Strobogenic…

February! It really exists! If some other month like January is to be visiting us any time this year I'm kind of sure that half the population of Earth would be begging on the roads for their bread. from my side, I just hope that this month becomes an active month for me somewhat. I've been taking shots already and having some ideas here and there, and as usual, I won't put the eggs all in one basket in this post, but I'll be talking about a specific series of shots that I've done about 2 weeks ago; All by coincidence! Anyway, beside the series I'm going to talk about, there are some new editions made out of old shots and I've been posting some of those on my Instagram. I'm not sure though if I'm going to post about them here but there is one specific old shot that I need to post about here in relation to the series of shots I'm going to talk about.

Chain of Events

As I was looking at my images from 2018, and looking specifically for some photo that I didn't post before to my Instagram, I've encountered this shot, which is a selfie, but a regular one somewhat. The special thing, though, about this selfie, that it was an experimental one, taken with 2 speedlites holding them by hand on left and right, and each one of them had a black cardboard with a thin slit opening only. And that what made the shadow line at the center of the face. Since a selfie like that might be a bit "regular," I've decided to work a bit on it and transform it to something else.

Nach Mitnacht

Naturally, my first choice or the first thing to think about in such instances is to examine the B&W possibility and what it would yield. Tweaking the sliders around and voila! Some weird creature was created here, in addition to the eyes brightening. This was the beginning.
Some days later, as I was testing the stroboscopic (multi) flash properties with one of my 580EX II speedlites, I've decided to take a selfie or two. I was actually lazy; I was just there sitting on my recliner and taking shots. My aim was actually to make out some sense for the relation between the shutter speed, and number of flashes and the final outcome. I really did not have any aim about creating an image at this level; It was all still some testing only.
Anyway, without  going deeper into much technical details and talk,I was up to a surprise later on; I'll come to that.
As I went through the photos, I've started to filter and delete some of them which had no significant move. There are some with some good hand gestures. I kept those and started to work with them in Photoshop.

Avoidance

Typically, my first step when converting to B&W in Photoshop, would be using the Infrared preset from the list and start adjusting from there. Usually this preset do get to my taste in some way so I find it appropriate most of the time to start adjusting the tones from there. Surprise surprise, and as I was trying to suppress the background using the tones to turn it to black, weird things started to happen and I've remembered Nach Mitnacht right away. This was the spark that initiated the series, started from Avoidance and ending up with The Weekend Selfie. Some of these shots, like Avoidance, did require a significant crop (using cropping guides as much as possible). Despite the movement of the hands in some of these images, like, again, Avoidance, yet, the focus might be scattered away and I thought it might be better to ensure the focus and guide the viewer to the eye, and that required a great deal of a crop.

De-Focus

Not all images, though, did require such a big deal of cropping as I've stated above, but there was something to be done about some lines in the corners or the edges and such. For such instances, I tried to place the eyes exactly at the center of the image, as it sounds it is the natural placement for them, specially with moving ghosted palms, right? And let's not forget the horizontal placement of the eyes which I've tried to place on the upper third line via crop.

The Multi-Takser

Personally, I do like the brightness of the eyes in De-Focus more than their brightness in The Multi-Tasker but strangely, and this is the surprise, this image got popular on YouPic and even gained a star for being "inspirational". Not only that, but YouPic also published the image to their Instagram feed for the B&W category! I didn't know about its existence before. On Instagram itself, the image did gain some likes, but typically not much (yet better than other images I post daily now). I take it that this surprise might have been caused by the movement of the hand which is clearer and denser here than in De-Focus, and they take a bigger portion of the image in general.

The Weekend Selfie

This "liking" and push in (some of) the social media did give me a bit of "hype," if I can call it so. It did really make me think of future work using the stroboscopic flash often (which I did later, but that's for another post). But maybe the most important moral here which I need to remember, and keep remembering, always is that: Just grab the camera, and shoot, even when you are lazy. You wouldn't know what will be the results. In addition to this, I might be adding one extra point to my "style" with such processing, which makes portraits dark in a somewhat UV Photography style. Could be something to venture on a bit further. But probably shouldn't exhaust it to the limit of turning it into a cliché!

Finale

The Weekend Selfie
Sketch effect

Well, it is February already and the time has come, as in every year, to make up some photo shoot for Retinitis Pigmentosa. Believe or not, I did already make this shot and it is published, but I'll leave it for another post in another week or so. The shot was relatively simple and I tried to apply some elements from the designing tips I've re-learned lately. I'll come to that in time then, though.

Some variety of flash cords

Meanwhile, I'm hoping and wishing to get more time to work with my camera, specially with schools starting here and we are back to the cycle of traffic jams and the extremely-tired body. I have some ideas out there and yet I need to think them through and think on how to apply them. To add to my hardships already, my flash cord (which allows me to trigger the flash off-camera) seems corrupt and is not functioning well lately. It fell off. Is it time to get a wireless trigger? I mean one that can work under HSS and Multi or Stroboscopic modes, as well as 2nd Curtain Sync? Even if I got one, I'm not sure I would be able to trigger other speedlites that way unless I get a receiver for each one of them; A lengthy and an expensive task. I'll need to do more research in that venue.
I would be going on and on with my mood swings already but maybe I'll keep that, too, for another post. I'm so tired of everything here, literally, so much that I find it hard to chew the food I eat sometimes. January is over already but probably we are not over yet with the bad news still. In the meantime, I'm considering meditation (which I'm not sure when to do) in hope that it would teach me how to focus again. I miss writing poetry; I was supposed to write one for my late friend, Paula, who departed last November, but I couldn't find the mental power yet to compose. Maybe I should make this a priority over my work with the camera. As for now, it's time to close my eyes a bit…