Oldies Anew…

I was not sure really how to start this blog post. I was thinking seriously of giving myself a little vacation from blogging for few weeks and come back later when my "esteem" gets better, specially that the country is going through a slow opening-up after a long lock-down since last February (partial and total).
Meanwhile, I've been coping a lot with mood swings and I've already started to isolate myself from the so-called social media (which have nothing social about them really). Add some toothache (or gum problems) to the mix and you will be having a blast of stress on a brain that have already been coping with a handful of problems already.
All that lead me to slow down with my camera work and the shooting new ideas. However, this pushed me to work a bit on old shots (directed at keeping the streak count on YouPic) and this kind of helped me at looking differently at some of these old photos that I've neglected - even test shots shot at ISO 12,800 are subjects to this artistic venture.
In between all this mental mess, there is in fact a series of images that I'm working on; Some sort of a story, but I decided not to post about them here yet. Let's hope I get the chance to work more on the ideas that I've already planned ahead, which I've postponed so far because of, well, life problems. So, this post will be dedicated more likely to those work of art that I've accomplished by re-visiting some of the old images. They are many, but I won't be posting everything of course. Just few for now, and some for later!

But First: A Little Announcement

Just before I proceed with my (boring) talk about some of the oldies, I wanted to give a little announcement here about some of my photos, specifically selfies.
Since uploading any photo of any face requires a model release and sometimes there is some hassle even when uploading my own selfies about this issue, there is one particular website which accepts these photos without checking but they make it clear for the contributor that they don't bear any legal consequences for any missing model release, so they just advise the contributors of providing such a release. This stock website is MostPhotos.
Unfortunately, MostPhotos doesn't provide handy tools for contributors like other stock websites (e.g. Canstockphoto), so it was a bit hard to get some banner fixed into my blog. Thus, I'm having a direct link to my MostPhotos account here, in hope that it works. It should lead you directly to the newest contributions I've made on MostPhotos.
Even though, as I've said, MostPhotos doesn't require a model release to upload such images, I did in fact create my own simple model release just to upload my selfies and I've attached the release to these images. So, I think I will work further and try to find some of the 3D anaglyph images (which are not normally accepted in other stocks) and selfies that I've created in the past to upload them to MostPhotos. My main aim for my MostPhotos account is to contain some of the fine art work that I think are not quite useful as a stock, which is commonly dedicated to designers and web-developers.
I just wished that there is some kind of a banner to add as a signature to some of my blog posts or any formal settings instead of sharing a link to my profile like that.

Some of my selfies artwork that are uploaded to my MostPhotos only.

Oldies Anew

Driving With Retinitis Pigmentosa

Starting with one image that is not so oldie, and this one was part of my project to create an image for Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month (February) in 2019. The experiment was a fail in general because of the bright sun and my speedlites not working under the sun (they use infrared and not radio transmission) and after taking some test shots back then I've just called it off and went back home (which is less than 5 minutes walk away from this location).

What's different now, though, is the realization of the artistic potential (well, pushed by the desire to keep the streak of upload on YouPic as well), and while I was thinking of making the shot "whole" as much as possible in-camera when I shot this back in 2019, now I realized that I could work on it in a different way, even though not to the exact vision I've had back then.

This said, viewing the image under the light of some editing styles that I've been reviewing and applying lately, I decided to work on this simple shot and add motion to it (something I was not planning to do back then). In a nutshell, the process involved:

• Adjusting the tones and contrast, and adding vignetting.
• Adding lens blur on various levels in the image to add some depth; i.e divide the image to fore-, mid-, background by blurring to various degrees on each zone (farthest is the hardest).
• Adding motion blur, again, to various zones (closest is the hardest). 
• Adding radial blur to the tires. 

All of this blurring did require a lengthy work of selecting specific areas and be careful with these glass windows. The motion blur specifically was shifted a bit to the right after applying it to keep the blurry lines following the car and not in front of it. Cropping was also due here even before working with the image. Got to say, this work spices up my appetite to editing.

Speeding Light

Another oldie came from the year 2013; Back to the days when I used to go out at night and shoot. This shot though is a bit far from home. It's from Ahmadi (city) which is known typically for its National Day decorations every year. I used to head there with a friend (he drives) and shoot as much as we can. Unfortunately, though, I never made a panorama there. Anyway, I've revisited the RAW files again here and picked one image that I didn't process before and started to do the latest I've learned with it, and again, I've added some radial blurs (no motion blur here).

I have to say though that, despite its simplicity for me, I had some hard time deciding what to do, and how to do it. The image had been cropped to a great extent actually to remove some excess lines that I've seen as distractions. To be honest, its not quite what I've envisioned. I wanted to depict a real camera movement which would make these arches of light zoom in (or out). Anyway, things didn't turn out exactly as I wanted them, so I had to satisfy myself with this at this point. 

Some Night in Oman

The last one for now, is an image that I've processed several times actually, but this time as I've stated before, I'm trying to apply some new techniques in editing (which involve tone-splitting, big time!). The photo comes from Oman, 2015, when I traveled with some group members (back when I was a member in a photography group). The shot was actually a test shot originally but yet it was acceptable with its noise level (when viewed in a small size).

Original first edit

One of the things that I've processed differently, beside the tones and colors in general, is the cropping ratio which I went on "free" mode to crop in the new edit. It might be sound or seem an easy thing to crop an image for some, but trust me, it is a hard task specially if you have a tint of OCD in your personality; Where you tend to keep everything in a specific aspect ratio because, well, this is how to be perfect! So, I can say that during the new edits of old images, I'm trying to release myself from the sense of guilt as I crop. Now, Color-wise, I do like them both actually even though I have to say that the original or first edit of this image from Oman gives a good contrast to the stars in the sky. However, the new edit is more dreamy-like and some people expressed their love for the colors in this image actually. Must add that there is also a B&W version of this image but it's an old edit as well, so no need to put it here.

Finale

I think this is enough for now, but the list is pretty long actually, specially with photos from my travels to Ireland, Malta, and Oman. Moreover, I've been "hunting" for anaglyph images from these old photos. There are many occasions when I've shot successive shots which turn out later to be suitable for 3D anaglyph making because of some minor movement. This, and with the help of StereoPhoto Maker which I've reviewed in my last post, there are better chances even to create "deeper" anaglyphs from such images, as far as I've witnessed myself actually. Things are promising in this field.
This said, now seems my only outlet for such art is YouPic (beside stock websites of course), after ditching Instagram for good this time. Even my other account, which was dedicated for my conlang, Ayvarith, can't be returned after being hacked (apparently). Thanks to the "security" system of Instagram.It seems that my introversion has cast its shadow even on my (so-called) online social life. Deep inside, there are things; things of feelings. Feelings of disgust for all these social platforms. For this reason, I really need to fill this gap in life and time where these platforms used to take place with something more productive, beside editing. I'm currently reading eBooks and planning to do more and more readings if possible. Now I'm starting to imagine what if people, or a group of them, just started a campaign to boycott or simply stop depending on Instagram for their artistic, creative, and marketing needs? During such times of COVID-19 this might sound a bit hard but I do think it can be done (and in a reasonable way). Whatever the solution is, it absolutely should not be under the management of Facebook. At this point, I have to mention that I've even stopped logging (or keep myself logged) on Facebook and I just drop from time to time to see if there is any new comment or message, and to upload a photo to my albums. We, definitely, need a new platform for communication and arts.
My mental status is going through some (harsh?) upheaval lately. People, or community as a whole, is pushing me gradually to get on serious with the thought of living alone, in my own home, if not leave this whole country just to gain some of the peace of mind. I could be exaggerating for one reason or another, but that feeling of opposition wherever I go is just unbearable. I seriously keep asking myself, am I that stupid really or people simply don't understand my suffering, my needs, or even my normal speech? I don't know what the hell is going on with my life but I know one thing: I want to have my own place. How? I don't know…