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.