Stroll I (2022)…

Here we go again. Another post in which I try to squeeze some juices out of my head and camera. 

There hadn't been much to be done lately and the weather is getting warmer and warmer. Winter fled without me taking serious shots at night. Meanwhile, I've been taking some strolls in the morning just a bit after sunrise, trying to find objects of interest (which, by nature, are mostly abstracts). There is a twist though; I've been doing that with filters.

Stroll I (IR)

For this stroll, I've picked my Neewer 950IR filter (which means it has 950nm threshold). I think it is such a high threshold value for an early morning shoot because I remember that somewhere in the booklet it is said that this filter is supposed to be used under high sun in sunny days. Anyway, I didn't mind all of that. Technicalities aren't an issue here as I'm after some art. And just the like the old days of "work," I've decided here to make it a single lens challenge. That is picking one lens (Voigtländer 20mm for this stroll), putting the filter on, and try to find something. Honestly though, I have to do it that way because there is no way I'm walking around with more than one lens. I might think of picking 2 lenses with me some time in the future but I believe this negates the whole purpose of this practice!

غَـيْـهَـبْ
(darkness)

The first shot in this series or this stroll came about as a surprise, sort of. It was mainly a test shot just around the corner of our neighborhood, trying to find and test the exposure range with this filter and at this early time of the day (it was about 7:15 a.m.). Of course I was using my converted Canon EOS 7D for full spectrum shooting, but with an infrared filter on, and the sun not quite hitting the area (blocked by some houses), the exposure time wasn't fast enough for a handheld shot, so I had to make some compromising here, like raising the ISO and relying a bit more on post-processing to enhance the exposure later. Because of the filter on the lens, I can't use the Viewfinder to frame the shot and it all has to be done on LCD or the LiveView and this is another hurdle to get over with because at some angles, with the sun, it can be hard to judge the composition. More on that later.
With Darkness, which as I said was shot around the corner of my neighborhood, I had to squat to get some interesting angle instead of the boring chest or head level shot. I remember removing the measuring point (of the exposure on the LCD) to some grayish area in hope that my exposure becomes balanced; But nevertheless, in post-processing, I ended up creating a dark atmosphere image. Of course, because it is an infrared image, I had to do some play with the color channels. In fact I did this several times that I can't remember what channel went into what, but I remember using the Channel Mixer adjustment layer instead of the quick method of applying Invert and changing the blend to Color. I've cropped this specifically emphasizing the width as in the cinematic looks, but I'm not sure though whether it was 16:9 ratio or not!

Rings

 

Not far from that corner where Darkness was taken, I've headed further between the houses (to the right from where Darkness was taken). Here we have a somewhat large space (which used to be a ground for playing football (soccer) but now it is filled with machinery and heaps of tar and sand. I've taken shots from this place in fact back in 2020 when I had a stroll in November that year and the sky was amazing then and specifically I was pointing in the direction of that same mosque in Rings. Anyway, as you can probably tell, Rings had been cropped into a square and this is mainly to remove the remnants of the bright sun which was giving these flare rings. It was kind of a hard task really to crop and keep as much rings as possible. I wanted to keep more of them but the sun was so distracting and had to be removed. In post-processing some work of dodge and burn had to be done (well, mainly dodge) to pop the sand a bit). I kind of like this shot really but unfortunately the surroundings didn't help much. Here also, because the sun was facing me at some angle, it was hard for me to judge the composition on the back of the camera so I did make some shots and hoped for the best!

الـدِّهْـلـيـزْ
(the corridor)

Keeping my walk, I've made myself get lost in between houses. I have to say there are plenty of stuff to shoot but I can't think of shooting them even as I don't want to stir troubles with people living in these houses under claims of violating their privacy. These issues are quite sensitive here and, well, can get quite ridiculous at times. I reached then some niche or small corridor that barely fits 2 people walking or one fat person! (I'm fat by the way so let's not get "sensitive" here shall we?). I liked the framing here by the 2 walls of these two houses and my 20mm lens was the perfect choice for such scenes because, well, it's wide and adds some depth and "dimensionality" (I made this up). First I shot one or two photos in landscape orientation but then I realized that it is better to do it in portrait orientation because the sense of vertical lines (the edges or ends of the wall) are quite popping and visually strong, and shooting in landscape would be like breaking this strength (or like fitting a circular peg into a square hole). Made several shots (many of them were shaky) and when I started to check them out back home for post-processing, I've realized that the palm leaf dangling from the top adds more sense! Honestly, I was so focused on the walls and the depth of the image and I didn't realize that there is a palm leaf coming from the top! My bad, but hey, I'm trying to learn how to focus more. I was lucky this time though.

رَطْـبْ
(moist)

At this point, I couldn't find further inspiration along the way. I kept walking on and on going back home (from another path) and trying to scan my surroundings. In fact, I did take few shots here and there but most of them were shaky (and I didn't want to raise the ISO further than that). As I reached home, I've set my eyes on a peculiar scene and clearly shouting ABSTRACT! And that was the engine cover of my brother's car (or all of our cars in fact). The surface was wet or moist because of the rain that fell down just one or two hours before I go out that day. It was a challenge and probably only here I've decided to raise the ISO instead of missing such a chance (I think it was ISO500 at this point). This image, Moist, was specifically interesting for me that I've tried to color-graded with something from my own set of Gradient Maps that I've been building up for a month or two by now. 

Honestly, I kind of like the color-graded version more than the original monochromatic one. This trial actually sparked an interest in me to try and color-grade some old images that I've done in B&W and see what I can get out of them. Meanwhile, I'm working as well on adding more Gradient Maps into my collection, which I usually extract from my own photos. In the above image, for example, the colors were extracted from an old shot from the beach area at one winter night back in 2013 (below).

The Glowing Beach

So, after this one last shot, I did get few shots here and there inside the house but I don't think they worth mentioning here, and by this, ladies and gentlemen, the stroll had ended for that day. But, this is not the end of the story…

Finale

So, there had been some ideas crossing my mind lately for some future plans, but there is quite an irony in this because I know there I have few projects pending and I didn't touch them for months (e.g. my project for making the Arabic alphabet merged into a photo of my own eye). But, probably no harm in planning or thinking of something for the future I guess. One of these ideas is to work on at least one post per month for my Arabic blog. The problem is, the topics that I'm going to write about there. I think it will be some strain to my brain to come up with new ideas for such blog posts but probably this is what I need? *sigh* I can't be sure.
Issues on the home-front is putting a stress on my mental health I would say. I'm living in quite uncertain times, thinking if I was right to feel the way I feel or I should just be patient. Retinitis Pigmentosa isn't even making my decision-making process any easier.
So far, I'm considering my options of doing strolls like these in the morning, like on and off, and maybe at night at some point. I guess walking in the neighborhood at night can't be THAT dangerous, right? Yeah, Let's hope so. There are many things that I might think of taking a picture of but I'm always afraid that I would trigger something. People are quite protective for their privacy.
Meanwhile, I keep thinking from time to time about my old conlangs that I've abandoned already. Ironically, this blog was started for my conlang but then there was a change of course. Photography overwhelmed by time. However, in the current situation and mental level, even photography had been a struggle to keep on with. Man, I need a vacation, even after retirement. A real one, far away. Far, far away…