Alright. I'm supposed to talk here about my last stroll so far for this year, which was back in February. Exactly, on February 2ⁿᵈ, just the next day from the stroll before, which I've made my previous blog post about.
As I've stated before, I was going to make it all into one post but I realized that probably the post would be too long. The main goal for this stroll was actually to take some pictures of some wall with graffiti that I've noted the day before. Thus, as variation goes, the images shot that day were not varied much. However, there is one shot or scene in particular that made me call it a "day"! I'll come to that later.
Unlike with the rest of wandering for this year so far, and as I've mentioned in my previous posts, the lens in use here was Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye lens, which is completely manual, and of course no way to fit the flare filter on the front. This lens had been always my choice for creative endeavors and one of my favorites, despite the somewhat hard control and other lens issues (e.g. chromatic aberrations).

Westward, Again

غَرْبْ
(west)

In the beginning, as usual, I've started to take some test shots in the neighborhood, which later were processed. The time was about sunrise back then. However, strangely, the western horizon had a slight glow as if the sun was rising from there. Anyway, as I typically do for such times, I've set the WB to Fluorescent, thus the final image (tone-mapped from HDR), West, had a nice blue-pink tint to it. Now it's time to go!

My World 2

Test shots were not limited to West, but I've also shot some on my way to that wall with graffiti, but nothing important here. Luckily, though, the puddle that was there the day before, was still there (and it was quieter than the day before). Shooting this puddle with 8mm was a bit of a challenge though. For a starter, I had to rely on my instinct concerning the hyperfocal distance and adjust the lens to that (and putting on more f-stops in aperture to make sure things are within the depth). To shoot My World 2, I had to get so low (almost touching the water surface). Despite its small size, it does somewhat look like a pond or a lake (thanks for the wide field of view and distortion). I was surprised that some of these houses still have antennae on the top!

The Wall

Coming to the wall, I've started to shoot many images for it and on various orientations. However, when processing these images, it did prove to be a challenge on various levels. First of all, the distortion of such fisheye lens didn't serve the purpose and the nature of the subject. I've tried to rectify the images (manually, which consumed a LOT of time), but such rectification would chop a big portion of the wall. In fact one of the problems when shooting this wall was to get a decent angle to have fine details with some interesting view instead of shooting a boring head-on shot as if I was simply documenting the place.
The second problem arose with the WB, as the blue tint from the Fluorescent WB kind of killed the image and its tones, which contained some warm tones.

The Wall 2

However, I did find that the landscape orientation is way better than the portrait orientation, and rectifying the image in this orientation was somewhat a success (despite some areas or angles not being fit I guess). It was clear, in the process of making HDRs and tone-mapping these shots, that Fluorescent WB wasn't a good choice for this particular subject, so I changed the WB (when merging into HDR) into Daylight WB (or maybe Cloudy WB) and added some blue tint later while tone-mapping and editing in Photoshop.
This wall created in me the desire to shoot a panorama in this place, but alas, that didn't happen until the moment of typing this. 

天堂之下
(under Heaven)

Probably the most ironic thing in this short stroll wasn't related to that wall, the main goal of that stroll. Rather, it was a random scene that I've shot on the edge of a big pool of rain water. Shooting low and bracketing for HDR, I've made several successive shots just to make sure I have some workable images. Even though delicate handshake don't quite show clearly when using such a wide angle lens, but I wouldn't have that for granted. At the time when Under Heaven was shot, I've already set the WB to something else other than Fluorescent (maybe Cloudy or Daylight). In the process, I've stitched 2 HDRs and composed a composed (panoramic) image from the two to complete the scene (specially the sky), as depending on one image would have forced me to crop a lot and lose some details from the edges. I'm so happy with this shot, that I've created 2 more versions of it!

Two extra versions: (Left) Color reversal, (Right) B&W.

Despite these versions, I think I still prefer the original one. Alas, I don't think it would good to print this image unless on some rough texture, like canvas, to "swallow" up the noise in the image. Otherwise, I'd need a considerable time to manage these noise zones in the image on a micro level to avoid significant loss of details. In fact, de-noising the image(s) on one go failed to remove the noise or grain from some specific areas; Not sure why, but this is typical actually when dealing with HDR tone-mapped images. I've encountered such problems a lot in the past when I was active with panoramas.

This shot was probably the "last" in this stroll. There had been some shots afterward but I don't think they are that interesting, so I won't be talking about them here.

Finale

Ramadhan is almost over here, and along with it I'm hoping to get some relief and some stability with my sleeping schedule, a bit. The weather is getting warmer and warmer though and I'm not sure I would be able to go out to shoot anything. We'll see…

Maidin
(morning)

Meanwhile, since this is the last post for my strolls since the beginning of this year, I'm not sure that I would be able to post further despite the fact that I'm indeed taking some pictures here and there (mostly with my phone actually), but they are a bit chaotic and random with no specific theme. That reminds me of the time when I was a member in a photography group, when there was a monthly challenge for members to participate. Would I be able to imply the same discipline on myself, though? I greatly doubt it. So far, most of my trials to create some sort of a discipline for many things I'd like to do, had failed miserably. Yet, probably I should give it a try and see.
This said, if you are a reader to this blog on a periodic basis, expect some gap as I'm not sure I'd be posting anything in the coming weeks from now.
On the other hand, I'm also still on the look out for any new topic for my Arabic blog as well. Thus, I might invest a bit of this time to think of something and actually post it there. In fact, many things in y life had been on hold, specially during Ramadhan. I've realized just recently that I didn't add anything to my list of writing and quotes (which I keep on Writing.com) for the past month or so. I think this is reflective of how busy had my mind was and is, beside the exhaustion. At times, it feels as if it is one long nightmare, and I just can't wait to wake up…