). I didn't make up my mind yet about how to set them up, but I think there would be two main methods or sets: a) Manual, and b) With an external trigger.

General scheme for the setup

First of all, sorry for the bad sketch here (and the bad scanning, done with my mobile in bad lighting conditions). As you can see here, this is the intended general setup that I'm thinking of for method A; the manual shooting. What I mean by manual shooting here is that I would control the camera manually with a master speedlite light on it to control other speedlites on the set. Meanwhile, the master will not shoot, but only responsible to give out the command to shoot to the slave speedlites. What I'm intending to do here is (and let's hope it works out well), is to use a very low flash power (if I can, lower than 1/32) and try to shoot using burst mood in hope that the low power consumption at this level of power would help on quick recycling and re-shooting quickly. I wouldn't know if this will work until I try! It would be a shame if it doesn't work that way though because with such number of speedlites, things could be balanced out somehow. Of course the position of the speedlites and direction is subject to change accordingly when the practical work is ongoing.
As for method B, the same schematic above applies, but the master speedlite is placed on the set as well and would be connected to a trigger. A laser trigger (which I failed using before). In previous times, I've used this trigger in connection to the camera itself but researching a bit and asking some professionals, I figured that the lag time (the time for the signal to travel from the trigger to the camera) is considerably long, making capturing the exact moment quite hard. Most professionals, as it seems, connect the trigger to the speedlite and not the camera and thus reducing the lag time considerably. I can connect one master to be triggered in that way and set others to slaves and all should (theoretically) shoot about the same moment. However, in this method, I'm supposed to leave the shutter open and work on the subject and speedlites with the trigger. For this, such method must be done in a dark environment, or maybe some ND filter on the lens would do? Not sure. We'll see about that. And like the situation in method A, the power is supposed to be set low for a quick recycling time and low power consumption.
Thinking about it, just theoretically, it seems that method A is favorable, despite my wish to get my old trigger working again since I failed using it many times. But if the burst mode works well in such setup, then things are set and I don't think I will try method B. The hardest part though remain: To setup my gear to work!

Finale

Beside the idea mentioned above, I'm thinking of other things as well but no need to put all the eggs in one basket. There had been also some simple shootings with my mobile for some geological stuff around my workplace and I've even uploaded one of the images to the stocks. I didn't upload to them in a long time.
With me now putting the contest on Duolingo behind my back, after some incidence of cheating as I've discovered, I've realized now the big mistake I've done in using this platform. I'm now trying to be more at ease and back to learn the language on my own pace instead of trying to gain more points and be leading the "score board" (or whatever they call it). In fact, I've had more time to post some articles in the Arabic forum after deserting the forum for quite a while. I've realized now how people do appreciate these posts which have some delicate matters and tips about Arabic that Duolingo is not providing for those who really want to learn the language. This made me think: What is really made for me? What I'm really supposed to do? I think this appreciation and this enthusiasm is the answer. Thinking about it, what did I really gain from being #1 on these leaderboard contests or whatever? Nothing but stress. While the solution was quite easy but I didn't see it back then; To leave these contests and focus on education and learning, and teaching those who need to. After turning off the "public" settings on Duolingo (which removes the leading board and all these scores stuff), I do feel such a relief. I have no more time and more organization capability for my time. I won't regret this.
Now, it's time to post this and go and figure my next move. A poem, or a new photo, or maybe a new article for the Arabic Duolingo forum. I can't believe it is weekend already. I'm perplexed as to whether I should sleep more, or work more on the things I like to do. or maybe play more. Two days for a weekend are just not enough… Not enough to forget what I need to forget out of my life…