Strobogenic IV…

As things are going crazy, and my continuous trials to calm myself down and take every day as it is, all I can say is: I'm tired. I'm absolutely tired. And guess what? Even though I don't have to go to work now with the lock-down, but still, I do feel so much pressure on my time, specially that I spend most of the daytime sleeping. Otherwise, things are going easy, sort of. Despite the total curfew or lock-down that had been issued and activated on Sunday May 10^th (it was partial for a month or more I think). All what I'm worried about is my coffee, and chocolate.

Strobo-Faces

And, again, I had an appointment with myself, doing some work with stroboscopic flashes, and this time a kind of a selfie. I did a number of selfies which I've posted about in previous posts, which were done using the stroboscopic flash, but back then, it was about the hand movement. This time, it would be about the head movement with a little change as well, and that is, fitting my speedlite here with a my (new) trusty oval diffuser!

One of the stroboscopic selfies made some months ago.

Oval diffuser from Impact.

Probably I've mentioned before in some old posts that I've lost this diffuser just a time when I really got used to it and started to love working with it because of the nature of diffusion and "atmospheric" light that it produces. Anyway, I've ordered this again some months back and now it is the first time to use this new one! As I've noted before, this time the selfies would include the movement of the head instead of the hands like before and I have to say it was challenging little bit. Despite being comfortable, staying in my chair and working with the camera (unlike other projects I've done like the chess project for example), still it was hard to pin the light, I guess one of the reasons was that I was shooting INFRARED selfies this time with my modified EOS 7D. So just imagine the hassle: Stroboscopic flash + Infrared filter on lens!

اِلْتِفاتْ
(Turning)

Despite setting the stroboscopic flash for 5 strikes, yet the number of ghosts always seemed to be less than 5. A simple movement like turning the head from the side and towards the camera did look harder than it should be! Eventually, anyway, I had to raise the power of the speedlite, as I'm working with infrared here and needed more power, plus the diffuser which of course would naturally need more power. These factors, of course, limited the number of possible strikes at the given frequency, so I had to satisfy myself with 3 or even 2 strikes alone. The results after all were not that bad and conveyed the needed surrealism.

تَجَلّي
(Manifestation)

Of course, things should not stop at the level of such a simple movement as turning my head around, right? So, the work started with doing some extra moves; Up and down, near the lens and far, or the reverse. But at this level I think I've dimmed the room a bit to have some space to lengthen the exposure time even for fractions and be able to adjust the number of strikes accordingly, and the frequency probably. One (digital) drawback of shooting with stroboscopic light is that such info (i.e. frequency, number of strikes) are not recorded in the EXIF, and I fail drastically when it comes to memorizing these settings with precision!

هَسْتيريا
(Hysteria)

I wasn't troubled much with the shortage in the number of strikes as much as I was troubled with the post-processing, as the grain or noise level was not comforting my eyes, despite using ISO100 for most or all of the shots (didn't check the EXIF thoroughly here!). I have to say though that the grain in infrared images is somewhat like a "brand" back when infrared used to be shot on special infrared film, thus it might be considered a typical look or something familiar, but I doubt many people know this fact anyway! Nevertheless, in the digital era things should be different I suppose. Anyway, I must admit that my editing practices to the RAW file here did add a spike to the level of grain here; I've been a bit aggressive with my approach! Nevertheless, the dark attitude and atmosphere did serve my purpose for presenting a psychopathic state of mind despite the grain or noise. If you ask why did I not try to clean the noise, well, the answer is obvious I guess, simply because it will degrade some details.

اِنْسِلاخْ
(Secession)

However, speaking of grain or noise is not all bad. In some shots like انسلاخ (Secession), the grain provided a pretty much needed texture to the skin and mimicked (unintentionally) the effect of changing skin or sloughing (as when the snake changes its skin). Adding a bit of sharpness to that, despite the grains, made quite the mood. Here we also see the virtue of shooting in infrared (with relatively low threshold value), where a brown eye like mine would change to blue; Higher threshold would get the shot closer and closer to be monochromatic with almost no hint of color. I think Secession is the best I did get out of this series in this experiment!

Surreal Appetite

I was going to leave the coming set of images for a later post but I realized that they are kind of connected, besides being a somewhat off-shot from the previous work with the stroboscopic flash. The thing with working with stroboscopic flash kind of triggered my appetite for more surreal portraiture work, but this time without the flash part; Simply, a camera and a lens.

جَدَلِيّ
(Argumentative)

The surreal work here involves the camera movement as you might have guessed already. I rarely use such techniques for anything in my photography, but with the lock-down and staying at home for weeks without stepping out, made me think of things that I didn't even thought I would think of… am I making any sense here?
Anyway, while virtually you can try such techniques of camera movements with anything, I preferred to do "portraiture" for my experiments. I wished to do selfies but this is kind of… impossible (I guess), so I picked my typical target: My brother.

وَسْواسْ
(Delusion)

Equipped with my Canon EF 50mm, I've set the camera on (TV) mode, and probably this is one of the rare occasions where I would use such a mode to shoot. Typically, I'm on Manual, Av, or Bulb. This is because I know the time that I need, so I want the camera to adjust the aperture for me. The time was set to 1 second only, which was enough for a quick twist to the camera. The aperture then was somewhere between f/11 and f/16. I have to say, producing some good lines with such movement is not as easy as I thought, and probably it would have been easier with light sources, but nevertheless, it was a good surreal experiment.

اِخْتِلاجُ فِكْرٍ 1
(A convulsion of thought 1)

اِخْتِلاجُ فِكْرٍ 2
(A convulsion of thought 2)

The processing of such images proved to be a challenge as well. But maybe this is more affected by the subject rather than the nature of the style itself? I'm not sure. I was struggling to strike a balance between adding contrast to the image to emphasize the motion blur lines and yet keep some dark areas untouched; A lot of dodge and burn and layer mask work.

Now with all this work with these images, there had been some photo-shoots on the side and I've started a series (somewhat) for some of these while planning to do so for some others as well, but I'll keep that for later times. I'm not sure though I'd be able to do a post in 2 weeks time from now, as I would be busy in preparing a blog post for my Arabic blog, or so I'm thinking for the time being!

Finale

Maybe I never imagined myself saying this, but as an introvert, this lock-down and situation is starting to suffocate me. Even though not much has changed in my life, and even I'm relaxing as much as I can (even with Ramadhan ongoing). But the stress that comes from the circle around me is pushing my buttons to some extent, specially with the regulations and the curfew (which turned to be almost full curfew for 22 hours a day) that makes going out for essentials a bit difficult (a permit is needed to go to the nearest supermarket and only to the nearest supermarket). Children on the other hand are also some hassle as they are gradually and slowly seem to lose sanity for not going outside like before, and not meeting their "comrades" in mornings like before. Keeping them amused is a hard task, and they are pushed to spend more time on devices; The thing that their parents were telling them not to do just some weeks ago. Strange times indeed…
Number of hits here is increasing by a ridiculous rate because of the stupid and careless people, which pushes me further into depression. Meanwhile, I'm trying as much as possible to think of ways to invest my time with my camera, and even to do something that might give me some extra income on the side if needed (but I didn't conclude anything yet). I've also started to follow some of my interests in astrology reading and watching videos, but mainly in a trial to understand myself before anything else.
On a positive note, it is May here and I don't remember the temperatures being as low as 33^oC in daytime like that for years. I've started a routine (if I can call it so) to stay in the yard for 20 minutes under the sun and read some e-books on my tablet. The real test for the temperature would be in June. Last year, June was the hottest month of the year with temperatures reaching 70^oC in some places here. We'll see if the coronavirus fixes this weather now, and minds as well.

جاحِظْ
(Pop-eyed)