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…

RP 2022…

Well well well! Been 3 weeks I guess since I've posted something here? Things were a bit fussy. Busy a bit, tired a bit, and even sick a bit.
I've talked about making a post for my Arabic blog in my previous post, and I did that. But afterward, I fell sick a bit and I've been fasting for few days afterward which made me sleep most of the day and awake most of the night. No time to make much except to enjoy a bit of the silence of the night.
However, just in the past week I've managed to work a bit on some shots for the RP season, since it's February already; Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month.

RP 2022

In the beginning, I wasn't quite sure what to shoot here. I've spent a considerable time making ideas and brainstorming. i got out with some good ideas (I guess?) but anyway, when thinking about the next steps on how to make these ideas happen, everything seemed clogged. I would either need some help, which I don't have, or need some special tools or props, and the like. For this reason, I had to play it down and be as simple as possible. 

RP Dilemma

So, the first idea that I came about to conclude is a shot that describes the dilemma that we, people with Retinitis Pigmentosa, face in various light and dark conditions and how there is no one solution that fits all situations. To shoot RP Dilemma, I've made use of the sun (using speedlites was an idea as well but I don't want to add complexity to the equation as it is already). Under the sun, I've placed an ND8 (3 stops) filter half-way on the lens and thus making the image half dark and half light. Honestly, working under the sun was such a pain and I couldn't figure out what I was shooting. I deemed all my photos useless and was going to delete them all, but until I went inside and viewed them clearly on LCD, I've realized that I've shot some usable images there. Well, one in fact out of don't-know-how-much. the final image needed some work of course in balancing the dark and light (dodge and burn) and few other things related to saturation and cropping. One thing I'm not satisfied with here though is the look and the direction of the eye which was supposed (as I was planning) to be direct and straight. 

Color My Life

Then I was up to another simple idea, and this time it did require few edits in Photoshop and not all done in-camera. The challenge, thought, with Color My Life is the framing of the image. In the shooting, I admit, I was working hastily as I wanted to finish with this shot as soon as possible and head to something else. I've done it after midnight when everyone was asleep.
Since I'm shooting in infrared, I needed an infrared source, and here comes my old arsenal of tungsten light bulbs (150W) which can be hard to find nowadays! I keep those for emergencies like this, even though I might use a speedlite as well but speedlites got its own problems (to name one: Focusing properly with infrared filter on lens).
The filter in use here was Neewer's IR720, which means the threshold here is 720nm. I could've also use my B+W 650nm infrared filter but I thought it might leak colors more than it should, as the aim here with shooting in infrared is to reflect the idea of low saturation. Higher threshold values would render the infrared image closer to a monochrome or B&W, while low threshold value would allow some color in. Thus, 720nm seemed a safe bet.
As stated already, the real challenge was framing. I had to test many crops till I landed on one that I deemed acceptable. The other challenge was merging the two images; The colored and the infrared. The challenge here was to select only the colored pencils and mask the rest. With my old version of Photoshop, such selecting tools are not the best out there and I had to spend a considerable time trying to do my best with the "marching ants". Yet, it's not perfect of course.
At the final stage, I've added extra sharpening to hands only to add more to the dramatic sense of the image, beside some bits of adjusting the lights in the image. 

The Caneman

However, probably the one in this series was the hardest. I was going to abandon the whole idea but I pushed myself to do it, despite the fact that I didn't quite like the place. I was aiming for some place with a black or dark background, and I don't have such a place anywhere at home, unfortunately.
The idea is, apparently as can be seen in The Caneman, a bit comical with a reflection on the hurdles of being a person with RP (the cane, the shades). Took me a while to adjust the power of the speedlite (and using the oval globe diffuser on the speedlite). But after all, I didn't like the shadow cast from my body (and it would make problems for me when merging the other shots later on) so I decided to take a shot for the scene without me to blend as a background.This bit, though, is not quite to my liking and I feel it popping out as "too unrealistic" even for a comical shot like this, but all in all, this is better than not doing anything at all. The rest of the work is, of course, some editing tricks in Photoshop (if I can call them so) and using the Radial Blur specifically to mimic the movements of the cane and the hand. As for the big head, it is taken from a separate shot of course, up close to the camera. Unlike the previous two shots where I used my favorite Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens, for The Caneman I've used the Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5. 

Finale

Up to the time of writing this text, there are still some ideas the cook at the back of my head and I'm not sure if I will be able to achieve them. February is still ongoing and seems I still have time. Of course, I can do them even after February but it would be nicer if I can finish these ideas related to Retinitis Pigmentosa during this month specifically.
Meanwhile, and looking back at what I would call a "resolution" for my retirement, about managing my time and setting some type of routine for me to do things around, all that seems to be falling apart for the time being, and I'm not sure if I can be up to the task with such turbulent sleeping schedule and tired body.
Now that I don't have to go to work, I'm yearning to go out and do some shooting specially at night, on the beach area, as I used to do in the old days, but driving my car gives me the shivers now. I heard about some people that had been fined for driving while they are registered as being "people with visual disability"; I don't want to be in that place. Yet, no one out there to help me out and tour me around. The national holidays are coming as well and typically it is a good occasion for some night-time shooting for all those decorations and light art. But I have to keep it all to myself for now. There are more pressing matters that I need to deal with and I think I would have some time to think about all of this when I'm over with those. Hopefully…

Linearity…

Well, I'm typing this a little bit late so I hope I can finish this post in time to be posted. Thus, I think I will keep it short.
Been some busy week(s) lately. Last week I was busy preparing an Arabic blog post explaining a technique that I've been using lately to make some linear art out of some of my images, and I think I'll talk about it here. On the other hand, my mood swings been severe lately as well as periods of fatigue. And, of course, work is there which occupied my time for nothing else but frustration as well as exhaustion from driving to and from the workplace.
All that made me postpone creating this post and I was almost going to skip the post for this week actually but I changed my mind then and thought: Well, maybe I can make it short with few samples of what images I've been editing lately.

Editing

I'm still not active much with my camera (ahem, planning to), but on the other side, as usual, I've been editing old photos. Recently, also, I've been using a technique that I've developed myself and I've used it in one of the images uploaded to Mostphotos, but I didn't do much about it back then. Now, though, I'm exploring more about it. This is exactly the same technique which my Arabic post for the last week was about. Anyway, since my Arabic blog is dedicated to beginners, I had to do it in details (with illustrations) there. Here, I guess, it would be enough just to say that the whole technique involves stacking images and changing their blends to Difference and then nudging each layer few pixels in a specific direction. This would create some sort of a colorful line-art. Of course, more editing is required to enhance the image.

The Shining Kisser

The Shining Kisser (Line art)

I'm still experimenting with this technique actually, and apparently not any image can produce such a neat result; So, one has to be picky about what to convert into linear art like this. Along the way, I'm already planning to do a collection of such images and upload it to the stocks and see if they attract something. Apparently my bubbles series which I've uploaded months ago is not doing much lying there *pout*.

One of the images that didn't work out well I guess with this technique

Anyway, beside all this editing, I'm trying to use my phone from time to time though it is limited in choices and techniques but it has some cool features that I would struggle to achieve with a DSLR camera (e.g. long exposures with trails); Thanks to the AI in these phones (and my phone is considered old by now: Huawei Mate 9). Despite that, though, when it comes to shooting RAW images, things can be a bit awkward. 

Birds and Bird
Processed from phone RAW

Shooting RAW on Huawei Mate 9 disables the capability of zooming. I think that proves that in other modes in the camera where zooming is allowed, it is all done digitally. There are apps to edit RAW on phone of course but, as always, I usually prefer editing those on my PC with ACR and then Photoshop. The lens being about 4mm or so in focal length and not changeable of course would require me to crop a lot sometimes. Of course there are accessories for such phones to change the focal length but they are not in my mind right now. I'm still not giving up on my DSLR! Besides, it is better to be creative as much as possible with whatever is available at hand.
Aside from these difficulties, it seems also that the dynamic range for such sensors is still quite low; At least in my case as I worked with Birds and Bird (and few images in the past). When working with the phone's RAW files on ACR, the choice of colors seem to be limited somehow and not vivid enough despite working, as usual, in ProPhoto color space. Anyway, away with the RAW capabilities of the phone, it is a good catch for some crazy ideas to be done in a whim, like the other day when I thought of doing a selfie at work while rotating the phone, and picked the long exposure/water trail option for that task. All editing was done in-camera.

 

Finale

I'm typing this blog post mostly at work. Despite the "vacuum" in this place, yet it stresses me out. I'm waiting for some official documents to be issued from the Agency of Special Needs here to specify, officially, what is the level of my handicap (i.e. Retinitis Pigmentosa and sight level). It's been 2 weeks already now and no news is coming over. Which means I must be going to check with them again. I need this paper so bad right now to get started with my retirement process. Every second I spend in this place is like a ticking bomb. With my more-experienced colleague out of the place, the load now is pretty heavy on my shoulders and I can't bear with it further. Needless to say, moving to the new campus which is further away from home and in an area which I've never been to before at all (with bad planned roads as I heard) makes my feelings about it even worse. I lay it all in God's hands.

With that, I'm already racing my mind through and thinking about the future and what I could be doing after I get my "rest" from all of this. I think I would have no excuses to work further with my camera! I must! That brings also some thoughts for conlangs that I've forgotten about already. On a side note, I'm getting some reasonable positive feedback from some readers about my own writings and poems on Writing.com, which kind of sparkles some ideas; Some of which have been delayed since 2020 actually. 

It all sounds but like pink-tinted dreams and views of life for the time being, but surely I'll be able to breathe once I'm over with that place. Or so I hope, and pray…

Backies…

Hello! Here I am, posting again, after some break from blogging. Actually, this post is just a little announcement to tell that I'm still around and didn't forget completely about blogging, despite the lack of content really!

August had been such a busy month for me and still. To add more load to the mix, I'm officially back to work now (with all the rush-hour jams and those nasty stuff). However, I've been taking my first steps in recognizing my disability with Retinitis Pigmentosa; Meaning, I will be given the "special needs" (or "disabled" if you will) status in an official way and in return I'll be given some "small" advantages here and there (like a special permit to park my car in special needs/disability parking lot vacancy). However, the far-fetched goal is to get a "medical retirement" if possible.
The whole story is just still at its beginnings and I'm already having some problems or glitches in the system because of the paperwork and the messy job done by some in such governmental agencies. From my side, I've done all the required tests so far and I'm just waiting for the final decree in my case by some committees (and all that related jargon). I'm living in somewhat strange status, where I feel pressed and relieved at same time. I just hope these people don't make it harder for me to get that certificate and getting my retirement ASAP. Worrying is inevitable here and I just wish that I could blink and all is over with. 

Photo Work

Aside the paperwork that I've just mentioned, not much has been done photo-wise except for editing some old photos. However, I did indeed re-create some new panoramas from old ones as I was planning to be adding them to my Mostphotos exclusively, as large files to be downloaded and printed. As I'm typing this, I've already uploaded 2 more, and 3 more are waiting to be keyworded to be uploaded, but I'm having some hard time in creating keywords for these panoramas, and to focus in general. My brain feels fuzzy and blank. 

Failakan Sunset

Entry

In editing old photos, I've been revisiting old folders, as far back as 2011 (and even 2009) and been trying some new tricks on these old photos, specially those that were never touched because I deemed them useless (and this is one more reason to not delete bad photos). In the process, I've kind of "invented" some technique or style I would say for creating a linear art out of the photo. I'm also considering writing a blog post in Arabic for my Arabic blog about this technique specifically.
I liked the style of these images actually and I'm considering also doing a series of photos (or even taking new photos for this purpose) all to be in such linear art form and upload them to the stocks. Just an idea so far and if I would go ahead with it, I might consider mainly photos of fishes or plants. I think this technique is also suitable to create some of these "coloring book"-styled images.

The Shining Kisser (linear)
A sample of such art

Anyway, all of that is going on at the back of my head at the moment since I'm busy with other things specially with me going back to work right now. My mind is totally blank that I'm out of new ideas to shoot with my camera, and I didn't touch it in months right now. In order to get my fingers cracking with it, I've tried to shoot my 8-month old nephew in the house (it was also some practice for using the back-focus button, but seems this method is not in my favor for the time being).

Finale

So, this is a quick coming-back post. Without much fuss for the time being! I think I need to check previous posts to see where did I stop with photos, or maybe I'll start something completely new away from that series of posts.I'm not sure yet. Meanwhile, I need to prepare for that Arabic post for my Arabic blog, so I'm not sure I will be able to prepare a post for the week after the next. But I will try.
On the other hand, the weather here is miserable (i.e. normal) and I just can't wait for winter to be here, or at least fall (if such thing exists here). In the past few days I had to run errands, coming and going with my sister, under such sun, and such hell. Also most of the days in the past week were humid that it feels like drinking water just by going outside; And it's NOT a cold one.
As my brain is wandering off with ideas and images of what would happen next as I'm going through my plans for retirement, as well as Retinitis Pigmentosa itself, I'm trying hard to keep my feet firm into reality with this mundane day-to-day life. Other matters are also occupying my mind and take space, and it feels like my head will explode any moment now. But all in all, I'm trying my best to keep calm (and that makes me tired all the time really).
So, as for the camera work, I'm waiting for winter as I'm thinking of doing something at night like in the old days. These ideas were ignited when I started looking at some of my old panoramas from the seaside and I noticed how the stars did actually show clearly in the night sky in that panorama despite the high ISO and the noise, but they are there (and I will upload it soon to Mostphotos after keywording). This time, though, my plans involve using the modified camera to capture the seascape at night and not a full panorama. I wish though. We'll see about that when winter comes. For the time being, there are things that are just about enough to keep me worrying… and they are doing such a great job.

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…

Retinol V…

Honestly, I was not sure that I will be typing this post this week and would have left it for another week, but I'm pushing my luck here in hope that I will finish it in time. Things had been accumulating on my plate, specially with me helping my brother in some of his studies (because he's not so versed in English). It's like living a second life!

Retinol V

As you "may" know, I've posted about my Retinitis Pigmentosa project image No.4 in the previous post, so here I'm jumping right into the 5^th installment of the series, and the one before the last. It was a "somewhat" quick shoot, if not for, again, the cumbersomeness of the Air Remote wireless tethering, which proved, AGAIN, to be such a cumbersome addition.

RP Feet (I)

RP Feet (II)

The idea was comical in nature, showing the struggles of toes for a person with Retinitis Pigmentosa, from crashing into various objects around the house. So, the idea was to shoot my feet at different distances (to change the virtual or apparent size of the toes) and then merge the two images (the bigger toe specifically). I hope you pardon the skin here as I'm not that "bright" with pedicure!

As I've stated above, Air Remote wireless tethering tool proved to be a failure here as well. As I've placed the camera on the ground of the balcony, I've started using the wireless tethering to focus and take the shots. However, what I've discovered is that the focusing algorithm in the app or device does not work on the lowest portion of the image at all. It was as if the image does not exist on these parts of the frame. In the beginning I thought it was just a contrast issue (though it was apparently not) but as I was trying hard to get it to work, it was clear that the app controlling the camera wirelessly was just not functioning at these points - and just for comparing, the focusing mechanism within the camera itself when using the LiveView option do work in that portion of the image close to the lower frame. In the end, I had to resort to use manual focusing for the two shots and lengthen the process of checking and re-composing… etc.
In the post-processing phase, I've made 2 versions of the idea: RP Feet (I) and RP Feet (II). After making the first one, I've realized that the big toes size was not quite large to make a difference and a comical sense, and so I had to re-do it again and this time exaggerating the size deliberately.
The thing came out like a meme and actually I've posted it that way on Instagram!

Kika IV

Then we arrived at Kika's challenge for Week 4, which had the theme of Superpower. It was a bit tricky to think of something as I'm not quite into the "super" stuff that most people are crazy about in movies and whatnot. The good thing about Kika's challenges is that they are "free" or an "open" invitation for creativity and not quite strict in terms of photography. It is about creating art and not the art of photography, if that makes sense. Thus, one can feel a bit free in editing and creating all sort of surreal stuff that one can think of. Despite, the themes can be quite tricky to do. Sometimes, having so much space puzzles and baffles the mind as to what should be done without any restrictions that are apt to work as guidelines to work on something!

Superhero

The idea was to reflect my love for coffee but it kind of transformed into something like a"mad scientist" theme! All in all, the quantum physics book at hand is enough, I guess, to give that impression of a superhero!
Obviously as can be seen, the image is an edit and not a single shot. It is composed mainly from 3 parts: Me holding the book, close-up of my head, and the mug separately. The close-up of my head was to remove the top part and fit it into the first image of me holding the book. I have to say here that the goal was not quite achieved since my aim in very beginning was to enlarge the forehead, not the hair. Eventually as I was going on with the cloning and masking processes, I've realized that I'm working on enlarging the hair alone! I left it at that anyway and thought "Well, I can get away with the mad scientist thing I suppose."
As for the mug, it was shot separately at close-up too, under the same lighting conditions (on same location, the yard) and of course it needed some brushing work to isolate it and put it there. The smoke, though, was a trick done in Photoshop and to give a slight impression of coffee here I added a slight brownish line on top. It was a mistake though to take a photo at this angle I suppose but it was a must. Personally, I really don't think this mug gives the impression of being coffee specifically, but rather of some hot drink; Any drink.

Kika's challenges are still going on and as of the time of typing this post, it is the 9^th challenge or week, and I'm still going on with it. There were some challenges that I didn't really create any new images but rather posted an old photo, edited in a new way if possible (as it was with challenge No.2 some weeks ago). All in all, such challenges do push me to work with my camera further and if it wasn't for other responsibilities (and health issues) I would even work more instead of posting old images in a new suit. 

Finale

As I've stated before in previous posts, beside the RP project and Kika's photo challenge, I've been doing other photo shoots and experiments as well, though not as frequent as before, but still, at least I'm touching my camera!
I'm trying hard to live each day on its own here. COVID and lockdown did help a bit, but the fact that I'm in a family house and not alone, with everyone being grumpy and full of ideas of conspiracy and how things "must" be, makes me really awry and prone to isolate myself even more than I was back in normal times.
The perplexing feeling here is, as much as I need isolation to have some peace of mind, I do need to socialize to ease my mind, but the problem, again, is not having the right surroundings. I would be working with my camera all day long if it was not for my health issues and tired body, and some of the other chores and duty that I have to do. Being on my own, as a way to have some peace of mind, gives me more frantic thoughts and anxiety, even though many of such thoughts are not really profound but I can't help it. Now with my co-worker being dismissed after his long years of experience and expertise, I'm left alone in my workplace which is quiet for now, but I'm not sure of what to come then. You surely can't compare 40+ years of experience to the mediocre experience of 15 years (which had even passed without much serious work). I'm growing sick of this administrative cycle (which wanders away from my supposedly scientific domain of expertise). Needless to say, moving to a new campus at any time now makes me awry about my own safety for driving to that place, daily. I'm so tired… just tired…

Retinol III-IV

Busy busy busy. So busy that I can't even play games! Can you believe that? However, to be honest, the major portion of my time is consumed by bad sleeping patterns. All in all, I'm trying to cope with the daily tasks here as well as trying as much as possible to work with my camera and a little bit with a new venture: Adding educational posts to Pinterest. This is a new thing and probably I won't be doing it often, as other things in my life do already have their own priorities. But I'll try to do it whenever I get a new idea or whenever a friend (who is learning Arabic) might suggest.

Announcement

As promised and as with my previous posts, I'd like here to start with a little announcement for a new batch of uploads to the stocks. This time they are scattered across the usual stocks where I upload.

The new batch

First of all, one of these images (won't say!) was canceled from the upload because of some brand name and it would be such a time-consuming process to remove that mark (stock websites usually don't accept such images). Anyway, photos with faces are typically uploaded to Mostphotos, with the exception of only one which is accepted in Canstockphoto as well. The rest are uploaded across Dreamstime, 123RF, as well as to Canstockphoto. However, 123RF, again, did refuse all 5 uploaded images (most of them were denied for being out of focus!). I'm pretty sure they would not be accepted by other stock websites if they were indeed out of focus - there is something fishy or misunderstood going on.

With this new batch, I'm trying to find time to re-process some of my old panoramas, specially the old ones from 2011 and 2012 and prepare them to upload them to my Mostphotos along with the rest of the large-size panoramas there (with a width of 10K pixels). Issues keep arising here though, specially with the new lock-down and health, but I'm trying my best (with coffee!) to organize my time and priorities (and yes, I'm failing so far).

Retinol III

Then, we arrive at my third image for Retinitis Pigmentosa (this year) - which was actually done in the same day as the previous one in the previous post. It was a quickie idea that occurred to me and thought of working it out right away after finishing Sensing which I talked about in the previous post.

The Seeing Hand

The principle thing was to be simple actually; Just using the sun to shoot something and the rest is to be fixed later in Photoshop, and with the help of a fisheye lens (my favorite Rokinon 8mm), the dramatic impact can be achieved (in terms of sizes and emphasis).
The idea of the shot is about the usage of hands to navigate through our spaces as people with Retinitis Pigmentosa and how we are greatly affected with the change (continuous change or period changes) in the environment around us on us; This is specifically about changing furniture at home frequently. Something that I've often suffered from, and still.
People with Retinitis Pigmentosa, like me, are typically using their body parts and memory to navigate through places and when at home, it is mostly memory that gets activated because things are "supposed" to be in their own fixed places.
Now as for the technical part, the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens does not have provide such a shallow depth of field, thus it was one of the first things to be done (after the general color editing in RAW first). It was important, though, not to exaggerate the synthetic lens bur here. Next, it was time to fix the eye on the palm, and for this, I've picked an old image from my arsenal (of my own eye). It was a struggle though to let it be as natural as possible as if it was drawn indeed on my palm. Till this very moment I'm not yet convinced that I did the job correctly.
Anyway, the shot was liked by some people specially those with Retinitis Pigmentosa and could relate to this particular problem. Thus, if you are reading this and you do know, or live with, someone who has such disease or any type of visual impairments, just mind the change in the environment around them. It can be just frustrating; Big time.

Kika III - Retinol IV

Yes, you read that right. I'm posting 2 shots from the Retinitis Pigmentosa project for this year into one post, here. The whole thing was actually a coincidence.
As I was planning a shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa in my head (for days), Kika gave out the theme for her 3^rd week challenge: Framing; And this is exactly the "structure" that I had in my mind for my shot about Retinitis Pigmentosa!

RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game

The idea behind RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game is, again, the furniture and the obstacles that we face INSIDE the house. I was actually thinking of more like an "earthly" composition; Things set to the ground. However, after watching Kika's video for the weekly theme, framing, my mind started to (automatically) combining the two ideas and I came up with this framing, with furniture (or something similar that is) - of course with the blind cane as well to deliver the idea. Now the shoot was a bit of an adventure and unfortunately, I didn't take any shots to document the setting.

Air Remote, for wireless tethering.

The idea needed a top-view, and I guess nowhere is better to do such an idea except for the balcony (and we are lucky to have one). The problem here is, though, I am shooting myself with no help from anyone. So, it was a call for the Air Remote tethering tool, which I didn't use a lot since I got it years back simply because it does lack some features and it's quite cumbersome despite the (supposed) ease of use and the relief that it should be providing. This time, it was no exception, because it did disappoint me further. I will talk about that shortly.

Lateral arm from Photek

To shoot the ground from the balcony, it was natural to use the lateral arm to carry the camera and extend it out of the balcony looking downward. Luckily, I had those weight bags which I've ordered 3 years ago or so and never used them till this moment! Nevertheless, the situation was shaky and I had my heart up my throat. I'm blessed to have an elevator (lift) near me in the balcony to go up and down; Otherwise, I wouldn't even think about shooting this. 

The lens of choice here was my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 because, well, the field of view and the autofocus system. After shooting this though, I realized that I might have done better using Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5, to have a wider field of view and then crop it to a suitable size and boundary, and probably the manual focus of this lens won't be a big problem. After all, I was shooting at f/11, and with wider lenses, the depth of field is forgiving anyway. The main drawback in the whole process, though, was with the tethering.
Actually, day by day, I'm starting to realize that the usefulness of such device is quite limited more than I anticipated in the first place. Here for example and in this situation, I was aiming to capture bracketed images sequence in order to create HDR and be able to achieve the dramatic look by controlling the light in the image at "baking the HDR" level (i.e. tone-mapping). It turned out that because of the timer (10sec) which I've set initially to be able to do my pose, each bracketed image would be taken with a 10sec timer! Of course, holding my pose for 30 seconds is next to impossible, so, I had to go back and just take single images. I'm glad that I could somewhat achieve what I've envisioned using just a single RAW image though. I would have done it properly with an Intervalometer with proper time-delay settings to give me some time to go down to location via the elevator, and that way I would be doing bracketing quite easily, but I still need to check myself on location to pose properly. Maybe next time I will try to combine using both tools, if it was possible (honestly, never tried).
The irony is that every now and then when I decide to use the Air Remote Tethering I do get first a message for updating the firmware and I really don't know how that is done but what I really wonder about is what the update is really about? I don't see any features being enhanced at all; Specially the annoying rotating display which cannot be displayed correctly for shooting in portrait orientation. That's another story for another time and yet, there is another misfortune that I will talk about (hopefully) in my next post when I was about to take the 5^th shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa project.

Finale

Here we are, close to summer again. And yes, I'm not so excited about it. We've gone into partial lock-down here for one month period (ending at April 8^th). Everything will be re-evaluated afterward, and who knows, the lock-down might be extended.
People here are complaining about everything, about all measures and don't get me started with conspiracy theories. Each individual in this great nation is an Aristotle on its own. I just hope my mood swings won't attack me severely in the meantime as it did one year ago, last summer, when we had partial lock-down as well. Not to say it's all gone but I'm coping better. I think the routine of fasting lately beside reading the holy book added greatly to the comfort. I've stopped fasting just recently and strangely I can't stay up late now like I used to do when I was fasting; I'm getting tired easily. Probably because of the digestive operations taking place. Who knows…
Things are a bit awry on the work front, but that's a story for another time I guess. I'm trying to keep my peace of mind as much as possible by trying hard to neglect and forget about these problems. I foresee increasing responsibilities upon my shoulders, and I'm not sure how am I going to cope with these, nor whether I should trust my experience or not (apparently it's not a match, scientifically speaking). From one lock-down to another, things are just spanning and expanding and all there is to hope for form my side is…to stay away as much as possible, until some "right time" comes for a proper resignation.

 

Precautious Selfie (2020)

Meanwhile, as I'm posting these images about this year's Retinitis Pigmentosa project as well as about Kika's photo challenge, I'm still active with my camera but I don't want to post or talk about these images until I finish the Retinitis Pigmentosa series at least. I'm also anticipating working again with my speedlites, with both high speed and stroboscopic, but I'm still puzzled for what I'm going to do. Trying to seek hints from Kika herself, as well as from the work of other photographers I find (mainly on YouPic and YouTube). I'm posting these photos, of course, on my YouPic, but not yet on Instagram. You can check out the link if you like to take a peek on my YouPic profile. But I have to say that many of these images are actually old images re-made or some ignored test shots from the past that have been worked out, specifically to be posted on YouPic. My chores list, surprisingly, is building up and I'm trying to do one thing at a time (including the typing of this blog post actually). There is a lot waiting for me that I've been even postponing playing some games! No time to rest and my body is failing me as usual… also, it is time to think of a new post for my Arabic blog. I think I do need another vacation from blogging at some point, soon…

Retinol II

To be honest, I'm sort of lazy to type this blog post! I've been loaded with many things to do and little power to do them, specially with the start of the month of Rajab in the lunar (Islamic) calendar and typically every year, I would try to fast as much as I can of this month (and the next month as well, Sha'ban). This leaves me a bit powerless most of the day and napping along on and off. Anyway, I'm trying my best to re-schedule my time and organize some of it (if I can call it so) and trying to do bits here and there. As a starter, I'll start with my little announcement here:

Little Announcement

As I've promised before, I'll be uploading more images to the stocks on batches, and I've done so already with the first batch of 8 images (originally they were 10 but had to cancel one and keep one specifically for MostPhotos alone since it's a selfie).

Preview of the batch

The batch had been uploaded already to Canstockphoto (you can also visit my profile there by clicking on the signature at the end of this post) and on Dreamstime (only 3 were accepted!) as well as 123RF (all accepted but one still pending at the moment of typing this post). As for MostPhotos, I didn't upload this batch on there because I'm planning to keep my account there specifically for artistic selfies (or self-portrait) and large files of panoramas, specially with the fact that I've received an email recently from MostPhotos stating that they have changed some of their policies, and raised the bar for the minimum resolution accepted, from 6MP to 11MP!

This said, I won't be preparing another batch any time soon I guess since my dish is full already as it is, specially with the supposed preparation for contributing to Trierenberg's Circuit (or Austria's International Photo Contest). I was reluctant to participate, but I've decided to get into it. Sounds like gambling to me though specially that there is money involved (AND I didn't receive my gold medal for my panorama back in 2018 because of the bad postal services and protocol).

Retinol II

As I've stated in my previous post, I won't be posting all my work regarding Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month altogether. Just to not keep all eggs in one basket. So, in this post I'd like to talk about the second image in the series that I've made so far, and it is a quite simple idea but I have to admit, I've struggled in the beginning with the camera. 

Sensing

The idea was simple and reflective on the process of going down the stairs. It is quite a struggle for people with Retinitis Pigmentosa, like me, specially when going outdoors in the sun or going indoors as well. The problem is in finding the edge of the step using the sense of color and shades of color (this is how most people perceive depth and distance when going down the stairs).
The hassle (somewhat) was setting up the camera vertically on the ground. Typically I would use the L-Bracket and it does the job perfectly, but this time it didn't, probably because the ground was not even. Thus, I had to fit something under the lens just to let it stand still. Exposure-wise, it wasn't a big deal as the shot was taken indoors and with most of the lights being off. The exposure of 4 seconds (at f/11) was just about enough to depict the foot motion as if it is trying to sense the step.

When posted on Instagram the shot gained some momentum (as well as on YouPic) and some people with RP did relate to it indeed. It was a "Mission Accomplished" moment for me. I guess I've proved to myself that complicated ideas are not necessarily the best. If I wanted to complicate this further I would have implemented some stroboscopic flash here. Saying this, I've been having this urge to work a bit with my messy speedlites but I'm not sure for what idea, specially with my busy schedule nowadays; A schedule that I'm still not grasping its horns.

Kika II

In my previous post I've talked about Kika's weekly challenge and the theme for Week 1 was "Childhood," and to be honest, I didn't like my simple shot then. Anyway, the week after, i.e. Week 2, bore the theme "Hidden;" As in, hidden face. 

Anxiety (II)

Once I've heard of the theme's name, that image that I've made back in 2019 jumped right into my mind; That is Anxiety.
Ironically, the shot was made in January 2019, as if it was reflecting on the anxiety that would ensue by the end of that year with the start of the pandemic.
The photo here, though, was re-retouched, for adjusting the aspect ratio (4X5) to be posted on Instagram and adding few dodge and burn, contrast, and few touches here and there and adding a soft dreamy effect. This photo had been uploaded to some photo contests before, so I figured that Kika's challenge is all about creativity and not authenticity or strict photographic rules and conditions, so I kind of had my time with such edits to my liking. But this was not the end of the story there, because I did take a similar shot just few days before that theme started already!

Three Quarters Blue

I did add the proper hashtag for Kika's challenge (#Kikasphotochallenge) to Three Quarters Blue but it didn't get that much attention I suppose because it was not new when the theme started. It was posted already few days before the theme officially started. Three Quarters Blue was shot with my Huawei Mate 9 phone while I was in the office in my workplace (yes, been there few times already to supervise the "cleaning" process). While I was waiting in my office, facing WhatsApp in my tablet for any new "orders" I've decided to kill the time a bit. I noticed that most of the protective gear come in blue color (intentional?). Anyway decided to do something similar to Anxiety and fill the image with blue, but since the phone camera can't focus up close and personal to my face, I had to take the shot and then crop it considerably in post-processing in a way to hide all other features. I've succumbed to the fact that I can't crop this keeping the aspect ratio of the original image and I had to do free cropping and that made the image come a bit elongated more than the usual 3x2 ratio (or whatever Huawei uses). The other hard part of the story was inducing vivid colors and brighten the eye. The eye would have been brightened in a suitable way if it was struck with a flash or sunlight, but with this quick selfie, it was all a burden for the post-processing. Processing JPEG files of 8-bit and in sRGB color space is not the ideal condition to create vivid colors as it is, thus one of the first steps to do was to assign ProPhoto color space to the image and work from there. The image was saved later in Adobe1998 when finalized. The eye here looks unnatural but I tried to make it so as much as I could, I just couldn't pin down the "normality" level here. All in all, I think it just contrasts the overwhelming blue in a good way.
On a side note, this photo was recently used by someone on Instagram as their profile image AND even sent me a DM to get to know me (probably it was a bot after all). Reported that, and Instagram removed the image (yay finally something good), and they put it back again and reported it again and Instagram removed it for a second time (yay another good thing). Waiting to see if this would happen for a third time.

Finale

Things are going slow on my side, and at some aspects, it kind of anxious as well. I'm trying to manage my time to the best I can in order to do the tasks that I've set myself to do, like uploading some photos for Trierenberg contest. I've uploaded a set of panoramas but I still need to add some more, and each image needs some inspection before uploading. This said, I need to see when to prepare the second batch of uploads to the stocks.
Work-wise, there had been some developments along the lane which made me awry and uncomfortable. There is seldom a moment when I wouldn't think of the upcoming events and how things would develop. There is a certainly some point along the line when I would have to leave this job but how, when, and what then? Such a pressure on my mind that leaves me paralyzed at times. Retinitis Pigmentosa is not giving me the best moments of life and I would have taken it differently, maybe, in my 20s or 30s; But at 40, that's a load on a back that already started to bend for the passage of time. I lay it all in the hands of God.

Retinol…

Busy busy busy! Been a while since I've posted here, and (hopefully) for a good reason. After putting on my last post some 2 or 3 weeks ago, which was a little advertising to my own work on Mostphotos, I've decided to go on and also do an Arabic post in my Arabic blog for the same purpose, and I've spent the past few weeks sharing and spreading the word. Fingers crossed!

That, however, is not all the matter. It is February already, and I guess I've mentioned already in some of my previous posts that I'll be getting ready to prepare some shots related to Retinitis Pigmentosa in this month, since it is the awareness month for this disease and I got into the habit of making related photos since 2016. What happened, though, is that I got into another weekly activity which somewhat ignited my imagination a bit and I really loved to participate, and that is #Kikasphotochallenge.

The #Kikasphotochallenge is a weekly photo challenge (to span over 12 weeks), with a theme proposed for every week. The theme is announced every Thursday on Kotuvakika's YouTube's channel. At the moment of typing these words, it is already week #3. At the time of posting it (Thursday), then we will be already into week #4, supposedly.

I've been trying on both ends, shooting for Retinitis Pigmentosa, and for #Kikasphotochallenge, and for that matter I've already participated in all 3 weeks with images (posted on Instagram of course). However, to keep things short and not to put all my eggs in one basket, I'll go slow and gradual by posting and talking about one image from each side of the stick; The RP project, and Kika's challenge!

Retina I

So, for starters, I'll talk first about the first image I've created for or about Retinitis Pigmentosa. First of all, I actually had to sit and pin down some ideas and also roam Pinterest a bit to gain some insights. One particular thing I've noticed about myself in this process is that I tend to gain more insight from quotes and text rather than from images.
I've pinned some ideas in my note and as I'm typing this right now, I have to say that I did filter some; I've canceled some or reformed some and changed the idea of some. Anyway, that's another story for another day. One of the posts that grabbed my attention on Pinterest is stating some facts about the glasses that we, people with Retinitis Pigmentosa wear and how or what they do (the fact is: Nothing. Glasses don't fix RP). And that was the topic of my first shot.

Visual Un-Aid

I have a confession to make here though. I was/am lazy to get my speedlite gear our (and still). Thus, I had to twist my brain around and try to find some interesting light to shoot in (and that mostly means that I would be shooting during daytime). So, my first shot here (or two shots as I'll explain) was done in, ahem, the bathroom. My bathroom's window casts interesting light in the morning and I admit, sometimes I just go there and switch of the lights just to gaze into that light (without taking any photos though). 

Anyway, as I've stated above, Visual Un-Aid is actually a composition of two shots (apparently). Using 50mm, I've tried my best not to move and to focus properly (using a cable remote of course) and shooting 2 frames, one with glasses and one without. There was a little shake between the two frames of course (tyyyypical) but Photoshop did some good job in aligning them. The rest is, of course, some game of masking to merge two and show the glasses on one side of the face. I won't go into the details of RAW editing; I really don't find any use in that. The trick, though, was to keep the shadows down but not without details still. The moral of the shot is that: With or without glasses, It's almost the same; It's dark. 

Kika I

Well, I've mentioned Kika and her challenges up above so I guess no need to list the whole thing all over again, but let's delve into the first challenge that Kika proposed for the first week: Childhood.
Again, my laziness here really got the best of me (concerning working with my speedlites), but also I really was not quite sure how to represent my childhood. Honestly, I was not that social and at this age I wouldn't be able to mimic the things I used to do with my siblings (like jumping off a cabinet and hitting my head against the chandelier, for example). Thus, I consider my trial quite mediocre, to say the least. 

Childhood Memories

Quercetti's Pallino
My most precious pastime
game during my childhood.

I looked and dug into my memorabilia (which other people in this house consider just pieces of junk) and I really wanted to use one specific toy for the shoot but I didn't find it (apparently lost to time), but I've found my Kinder Surprise toys box. Collected those around the ages of 9 to 10 (just a while before the invasion in 1990). I picked random toys here and I have to say, nothing was quite to my liking in terms of the composition.
For shooting, I've decided (naturally) to choose the sunlight for the task. I've shot bracketed and I did make a comparison between processing HDR and editing a single RAW file. Eventually, I've picked the HDR version but the two images were quite similar. However, HDR has more luster in the eyes and on the hair even though I almost wanted to discard it because of the luster on the skin which I didn't quite like. The perspective is weird a bit, I know. This is because I was actually lying on the ground in quite uncomfortable pose. Adding to my hurdles, the changing angle of the sun as it was rising made the sun beams change direction and strength as they were seeping through the balcony door. I had to work as fast as possible before it would have been blocked by the houses. Converting that image to B&W, though, did produce a remarkable "horrifying" image… which I liked.

Childhood Memories (B&W)

The B&W version though was not posted on Instagram; Only the colored version. Converting to B&W was also somewhat a lengthy process of blending and controlling highlights and shadows as much as possible and in various ways.
At this level I really wanted to stop and not think about doing any further work with this theme, as I was also working with my Retinitis Pigmentosa project. Other themes, though, were somewhat flexible with my creative juices, but that I will keep for other posts in the future.

Finale

In a time when I really thought I should just leave the thing called "Instagram" for a 3^rd time, suddenly things changed with Kika's challenge. Now, I don't know what will be happening after these 12-week challenge are over, but I kind of got into a small community within Instagram, away from the general… stupidity (sorry, couldn't find a better word) of Instagram; With all these posts that show on the exploring page having 1k+ likes and comments, I find myself digging into the lives of people that are closer to me in some way. They watch on YouTube what I watch, interested in what I think is interesting, and on the other hand we have people who suffer like I suffer with Retinitis Pigmentosa and share their exprience. My posts also, specially those about Retinitis Pigmentosa, do attract people and make them interact. To be honest, all I wanted is some Like after all. That was enough to show appreciation. This said, I don't know what or how would I be standing in relation to this platform (which I already despise greatly if not for few users). So it feels like a small bubble floating on the surface of a rampant sea, or rather a murky swamp.

I know what you might think at this point if you are reading this already. "this man is just a snob", but I'm really not. Instagram stopped me from giving Likes twice or thrice some years back because of all the Likes I used to give (thinking I'm just a bot), but honestly, I didn't find anything in return (specially from "friends" in real life that I worked on supporting them) and eventually that lead me to believe that it is just a waste of time. Compared to YouPic's community, Instagram is next to nothing. Saying this while I'm still using my free account there and not being a paying member (which limits me to post every 12 hours).
Another venue to rant about is the fact that hashtags on Instagram are literally useless except for searching for a specific tag; They have no role in spreading your post over the platform or getting it into the Explore page or even to give it a specific order on anyone's feed (if they are followers). This I've found out by experimenting. Unlike YouPic, Instagram does not have a regular or a systematic way of archiving or display new posts that one can explore, regardless of the number of followers the user has or anything else. For this reason, on YouPic, any user has a potential to attract new followers and viewers with every new post regardless of their content/feed and regardless of the (useless) hashtags within the post, and regardless of them being new comers or not. All are equal. This leaves Instagram being just a platform dedicated to businesses of all sorts (and often times users rank up via other methods outside of Instagram itself), and don't get me started with all the Story, IGTV (and the square format). Meanwhile, YouPic is indeed dedicated to photography and photographers WITH the capability of turning it into a business.

Note: I'm not advertising for YouPic nor was paid to do any review. This is purely my own sincere and honest point of view and comparison between the two platforms.

I do have some issues with YouPic myself, like the thing with the nudity content and the blocking mechanism, but nonetheless, the community (generally speaking) is more lenient and into the art of photography. So, if you are reading this and into photography and still roaming Instagram, try finding a place on YouPic and see.

I've talked before in my previous posts about preparing another batch of images to upload to the stocks as well as new panoramas to be offered exclusively on MostPhotos. The work is still ongoing with that but I'm lagging a bit because of all the projects (RP and Kika's) and the challenges that I'm taking the opportunity of to squeeze more juice out of my head. This is beside, ahem, playing some games. I've made a list already of all the files that I will try to upload to the stocks and I will do this on batches (probably 10 images each) and hopefully I will post about them here once they are up.

On the other hand, I've received an email from Trierenberg Circuit (or as we typically call it here: Austria's International Photocontest) inviting me to participate. I didn't participate in 2019 and seems that year the contest was canceled because of COVID (every year the contest start on September and ends on March the next year). Anyway, been thinking about it and I think I will be uploading some of my selfies done with the stroboscopic flash and some of these new panoramas that I've uploaded into MostPhotos already (well, they are not new but processed in a new method so to say). 

Despite not being on the go with my work but things seems to add up and I find myself forced to face the monitor for long hours indeed. Not complaining though. Things are busy this month and I'm hoping that would be a comforting agent to my ever-lasting mood swings…