Stroll VI…

Well well, it is May already, and seems that the weather in the morning is still promising to some walks, but we've been having some dust waves already like on and off (and sometimes flies would eat me alive!). Not sure where does this dust come from, but whenever it is red in color, it is usually from the north, from the southern parts of Iraq (which I think still suffers the consequences of the artificial drought caused by the regime back in the 1990s in retaliation to the revolt).
Now, I don't know if "dust wave" is indeed a term (we use it in Arabic though), but the conditions are not that of a "storm" either, so that's why I don't use the term "sand storm" because it's not really a storm, but dust particles hanging in the air. Sometimes it is followed by rains as well, specially in this time of the year before summer.
Anyway, it had been few weeks now since my last stroll but I'm also still processing the shots of my last stroll (I've been lazy a bit), and since I've used most of my "special" filters in strolls, maybe it is about time to get a tripod and try to shoot stuff with my ND filters or pinhole; Still thinking about it though because a tripod is a burden (and an eye opener sometimes, and I don't want to grab any attention to myself).

Stroll VI

This stroll took place on April 6ᵗʰ, and this one I've decided to go back to an old filter that I didn't use for quite some time: B+W 092.
Now, this filter is the first IR filter I've purchased before I even get a modified camera and I've worked with it as a "big stopper" for long exposures, but I don't recall I've worked so much with it AFTER getting my modified Canon 7D.
Essentially, in looks, images taken with this filter are quite close to those taken with Hα filter, but they tend to be less saturated. The difference in threshold between B+W 092 filter and Hα is probably in the magnitude of 30nm. Left to say that in this stroll, with this filter, I've used my 50mm lens.

Mr Chiller

So, for this stroll, I didn't go East or West, but rather South (which eventually lead me to West anyway). This neighborhood was visited before and I've posted images from (shot in Hα once) and probably if you are following these posts you'd recognize some scenes (some of them shot back in November 2020).
Anyway, on with the stroll with my first stop just around the corner with a cat that was ready to jump on me because I've disturbed his or her rest. Luckily it calmed down and rested while watching me taking a picture of him from a distance (maybe 3 meters or so). At that moment, I really wished that I was using my Sigma 70-200mm just to frame the cat's face as I wanted to catch that luster in the eyes as I've seen it, but alas! I had to satisfy myself with what I have. The final image, Mr Chiller, had been cropped to a great deal to focus on the cat with all that clutter in the image (and still). Channels had been swapped here with some saturation added. 

Tracks A

Tracks B

Not far off from that cat and a bit forward, I shot few images that I might as well call "the stinkiest images I've ever taken in my life so far." Track A and Track B were actually a set of images (focus-stacked) which were shot near some trash bins LOADED with garbage that seemed to me back then that it has been days since these bins were emptied by the trash car. The smell almost got me fainted and I couldn't stay more than 5 minutes (or even less) before I continue walking.
Here, working with burst mode as usual and f/1.4, I've made several shots which, because of the handshake, had a change in focal points across the scene, for this reason I've decided to do a focus stack for each set. Worth noting that the tire tracks were not quite clear to the naked eye but they were so when I processed the images. The images look B&W but they are not converted to B&W actually. Anyway, once I've finished this stinky job and walked away, the trash-collecting truck came along. It was Ramadan back then and working hours all over the country change accordingly and these morning hours were as quiet as a midnight in regular days, and in regular days, the trash-collecting truck visits around midnight mostly!

Neighborhenge

Just before walking far away from the stinky place (and while the trash car approaching) I've noticed a turn where the sun was just rising from behind the houses at the end of the neighborhood, in a scene that reminded me of the "henge" where in such places the sun would rise (or probably set) forming straight beams. Anyway, Neighborhenge is not a perfect "henge" image but I just liked this flare. By the way, if the shadows here look so dim and almost like a solid, then it's just a monitor issue (I work with a calibrated monitor and I kept some faint details there in the shadows). I've shot several images here in vertical succession and merged them as a panorama. As I've mentioned already, the image might be just black solid but it depends on the monitor and its brightness (and correction) as there are details for sure in these shadows!

Дверь, Трава, и Ведро
(a door, grass, and a bucket)

Not far off from that bend, I've arrived at that old (haunted) house with the metallic door which I've shot many times before. This time though, I've shot several shots in portrait and then stitched them together. Of course, fixing some distortion issues and straightening some lines, all that calls for crops, and more crops. I was fluctuating between the original version and the channel-swapped version, but finally I've decided to use the channel-swapped version as the blue tint for the original somehow didn't appear to my mood (then and now). One would think that such an old look and such deserted place would fit into the blue scheme but I didn't feel like it. I've also darkened the image a bit from the left just to add bits of mystery and "spookiness" as if the image was divided between the light and the dark. 

Скрытый
(hidden)

Then comes Hidden. What's special about this shot is that, well, I don't recall shooting it. Or maybe I was aiming at the tree and didn't notice the window in the background. I really can't remember how or why did I decide to shoot this one. Anyway, I think I got away with some good abstract here. The original color for the leaves was turquoise-ish yet it was somewhat dull and lacking luster even with vibrance added to it. SO I swapped the channels and I think it is more refreshing (but maybe needs some further saturation). In case you are wondering here why I name some images in Russian, well, it's just my habit now as I'm learning Russian and trying to get the hang of it. I name in various languages really and not just Russian, but it's just what comes to mind first.

Under The Shade

It took me a while then after that random shot (which I cannot remember) to take another shot. A long walk heading west from that road, just at the back of some houses and passing some gardens; It was a nice weather back then (and without flies!). However, away from the gardens, the interesting part here was the "wild" plants growing in between the cracks. One thing made me happy here is that no one is mingling with these and plucking them for no reason. The plants I've seen are mostly of one type as far as I remember with tiny small yellow blooms (which became white with the infrared filter). Shooting at a low angle and using LiveView, I've tried my best to keep "something" in focus! I've shot many shots in burst mode which later helped me create some anaglyphs. Maybe not quite strong in effect but there is some dimension to them.

Unidentified (3D)

Unidentified 2 (3D)

As you can tell by the titles of these images, I really don't know what is it called, and I didn't check up and search for it online as I usually do. I think they might be probably some species of daisies; Well, in shape at least. I've taken loads of these flowers but many of the images were shaky a bit but I will try to check them back later and see if I can do something about it. 

Craobhacha Dearga
(red branches)

Then not far from these flowers I've passed some trees, which I've shot randomly actually. I'm not sure why did I shoot the branches but I'm guessing I wanted to check how the leaves would turn out. In the beginning I didn't pay attention to these shots but after processing a patch from this series I've decided to check them out and do something random. The shots were actually horizontal (or landscape) but as I went on processing Craobhacha Dearga I decided to rotate it and crop it (and I think I've used the golden triangle rule here). In the process as well, I've went far with the saturation (after swapping the color channels) and I've tried to make it as selective as possible so that it would affect the leaves only and not the whole image. Same thing with the sharpening at the end. It could be a good image for a background maybe? I think I'll consider uploading it to the stocks later on, but I have my doubts about accepting it since it has clear grains (in the original). We'll see about that later anyway.

A Night of Cacti

After shooting the branches, I've passed through some little gardens with many nice flowers (can't identify them as I'm not a botanist of course!) but I tried to shoot some of them in burst mode; I was trying to work quickly here as I didn't want to be noticed by anyone and cause me unnecessary problems since these basins or pots were private property even though outside of the homes, adding to that that my legs started to hurt a bit and I didn't want to bend over to the ground level to shoot (and the sun is even becoming higher now and inspecting the LiveView is getting harder). All in all, all these shots I've done for these flowers didn't turn as I wished unfortunately, but I might try to check them again later to get something out of them. Anyway not far from these, there was a batch of cacti which was high enough to shoot from waist level (and it was easy to focus on them with the lens AF on).
Here, I've used f/1.4 which is critical and so shallow, but since the nature of the shot is supposed to be an abstract, I didn't really care much where the focus would land. Of course, despite the name, A Night of Cacti, you know now that it was taken in early morning (probably around 7 or 8 a.m.). In the process, I've cropped the top ends of the cacti heads to focus more on the linear and sporadic nature of the cacti and add more to the abstract sense of the image. I think I've cropped that in 16:9 ratio.

أَنْـقـاضْ
(rubles)

Afterward, I've arrived at a location which I've visited before, and the shot I've taken here with B+W 092 and 50mm lens is probably the "top" from this series; For me, not for other viewers! The scene was captivating already with the quality of the light coming down on the tree at the end of this narrow alley (probably 2 meters wide or less). However, of course I wouldn't be able to shoot the whole scene with a single shot using 50mm lens, thus I've shot several images in vertical order and stitched them together here. There had been at least 2 images that had been omitted from the stitch as they were blown out and with not much details, in addition that big portion would be cropped anyway in my trials to rectify the vertical and horizontal lines (well not much of horizontal ones actually). The other big burden in Rubles is the work with gradients and layer masks to emphasize the light quality more or less as much as I've experienced it in real life.

Transitional
Staten Island (2012)
Click to enlarge

This shot actually reminds me of somewhat similar scene I've shot in the Scholars Garden in Staten Island back in 2012! Where some tree was receiving some bands of light and shadows. The difference here though is that it was a door back in 2012, and it's a corridor or an alley here. Well, beside the fact that the new image is in infrared of course.
Not far from this location and in fact directly to my right at that spot, I've glimpsed a door that I've always wished to shoot, and I thought it's about time to shoot this one (and break my fear a bit, specially that house looks deserted and not inhabited).

大門
(the grand door)

Here, again, several shots were taken in a vertical sequence and then stitched together. The hard part was, though, aligning and fixing the vertical lines which I think is still not done correctly in The grand door. Also, because of some cut in portions of the door from right or left (can't remember) because I wasn't far enough to have more space into my shots, I've decided to focus on the central portion of the door and try to be "geometric" with my abstract. The 50mm lenses usually don't show so much distortion (just a tiny bit) hence the term normal lens but I'm not sure why it was hard to fix and align the vertical and horizontal lines here. Probably the door itself wasn't straight? Could be! I was inspired by the design of the door and the golden color (after swapping the channels) to name the image in Chinese. Too bad the door wasn't red though! Anyway, I've based my corrections in the alignment mainly on the central portion of the door and till this time of typing this blog post, I still feel that the image is tilted to the left; Yet, using the guide lines in Photoshop, it seems all is straight and correct! My mind is playing tricks on me? Could be (as always)… Another annoying fact about this door is the fluorescent lamp base on the top which apparently was not quite centered with the door but at this point was way tired of working with this image to close it out or fix it in any way.

At this point, this concluded my stroll on April 6ᵗʰ with my 50mm and B+W 092 infrared filter. However, the processing is not yet over with as I'm trying to finish those images I've taken in later strolls and then I might go back to the old strolls like this one to see what I can do with the discarded images. Quite often they might be good for some form of artwork not quite attached to photography. I'm not sure how often now I can stroll out but for sure I need more ideas (and other usages for filters or lenses)!

Finale

As summer approaches, I'm wondering what will I be doing in such a period. Some suggested that I travel, specially that I'm a retiree now. However, such a dream is on hold for unknown time period. What I want is peace and tranquility, and not travel. Traveling is good for sure, and I would find some peace and a change of scenery is certainly good for the soul. Yet, all of that won't do a thing if the inside is as turbulent as an ocean in a tropical storm.
Fatigue and mood swings had taken up a big portion of my will power these days and all I want to do is to stay in bed. In whatever time I have left in the day, I'd most probably spend it musing on astrology and charts, even though I know it doesn't pay much nor I would go anywhere with it. It's like a drug that keeps me numb a bit for the time being. I need to kick myself out of it, but how?
I need to think of something to do indoors. The weather in the morning is still "graceful" and might allow for some walks here and there before the sun even rises up (which makes it hard for special filters like IR or UV) but nevertheless, it is something to seek (I hope!). I just wish for one thing at the moment: Something to block my antennae from receiving bad vibes to calm my mood swings down…

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…

 

Kika XI…

Honestly, I was too tired to even start typing this blog post. Thus, probably this one would be somewhat a short post. I think there is nothing weird with being tired, recalling my usual back pain sometimes, and my hectic life or routines everyday. There had been days that I wouldn't eat any lunch or dinner even. Anyway, it is time now for Kika's photo challenge, and this time with Week 11.

Kika XI

At this level of the photo-challenge, I got very busy with my brother and his studies and I barely had the capability or that piece of mind (pun intended) to work with the camera or to think of something new, or even to just edit. Well, editing is what I did but after some long time of searching and reflecting. The theme for the 11^th week challenge was "Weather." And of course, you can't speak about weather, in Kuwait, without speaking about the sun and summer. Because, well, this IS the weather of Kuwait! What else do you expect here?

Sunny

For this photo-challenge, as I've stated before, I didn't take any new shots, but I've referred back to some old shots, specifically some of those that I've shot in the shining morning sun of May of 2020, during a total lock down back then. I remember I was testing all my infrared filters back then and this particular shot was probably made with Neewer IR950 filter (and of course using my modified Canon EOS 7D). To be honest even, it seems, for some good reason, the shot was taken with B+W 043 black filter (UV-pass filter).
If I remember correctly, this image was processed differently back when it was taken in May, but for this particular photo-challenge, I've processed it again with a huge crop to the image to let the focus go to the eyes specifically. Not sure what type of processing I used here but I'm sure it is not the typical IR processing that I would usually follow which typically turns the image into almost a monochromatic one. Adding also some more emphasis on the luster of the eyes.
With this, the photo-challenge almost comes to an end with only one week left. Actually I could've done week 12 here as well but I'll leave it for another week. The last image posted for Week 12 is, again, an old one.

Bubbly

At this point, I come to the bubbles project which I've postponed previously. It's a photo shoot that spanned several days; Trying a new method or technique every now and then. The final result was more than 90 images (which have been processed and published).

Final setting

In the process, I've tried several ways to light the bubbles and also worked with 2 lenses (50mm and 100mm macro). I'd say though that the 100mm macro did fit most of the shots. Those shot with the 50mm needed a great deal of crop. Now, I don't want to go on with the story in length, but the goal initially was to shoot a bubble at the bursting moment. Though I succeeded only with 2 shots but nevertheless, the collection of these colorful bubbles was worth the lengthy work. 

Bubblosphere LXVIII
(one of the bursting bubbles shots)

It would have been better if the bursting shot was done in midair but unfortunately, as usual, I had to work alone. So, most of the work was done on a stable ground (used an oil burner as a base for the bubbles) and I've been moving around, blowing the bubbles and taking the shots.
Speaking of bursting, that calls, of course, to the usage of high-speed. However, that was not done right away. I was actually having some trial-and-errors with the lights and I've been using several lighting methods, and even a handheld beauty-dish to light the bubbles. Anyway, turns out that the perfect lighting angle for the bubbles is to be (as seen in many videos on Youtube) from above. The  final setting can be seen in the image above, where I used a white board hung over the work area to bounce the light from all my speedlites below. I had to do it that way since I don't have a softbox.

Bubblosphere XX
(shot with handheld beauty-dish)

Worth noting that despite this number of speedlites (and the supplies of batteries!), I still needed to raise the ISO a bit to get a proper lighting level in the images. Normal I'd say, since bouncing the light or even diffusing it would cause such loss of power anyway. Though at such moment I would appreciate some light source with AC input instead of DC batteries! Ah well…

Worth noting also that I've been doing some stroboscopic experiments before all of this work as well but the results were not quite to my liking but I've merged several images into a single ones (and I've posted about them few posts ago in Kika's photo-challenge about Colors).
Anyway, to summarize it all, I've made a video containing all these images. If you are reading this and wish to get any of these, you can find the full collection on my Canstockphoto profile (you can also click the signature at the end of this post) and some of them had been accepted as well on 123RF. 

 

 

Finale

As I've stated in the introduction of this post, I've quite lazy (or tired) to type down this post. This makes me think of having a break after doing the last post about Kika's photo-challenge in two-week time from now. Not sure how long this break would be but I think I just need it not only for physical reasons, but also to build up some content as I'm actually too tired to hold my camera or even to think of anything new.
As time is ticking, it seems that I will be back to work around the end of July or the beginning of August. I don't want to start talking about the stress that I'm already living in since I heard the news. I'll be back to the rush hours, and even more, more stress at work because of the events that took place there during our days off (around one year and a half). I'm all alone there and surely ugly things will be hitting the fan. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for sparkles of hope to shine as I'm looking forward to get my medical retirement if possible for retinitis pigmentosa, specially before moving to the new location which further away from my home, and it will surely cause me hectic time in driving to there. So many ideas, so many thoughts, and all cramps my brain rendering me paralyzed. All I can do is pray, and send my heart with hopes across Heavens…

Rolled…

I was really reluctant to type this blog post and I was going to let it be an off-week again, but then I thought maybe I should talk a bit about some of the old images made anew with new processing techniques. But then, I've realized that there is just a tiny pocket of new images that had been taken in the past 2 or 3 months that I've never posted anything about.
I have to admit that I've been lazy with my camera; No motivation whatsoever to even touch it. Anyway, from time to time I would just pick the camera and take a "snap" shot here and there, just because. So, some of the images that will be posted in here don't have any big story behind them, mostly, but merely snap shots and a story of processing…

Roll

So, in case you read my previous post, you did probably see the "king series". During the make of this series which took a span of several days of course (depending on the influx of ideas into my head), there had been some snap shots here and there as I was trying to grease my mood and appetite for photography, again and again.

سُجودْ
(prostration)

Not surprisingly, many of such ideas occur at or after midnight when everything goes quiet in this house. My sleeping pattern during the COVID-19 crisis had been up and down; Once regular, and many times out of sync. Because of coffee abuse I literally drink one mug and just fall asleep right away. Anyway, in one of those nights, I thought of shooting سَجودْ, Arabic for prostration. This kind of shots is not new really, but I'll talk about the story behind this in a bit. It was shot with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, and as you might have guessed already, there was a lot of crop that had been done beside "coloring" or burning parts in the background to hide them. The reason for picking this lens and not any other wide angle lens (e.g. Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5) is the type of distortion that I wanted to apply here, and also the size of the lens so I can place the camera between my legs as I prostrate (my Sigma DG 12-24mm is bulky for such a job!). Despite being somewhat stable, I was actually planning for some tiny movements and that's why I did lengthen the exposure a bit (by adding +2EV) but anyway, with a fisheye lens, movements can be barely visible and this is natural with most wide angle lenses (talking about small movements or shakes here). The rest of the job is, of course, just a story of processing and converting to B&W, and rotating the image upside down. Controlling the light and dark areas was a delicate matter here.

تَسْبيحْ
(glorification)

The shot above, سُجودْ, is in fact a result of pondering at an older shot, تِسْبيحْ (glorification), which was shot with my Huawei Mate 9 phone. It was a long exposure shot, and in my Huawei there are a number of options that would stylize such a long exposure, besides it's light to use and quick (just needed my mini-tripod to put it in front of me). The resolution of the shot, of course, is not comparable to that of a DSLR, specially that the image is done in JPEG and not RAW. Anyway, some user on YouPic noted that "he" can take that photo with DSLR and started to list his gear and whatever that is. Tried to make him understand that I do indeed have the gear required, but it's something done in a whim; Not everything should be professional and done with hi-tech gear. Well, seems he didn't get the idea anyway. But that actually sparked in me the idea of shooting another shot of a similar type. Still, though, I didn't use ND filters with سُجودْ (as he suggested).

Perspective

Then, there was this shot which was done… in the sink of my bathroom. The situation was shaky, I admit; I feared any water drops from the faucet onto the lens, but miraculously, it didn't. Again, Rokinon 8mm fisheye came to the rescue, and again, of course, the final image needed some crop to remove the unneeded edges here. I've placed the camera on a towel at the base of the sink and I've used that to pull it left and right and shoot. It was hard to put that one image that covers my face perfectly, so I kept on shooting and pulls the towel to one direction just a bit and shoot again, and so on. All shots were bracketed for HDR merging later on, so the one you see here, Perspective, is tone-mapped from a HDR slide in fact. In tone-mapping I tried to be moderate as much as possible and still give that grungy (dramatic) look to the image without going crazy with the sliders! I thought also that the blue tint would give it that "medical" or hospital-atmosphere that I usually see in horror movies (I don't watch movies anyway so I might be wrong here). Anyway, the blue tint serves the mood better here more than a warm tone would. Later on, I've even created some anaglyphs out of the shots.

The fun continued (in some other day) and AGAIN, with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. I guess you can tell already how much I love this lens despite my fail in adapting it to some of my landscape shots when I used to travel! Nevertheless, the distortion it provides, does add such a dramatic tension to the image (well, if used correctly and thoughtfully).
So, I picked this lens again and went on trying to find some interesting venture to shoot, and i decided to do some camera motion (again).

So, nothing really special about these shots except for the abstract and I'm actually thinking now to upload them to some stocks. All what was needed here is to fix the exposure time to 1 or 2 seconds, just enough to rotate the camera in my hand for a full circle. As for the colors here (despite shooting the same subject under the same lighting conditions), this is just a change of the white balance (probably when processing the RAW files). More work was done to fix the exposure actually as the images were originally brighter than this (and softer).

Infrared Craze

Been months now with the lock-down (it's easing now but my schedule didn't really change much here) and I got into the habit of going out in the yard to read a book under the sun in the early morning before it gets scorching hot. I also water the plants and all of that; A daily routine (almost). Anyway, there was a time when I wanted to write a post for my Arabic blog about infrared (part 2) and just needed some infrared shots to explain some aspects about this art. So, after doing the "innocent" stuff for that blog post, I've found myself roaming and playing around with these infrared selfies, and I kind of created a path or a style for me here that I might try on other images (portraits and other).

The general aspects of this style are:

• Raise the brightness (by exposure or brightness sliders or even Fill) but without going off the histogram.
• Raise the blacks just to show outlines (or until it kisses the left side of the histogram).
• Maybe just lower the saturation to near B&W. 
• Outside the RAW editing window, the pupils are kept as black as possible with selective (layer masks) editing techniques.

The rest, then, is just a work of contrast (which I would probably set before doing the above adjustments), beside fixing the white balance and other color issues. So in a sense, it is kind of a synthetic high-key done after the fact instead of with speedlites or strobes in a studio. It is important though to realize that the less shadows are there, the better. I've tried this technique already with some older shots done indoors, and the results were not up to the level, but I'll keep trying anyway and see!

Finale

Well, I guess I better make this short at this point. There are some few shots that I did want to talk about but probably I'll keep them for later for now - along with a probable discussion for another style of editing. We'll see if I get the time to do that post in the future!
On a side note, it seems I've totally forgot to mention this item of news, and that is two of my images had been accepted in 16th PSAChina international exhibition of photography, and I've received some emails to provide the original images for display in the exhibition. That does not mean that I've won any award, but simply that these images did pass the judgement or critique and deemed worthy of display. I didn't get involved in any contest for a long time and probably I will not do so in a long time as well, but this display do give me a bit of spark.

The two accepted images: (left) Anxiety, (right) Houdini.
Worth noting that Houdini was marked as inspirational on YouPic as well.

It seems that, at this point, that YouPic can be somewhat an aid for me to judge my images in the future and see what to submit to contests, though I know this approach is not quite accurate, simply because professional photographic circles do not work in that manner, and YouPic is still, after all, a social media website and not a circle of professional photographers whose job is to critique. You can critique on YouPic but I doubt people there would welcome that anyway specially if not asked for it.
Anyway, after receiving the email about the pick, I was asked to submit the originals (for printing I suppose) plus a personal photo. I did all of that, but now, I'm not sure what's next. Would I receive an online catalog (like most contests)? Are my images considered or classified as Honorary Mention? I'm not sure, but we'll see. I might receive some other email containing the catalog. It's funny though to know that both of these images are actually selfies or self-portraits!
On the other hand, there had been some few incidents with my workplace that I didn't talk about before probably but amazingly I'm discovering new things about my life and the whole thing called "work" at this point and this stage. I've realized that some people are simply annoying or causing problems even more when they are further away (and work online)! i kind of feel sicker of my workplace at the moment despite the fact that I didn't go there for months (except for 2 days back in July). This calls my brain again to find a substitute, but as always, most probably the search end up with nothing and be in vain.
As I'm getting closer and closer to 40 (in less than 2 weeks time), I'm looking back at what I've achieved and what not. Some say I've done a lot, yet I don't really see it. They say that 40 is a new time or a new age, and it's like opening a new page of life, and again, I don't see that coming. Maybe I don't want to see? Maybe. However, I'm trying to keep it as real as possible. One of my simplest dreams was to have my own family and stay away from this problematic house and build myself up as I like, yet, all my attempts failed miserably. And reaching 40 does not make the process or the thought of it any better. In fact, I've already abandoned such an idea already and I think I better be on my own. All what I need for now is a home; A place I can call home.

Urú!

Well, I think I will delay my supposed vacation from blogging just a bit and will be posting this blog post, hopefully.
Meanwhile, we were supposed to get back to work partially with things going gradually in the fight with COVID-19. Suddenly, though, things started getting out of hands here and the number of hits is increasing by day as I'm typing these words in what seems to be a second wave. So, Phase I, which was supposed to be ending by June 21^st, is extended further to some unknown time till this moment. Who knows, maybe till the time of posting this, Phase II would in effect (and probably I'll be heading back to work).
Anyway, I was planning to post about a series of shots, which I'm going to call The King Series, but I think I will delay that for now in favor of the shots I've shot on June 21^st for the solar eclipse; My FIRST ever solar eclipse shooting!
However, I have to notify you in advance that this would be a rather short post (or maybe I should say a boring post) because shooting the eclipse was kind of "monotonous". Or in other words, no big deal about it; Nothing special!

Urú!

Sigma DG 70-300mm.

Just before I start, Urú actually means "eclipse" in Irish; Just so you know. Now, I really wished that I would have taken these shots within the framework of a landscape, but this was not possible (of course). Thus, I had to satisfy myself with what I can do at the moment. I Just picked my Sigma 70-300mm lens fitted with B+W 403 UV filter and Kenko's IR Cut filter, and my modified EOS 7D and headed out. I had an idea of using my Rokinon 800mm f/8 Mirror Lens, but abandoned the idea when I remembered the hurdles and hardships involving its focusing (manual) and also no filter would fit that (except for the solar filter maybe), but I really wanted to shoot in ultraviolet here to experience what the outcome would be. Not a big deal though, for sure, but still, it was an experiment to be done!

Rokinon 800mm Mirror Lens,
a.k.a. Barrel lens.

The solar eclipse started around 7:20 a.m. local time, so I was there with my tripod. The other unpleasant part about this eclipse is that it was partial only and not annular. Anyway, I guess I don't have the right to complain here since it's my first time to shoot a solar eclipse.

Triple Eclipse

Kenko's infrared cut filter,
to stop the infrared leakage in
the ultraviolet pass filter.

Now, the ultraviolet and IR cut filter did a good job in blocking the sun, in addition to the high f-number (but this one I was fluctuating between f/11-f/22) and the high shutter speed (settled down later to 8000^-1s). However, the first few shots were bright (too bright) as can be seen from Triple Eclipse. Also, this brightness showed the inner reflection problems (common when you stack filters on a lens), and for this we see here a triple image for the eclipse; One real image and inner reflections in between the filters and the lens. Can serve an artistic purpose but definitely not always.

Stages

As I've stated already, the shoot was a bit boring really: Shoot a series in burst mode, adjust the camera tilt, shoot again. The thing kept on and on. I was hoping though that I would get some details from the sun or its halo when I process the ultraviolet images but I think I did need an extra zoom here (I was shooting at 300mm of course). I wanted to use a teleconverter to shoot at 600mm but then I thought, well, it's my first time; I better shoot with what I'm sure that would work. Adding a teleconverter would reduce the amount of light significantly and adding an ultraviolet filter is not quite a friendly thing, since UV wavelengths are quite sensitive to the glass and are drastically reduced. All in all, it was a good idea to reduce the amount of glass through which the UV must pass. Anyway, the good thing after all is shooting different stages of the eclipse where the moon gradually covered more and more of the sun disk. So, I decided to merge some of these images all together in some artistic way and so it was Stages. Of course, this is not the real path of the sun in the sky; Things were harder in reality as I was following the sun at 300mm. The event started to get closer and closer to the zenith point and things started to get harder for me to look (I was covering my head and the camera's back with a towel). However, at the end, I've decided a video, just so I might do something with it. And I did!

Note: The music comes from Free Music Archive website, and titled Magic Hour by Three Chain Links - Hope I got it all right!

The original video was almost 8 minutes long. Around the end, I got a signal on LiveView warning me about sensor heating, and that's when the video ended as I had to switch the camera off, of course. Anyway, shooting was getting harder at that point as I said as the camera got almost pointing to the zenith.
The problem with the video is that it was not easy to deal with and correct the color shift. I had to process the video several times to make it smaller in size to be dealt with and correct the color using "traditional" approaches (I've edited the video in Photoshop to correct the color in fact), and used OpenShot Video Editor to speed up the video. For some reason this one kept on crashing when I wanted to add the audio track so I had to close it down and head to the traditional Windows Movie Maker to add the audio. Such a mess. This said, I'm not really planning to venture into the world of video yet. Maybe never. Still, this is not the first time I do shoot a video with such filters and correct the colors, I just wish that correcting the White Balance for videos was easier than it is, just like the case with RAW files.

Finale

Well, after this little post about the past solar eclipse, I'm thinking seriously about giving myself a bit of a vacation from blogging for the time being, even though there is indeed some "good" material to post and discuss as I've mentioned before; The King Series, which sadly seems to have been abruptly stopped at the moment. Meanwhile, and for this short vacation from blogging (which I think would be around 2-3 weeks), there is much thinking to be done, and try. Just a side note, I've downloaded GIMP lately and I'm tinkering with it to see how I would adapt to this editor.

In case you don't know what GIMP is, it is a free opensource editor. And like how RawTherapee is somewhat a mimic for Adobe's Lightroom, GIMP is the mimic for Photoshop.

My initial trial with it leaves so much to be desired though it has some sparkle about it and things that got me interested to try out, but first things first and there are some essentials that I need to get around with, like how to edit a RAW file and changing the workspace color (it's dark gray which is not suitable for judging colors). I'm digging still through this and for sure I would need to be going through a lot of Help files and topics.
Beside all this technical mess, there are also some issues I'm working on but maybe it's not a good idea to talk about them right now as I'm actually unaware of the "end" of these issues and whether they are going to lead where I want it to be or not, but it is something that I better work on slow for now, and when the time comes, I'll talk about it in this blog, maybe.
And as with the ongoing crisis and home quarantine, which is more or less active despite the gradual opening and going back to normalcy, I've realized the fact that the hardest thing about isolation is not being isolate or alone at all, but hardships lie in being forced to be with others. I believe this is exactly the real problem with jails and imprisonment; Not confinement itself, but being with others and bearing with them, specially if a person does not get along with much of them.
Despite the lengthy period of time spent at home and not going to work, despite all of that, I still feel the need to get a vacation as if I'm not ready yet to get back to work. As I'm typing these words it has been confirmed that I should go back for one week at least starting from July 5^th to supervise some cleaning and disinfection work, and probably check on some devices. For such a little task under such circumstances, I still do feel not ready for the whole thing as if I didn't take a vacation for months. Which is true in some sense because the months in which I've stopped going to work were mostly spent at home coping and fighting against mood swings… severe mood swings. Maybe this whole thing is a signal that I need to find something, change jobs or resign, or anything. An idea that I had since long time but never been able to step it up further because, simply, there is not much to do out there for people like me. On the other hand, there are even more pressing matters that I deem more important than work and its situation which do require more attention from my side, and yet, they are just afloat without any real vision nor a solution in the near future. These matters are more or less related to the fact of how am I supposed to enjoy life for real, away from the network of mood swings and depression, and re-discovering what love is, in a time when I'm approaching 40 already… if love still exists, that is.

Awareness Month 2020…

Well, I was going to talk more about some stroboscopic shots, but then I remembered that there is one single and essential image that I should talk about a little for this week. That one which I've created specifically for Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month (which is February). So, this one will be a quickie.
I have to say, though, that I'm not quite fond of the shot but I was critically out of ideas, and thought it is better to do something, anything, about it instead of waiting and probably getting over the month without shooting anything related to the topic. However, the basic idea of the shot was: The pains that hide behind the smile. That smile that everyone takes for granted and knows nothing about the things that lie behind.

In shooting this image I've tried to apply some simple designing elements as per what I've read lately (or rather re-read lately) in Learning to Photograph book. Probably there was not much to be done but I will talk about the image with some details.

Hidden Pains

Probably one of the things that I regret (well, kind of) in this image is not working on the black lines under the eyes properly. These were supposed to resemble tears. Anyway, I don't have any make-up artist to help with that so probably I'm pardoned here. As you can see, the image undergone quite some work, and I mean editing work, in Photoshop. So, probably this shifts the image a bit from being a photograph and rather be more like a (graphic) design. The edit involved (beside the usual with any photo) cloning out the eyes. To make things a bit organized, I'll try to summarize the ideas in shooting in this way in points:

• From the beginning I knew I needed some space, so the lens of choice here was Voigtländer 20mm (set to f/10).
• Needed some dramatic look and contrast, so I was inclined to shoot in infrared, using B+W 092 filter. The image was converted to B&W then.
• The camera was placed slightly below the face level and slightly pointing up. This perspective kind of adds exaggeration or gratification to the subject. Not meaning to brag here! It's just a design element at work, in opposition to have the camera look down at the subject which is somewhat delivers a sense of belittling.
• Single speedlite was used on camera (more on that below) with honeycomb grids to focus the light more on the face and the surrounding area, making for a more drastic and dramatic look.
• The hand gesture is added to put some emotion with the way the hand is shaped and also to add some elements in the lower space instead of leaving it blank. But probably I should've used my right hand to go along the face direction, but I'm a leftie and it comes naturally to me to use my left hand!
• The black lines (formed by face-coloring crayon and sprinkled with water) symbolize the dry tears. The hidden tears that is.

The speedlite, though, caused some hurdle and I had to give up on one thing I was trying to do, and that is flashing my back. It was one of these instances that I wished I had a radio-system like the new speedlites do (or with a set of transmitter/receiver). And with my flash cord not working, it was quite hard to trigger the flash behind me without moving it a bit on the side which is not quite the effect I was looking for (even though it does add some good rim lighting). Reflecting the beam off some surface at my back was also out of question since there was much clutter (in my room) and that would show clearly (using a snoot to focus the beam won't do much even). In a nutshell, I had to satisfy myself with only one speedlite on camera.
The rest is then a work for Photoshop, cloning out the eyes, for obvious reasons. Even though the image originally is in B&W, I've found myself adding a bit of tint when uploading the image, once cold tone and once a warm tone but a slight touch that might not be noticeable without a comparison to another version next to it.
Meanwhile, as I was doing many test shots and trying out many poses and angles and adjusting the camera level... etc, I was left with a number of test shots that I refused to delete, and I kept checking them now and then. In fact, some of them did show a glance of a chance for 3D anaglyph work but it didn't work out, but nevertheless, a new idea emerged which is not far from the idea of the original shot; Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Migraine

 As seen in Migraine, the play of Photoshop is in again. Strangely too, the colors look natural despite the shots being taken with B+W 092 infrared filter (usually when fixing the WB the image would look bluish). Migraine was such a play with images really and not a real "project" idea; that sort of thing that you would do in a whim or just for play. Worth noting here that the original image is the reverse of this one. After finishing my edit, I flipped the image just to connect it to reality a bit because most of migraines come to my right side. You can see a trace here for the back flash which created a nice rim light on the right side. However, this was not my aim as I wanted the flash to strike behind my head approximately and not on the side to create a rim light. Some sort of a halo so to say. Nevertheless, I'm having fun on editing these shots whenever I get the time to, specially that I'm doing some experiments on the "cinematic" look that everyone seems to talk about nowadays. So, such test shots are quite useful and one forgotten shot might just happen to be a great one under some effects and circumstances!

Finale

Well, this is about it, with all the RP work, which I don't think it is much of a work here, but the best I could think of then. I'm keeping the work on other projects as well. Hopefully I'll posting about some of these in the coming weeks. On the other hand, I'm also keeping myself busy with editing old shots as I've mentioned above, trying to achieve some of these "cinematic" looks. However, I think there is a change in how I see things when it comes to photography or more precisely when I deal with photo editing. I think for a long time I was held back by the "conditions" of most of photo contest which limits the editing of a photo down to some basic elements. It was something in the subconscious, to edit the photo in such a way that the core is not touched. Right now, thought, I'm willing to step on this limitation and I don't find it "critical" or "unprofessional" to edit a photo to change its nature for the sake of expressing and delivering the desired effect to the viewer, away from the desires of these photography contests. I'm pretty sure that the photos above, Hidden Pains and Migraine won't be accepted as regular photos but as mere edits or creative edits (some contests do have this category along the regular typical ones). Of course I'm not going to over do it, and I shouldn't; Because the basic line here is the idea that needs to be delivered with the photo. I didn't realize how bad the effect is,  for being a member in a photography group which put so much emphasis on contests to get ahead, until this moment. I think I'm glad now that I'm over it and out already.
Among all this work-to-be, my mood swings had been severe at some point. They say, usually, meditating would solve much of these unbalances. But the point is when such swings come along, it's like a Blitzkireg in the brain. The body is virtually paralyzed and nothing can be done or to be focused upon, neither the appetite to do anything (beside eating that is). In the meantime, I'm going around myself and exhausting my brain by thinking of ways to increase the income or find a totally different job, which probably I need to do at some point in my life, sooner or later. My thoughts are even beyond this scheme, for something beyond this place. Changing scenery, AND people as well. That is, to simply reside and start a life in a different place completely. Though it might be simple for some, it is not that easy on my side, as the issues are complex enough to hold me back from a simple vacation outside the country for the time being. The "time being" is a term encompassing 5 years so far. And more to come…