+5…

Did I pass 2 weeks already without blogging? I guess! I really didn't count the days. I've been under pressure lately which made me unable to do much even with editing my old photos. The largest portion of this stress has passed (somewhat) already, but some deal of it remains still. More about that a bit later.
I don't think I will be posting much in this post except for an announcement, and as I go on, I might think of posting a bit further about some of my latest edits!

Announcement

I think I've mentioned in previous posts about new uploads to Mostphotos. So, here it is, I've uploaded about 3 new panoramas (plus 2, adding to 10 panoramas uploaded months back). So, the total right now is at 15 panoramas at large sizes, suitable for printing as fine art pieces. I think I didn't post much about these extra 5 panoramas, so I'll try to do so here right now. 

Failakan Sunset

Earlier (as in last month or before!) I've added Failakan Sunset  to Mostphotos (exclusively), and it is an old (half-way) panorama shot over a ramp, which is used to slide boats to the water, on Failaka island. It was taken in 2012. I say "half-way" here as it was not a full panorama, but merely 2 rows was shot, and the third one was not shot (probably because at that time it was getting pretty dark on this depopulated island). Originally done in HDR, but this time it is done with singles of RAW files; All edited and stitched. Of course the colors are edited here and in fact they caused me a problem because when merging layers the appearance of the image would change drastically. I had to re-work the colors after merging (and at 100% zoom to ensure the accuracy of the colors). At 300 dpi, the panorama is close to 102cm by 36cm. I think if I was to print this panorama I would print it on a glossy material, preferably metal. Just one must be careful about the reflections from light fixtures. 

Entry
(Slí Isteach)

Then I added Entry, or as I like to call it in Irish: Slí Isteach. This is a panorama shot in 2014 inside a little defensive tower in the remains of Aughnanure castle in Oughterard, Co. Galway. It was my 3^rd time in Ireland, and my 2^nd time in Aughnanure (the first being in 2009). Generally speaking, this projection is relatively new for this panorama. I did many projections and styles out of this panorama, but this is the first time I do a simple vertical one like this, and centering it at the door. At 300 dpi, this panorama is almost 33cm by 75cm. I had to crop quite a portion to balance the image here and remove unnecessary or incomplete details. I would consider printing this on glossy metal but one has to be careful with the lighting surrounding this; Otherwise it would turn just like a reflective mirror with such dark areas. If one would want to go safe with this one, matte never hurts anyone!

Solar Towers

Then, we have Solar Towers, which took me quite some time to put the keywording for, and I'm not sure why. I think I was passing through some "mind-boggling" phase or something. Anyway, I did the keywording after all and here it is. Of course this is an old panorama and it was done in HDR before but this time, like the rest in this series, it is stitched out of single RAW files. The projection here, though, is the new thing as I didn't do such a projection before out of this panorama specifically. I had some struggles of course with the tripod and its shadows (like in the original) and I had spent quite some time fixing it. At 300 dpi, the size is about 42cm by 76cm. I tend to think that glossy printing of this one would add to the vibrancy of the blue tones and adds more overall contrast.

Beyond Abzu

I rolled back in time and checked some of these winter adventures I did back in 2012, and found some worthy stuff (but with a great deal of post-processing work and fixing), such Beyond Abzu here. Beyond Abzu was one of my first night panoramas and I still remember that cold winter night when my feet got frozen by the cold water. As the processing went on, the general tint of the image got green and that inspired a sense of mystery in me, hence the name Abzu (also Apsu) which is the name of the primitive waters, supposedly, from which the world was created in Sumerian myths. In some way, the whole surrealism in this panorama was pointing to that meaning in my head so I gave it that name. At 300 dpi, the panorama is about 37cm by 85cm, and I would go with a glossy print for this one though I would fear for the level of noise here to be exaggerated. I worked on cleaning the noise moderately because there is a limit, after which details might disappear. However, this panorama still bear some dark aspect and dark areas might work as mirrors in glossy prints,specially metallic ones. But I would imagine it would be so vibrant if printed on metal!

Return to Nammu

Lastly, there is Return to Nammu which I consider like Part-2 of Beyond Abzu. In time, these two panoramas are not far off; Both were shot in the same winter, and both in January of that year. However, with Return to Nammu, the sky was a bit darker than in Beyond Abzu specifically because I shot this facing the sea and the moon and the city lights were relatively further away. This allowed for some star constellations to appear in the sky in the original shots and here I tried to process the panorama and clean the noise without touching the stars. Thus, they appear in the original panorama, despite being shot within the vicinity of the city, but only when zoomed in at 100%. Unlike Beyond Abzu though, this one looks quite colorful, and yet mysterious a bit because of the dark night element and the stars, and that moon that shines like a rising sun (but in the middle of the night!). At 300 dpi, the size is about 85cm by 38cm. Print-wise, I guess it would do good in glossy as well as matte. The green hue here, as I see it, would be a vibrant one on a glossy media, specially a metallic one. 

Well, this is for now 5 new uploads to my Mostphotos, which are exclusive to Mostphotos. The links are up there to visit the profile or the specific images, in case you are reading this and wish to get one of these.
My capabilities right now are not quite aligned to provide such printing services and shipping, so I let these images to be purchased on their own as big original files in JPEG format to be printed on whatever the client would like.

Finale

Well, probably I can't get on so much with this post but I believe the announcement above and the details mentioned are just about enough in length for this post; Let's not make it longer!
I am currently on a leave from work for 2 weeks but not for resting or fun, but rather for stress and tracking. After a long wait, I've finally received my "disability certificate" which took a bit more than 2 weeks actually, and finally I was ready to submit my request for a grant of medical retirement from my workplace. But things weren't easy as I hoped for; Suddenly, solving a problem 2 or 3 more problems would occur and some more responsibilities regarding my work are added to the mix, which made every single passing day count. As I'm typing these words, I've finally submitted my papers by email (after a little adventure in going to the new campus, my future workplace supposedly) and a recent phone call confirmed to me that my papers had been signed and ongoing in the process. I just hope the big part of this is over with just before my two-week leave ends. Bureaucracy is not in a friendly terms with my time.
For this reason, and because of all of that stress, I don't think I would be blogging on a regular basis, but surely I will try as much as I can, at least once every other week. Who knows, maybe by the next blog post here, I would be completely free…

Achadh na nIúr...

Well, I didn't post anything yesterday mainly because of the "surprising" weather that struck me on my head yesterday. My plan in the beginning was to head to the downtown and buy some stuff, but then seeing how the weather was nice in the morning I thought maybe I should stretch some muscles and head to the castle. However, half way to there, the rain started to hammer. I continued to walk as I was hoping the shower would stop, but it increased further and it came to me that I won't be able to change lenses that way! Thus, I had to head back home with a shower look! Once I reached home, the shower stopped - talk about Irish sense of humor; weather-wise.
Anyway, after coming back home I did order a cab and headed to downtown to get some food. However, I came back and noticing how the day was beautiful AFTER the rain, I decided to head out near the lake and do some shots and wait there till it's dark and do some long exposures. Before the darkness I did a little macro shots with my 50mm and 30mm tube.

I will try to work with those long exposures later when I get back home. Unfortunately, the long exposures done yesterday were not much dynamic because of the slow wind; but the weather has surely gotten colder than before!

Now, as for today, I headed as planned to the Aughnanure castle and not much has changed since then, but this time I'm in with a proper gear for panoramas. Because of the technical issues I'm having here, I won't be able to work on these panoramas of course. In total, there were 3 panoramas done: 2 interior and one exterior. Among those, a panorama was taken from the topmost floor in the tower of Aughnanure castle which, in fact, is the most interesting one for me because of the wooden roof structure. Back in 2009 I did take an awkward partial panorama for this "room" but of course without the tools I do have right now - which made it kind of useless and I don't remember stitching this panorama at all back then. Now, the chance is better. I did even take a shot for the roof (and the small balcony) with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, but unfortunately I couldn't center it exactly - specially with this showcase in the middle of the room (which is sad really because it corrupts the view completely!).

There was also some work on single shots here and there, exterior and interior, and even some infrared shots. On the way back home there were some extra infrared shots (during which the rain hammered heavy for a while!). But I will keep all that for later. Now, going down from the tower was such a big deal and an exhausting "workout" - and I do think I do have claustrophobia now! Well, if I don't have it already.

The plan now, as it seems, is left for activities out of Oughterard, which means as well lot of money for the cab drivers (not good with buses). Beside that, I might get the chance to visit the Kylemore Abbey (which seems it is even further away from Cong town to the north of Oughterard, in Co. Mayo). Also, I wanna check with my host for a chance to visit Inchagoil island again - and by the way, the rooms in the Waterfront B&B are named after islands, and my room right now is the IInchagoil room!

Alexander 6, V117.

Well well! What do you know! It's Thursday! TGIT!
I won't waste much time here writing, since I'm going out of here so soon, but just few updates follow.
I've finished reading one of the books just now. That book about geological matters and fossils. It's an amazing journey really. Also, I'm about to finish reading the other book, Alain Briot's book. The discussion at the end of this book is so fierce with so many marketing and financial issues. In the meantime, I try my best to understand how the print works and quality issues, after printing several panoramas now with my simple HP Photosmart inkjet. Small panoramas, nothing serious really. Yet, some ideas and visions visited me while reading about marketing issues in this book. Mowahaha. Ahem...

However, finishing some books doesn't mean I'm totally free. I got another list of books at hand however. Anyway, their time will come.
Not much photography or photos to be processed as for yesterday, but seems people are more in love with the black and white images. One of those was in fact a slide in a panorama, but I had to take it out separately since the panorama to be processed was not good (due to some shaky images).

The Path to Aughnanure (or to Oughterard)

A slide from a panorama

Doing things in black and white gives you a sense of documentation really. Something very important being documented. This is what I feel.
Bigstock refused some images, well, it was not a surprise at all, but anyway their reasoning was acceptable at least (unlike other websites). Some of the images could use some adjustment and re-submitted even, while some others are not of interest (to them). That's fair enough for me.

Had some time to write something new, in a haste, after some imaginary story that I've made in my mind. Well, it is imaginary for me, but who knows, it might be true for others who lived in such situations; losing someone by force...
I called it 1945, signifying the end of WWII. No need to link it I guess, unless you would like to check the rest of my profile which I guess won't interest you anyway! Thus, here go the words...

1945

Was it, or was it not,
a rainy day, when I met you?
Everything was so fast, so quick,
so much I didn't notice, but you.
And then, you held my hand, Martha,
a hug then I felt, no end was for it.
You passed your hand on my cheek, Martha,
and Aufwiedersehen Geliebt you said.

Oh, the Nazis are gone,
so well the Soviets.
No Normandy now or then,
no explosives.
The two are one, Einigkeit in the sky.
The banners are here, all fly so high.
Been ages now, since that time,
Do you hear my rhyme?
Oh Martha.

Then you slipped into that train,
to somewhere, far away from Dresden.
"Wohin Geliebt?" I said so in vain,
and the utter came on with "Zu Leben".
"Freiheit" they're singing now, O Martha,
and not many of them know you.
But I'm here always and you know, Martha,
and an Ave I'll always sing for you.

Oh, the Nazis are gone,
so well the Soviets.
No Normandy now or then,
no explosives.
The two are one, Einigkeit in the sky.
The banners are here, all fly so high.
Been ages now, since that time,
Do you hear my rhyme?
Oh Martha.

Sure we'll wander high,
O Martha.
In between the clouds,
O Martha.
Just wait not so long,
I'll follow you along,
O Martha.

__________

2785. he saw huge collections of books and papers
2786. time forgot about such objects long ago
2787. and the dust filled the air with the smell of history
2788. Alexander with a surprise said: what are all of those?
2789. Agdalán answered: these are records of history,
2790. history that expands for thousands of years before you,
2791. everything people made and everything they invented,
2792. every move they made and every battle was made, all here
2793. Alexander said with a surprised tone: should I read it all?!
2794. Agdalán giggled a bit and said: no my dear, this is to see,
2795. your Charnagút was the key to all of this history,
2796. a history that will one day be spread again on Daynur,
2797. when the people and the the tribes are ready for it,
2798. your sword is the key to this history, assigned by the fathers,
2799. the sword had been moving from hand to hand,
2800. father to son, from son to a grand son, until you come,
2801. your time was a time when Ayvars got mixed with others,
2802. and thus you became a Caqobian, but with an Ayvar blood,
2803. you are the answer for the prayers of my fathers and myself,
2804. that one man from our lineage will unite Daynur again and do good,
2805. thus, God answered the prayers and now you are here to see,
2806. your own history and why you are here my dear,
2807. and for your own goodness, these secrets are for you now,
2808. you can do whatever you like to do with them now

Alexander 6, V105.

Hello. How are you folks? Hope your day is, or was, better than mine. Not really that bad day, but I hate it when I have to walk in the sun for about 15 minutes with a trolly carrying tank that is supposed to be filled with liquid Nitrogen on a rigid ground and with cars blocking my way so I had to take the long way and then wait up for more than 10 minutes under the sun waiting for one sucker to come along but he never showed up despite my phone call prior to my arrival. As surplus for this day, I have a painful wrist that is never seem to be cured whatsoever.

Away from this fuss, I'll get back to photography here now. Yesterday, and after reading the chapter of the black and white in Mastering Photographic Composition, Creativity, and Personal Style, it jumped to my mind that I can probably fix some images who really didn't take up much of my time or imagination and try to fix it in black and white and see the reaction from people I know and how they feel about it.
One of the trials I went on with was merging some images of Aughnanure Castle from the outside into a 32-bit black and white. Then I figured out there is no much sense in that in fact, or maybe little sense! I mean, HDR images are supposed to provide an open EV range in a colored image, but in black and white the EV is limited in general by the nature of the system itself. But does that mean that a HDR in black and white would provide more contrast range (i.e. High Definition) more than the usual black and white? One of the definitions of the HD it is a measure of the levels from black to white (or vice versa) that can be seen or viewed by the device. That is, if some device can view White, Black, and 8 levels of gray in between in a precise manner, then we can say the contrast here is 1:9, 1 being for white, and 9 is the total levels that come after white to the final black. At least this is what or how I understood it when Christian Bloch explained it in his book.

I don't think HDR represent a "HD" in black and white though, I've never heard of this term! Anyway, I was doing that for that specific image trying to eliminate the fuss in the moving branches which introduced a ghosting effect (they were moving because of the breeze). Unfortunately, it didn't work out at all in several softwares, and even in PhotoAcute which is supposed to be good (as reported) with removing moving objects.

Image under inspection

Later on, I've just given up with this image and started to look for something else. This time, I've picked one that really inspired me with the strong presence of the light in it. It was also taken for HDR (3 bracketed images), but here, I have to deal with it in black and white.

Second target. Inside the tower in Aughnanure.

Here, there was some shake but it was fixed simply in Photoshop's "auto-align" command. Now, I have 3 images at hand with different shades of gray (remember, they are all converted to black and white). I was hesitated which one to work on. There were some details here and there that I wanted to include in this image, like the branches that show up on the roof of the tower. This gives me somehow a sense of hope in the image. To go around this, I went on doing a manual labor with manual tone-mapping. It is not a HDR toning, but rather stacking your 3 images in 3 successive layers and apply some masks. I might explain in details in some other post maybe? Maybe! However, the result was good (after doing also some contrast and sharpening), and I reduced my choice into two images, that I have to choose from to upload and try my luck with the B&W now! The first was the black and white version of the first image with EV equal to +0, and the second of course was the "tone-mapped" black and white composed of the 3 images altogether.

Left: +0EV black and white. Right: Tone-mapped black and white.

Most people agreed on the right one being the most acceptable, I think mainly because of the dramatic effect involved. The story was not over by then but I thought maybe a sepia tone would be favorable to add some old or ancient effect, since the place is a historical monument.

Left: Sepia version. Right: Regular version.

The response from people that I've tested these images with was just amazing! I've never thought that black and white images can do such things to the imagination! Most people liked the sepia version for many reasons, but there also some people who liked the pure black and white version because simply it is either reflective for purity, or mystery.

This said now, it encourages me highly to dig for more from my old RAW files and try to work it out in B&W in a suitable manner, providing of course a good light and a nice composition at least!

__________ 

2497. Alexander thought for some minutes about it
2498. and he thought about the ground that she meant
2499. until they passed over a dark land with dead trees
2500. so harsh and lonely it was that Alexander's heart jumped
2501. then he asked: is this the land of the promised Hermit?
2502. and Aramramátáníth answered: yes indeed it is,
2503. but the time to see him is not due yet at this hour,
2504. the night must fall and a moon must rise upon the mount
2505. it is then when you can see your promised man,
2506. because he spends his days in worshipping,
2507. while at night time he takes a rest for his body
2508. Alexander asked then: and why his land is so dark?
2509. it gives the scent of sadness into the soul of a human!
2510. then Aramramátáníth answered: do not blame the man,
2511. verily he is a lonely old man in this spot of Uhir Daynur,
2512. his arms are his companions and his legs are his carriers,
2513. he eats the plants of the desert and barely brings water,
2514. in this dry land only wild animals live and fight,
2515. this is the Hermit's life in Uhir Daynur, poor man
2516. then Alexander asked: but why he has to live here?
2517. I am sure there are plenty of places in this life
2518. thus Aramramátáníth answered: O dear Alexander,
2519. you should know by now that there are some people,
2520. devoted themselves for nothing but to God

Alexander 6, V27.

Trying to keep my camera busy (as well as my computer) but unfortunately that did not work for today's post. Anyway, I've made an experiment and waiting to get out of my workplace just to continue working on it back home. This time, I made a 360 panorama of the guest room at home. Relatively the take was easy, but stitching so far had proved to be harder than I thought, and with using a fisheye lens!

The last time I made a panorama of the yard in my house, I was actually using the fisheye lens in a landscape (normal) position,

but this time and in order to take a wide range vertically, I went on catching the whole thing in portrait position in a circle of 360 degrees. I know that I don't have a VR head, but I think in other situations this would be much easier than what it looks now. I made a template from the original RAW files (2 of them from each group of bracketed exposures), and yet none of them sounds that good for the stitch. For this matter now, I've posponed my idea of buying Panorado for the time being, and I really want to get this right. The general view sounds fine, but it will require some load of work with the cloning tool in Photoshop to fix some stitching errors in some corners. Could it be that the Spherical projection is not a good one for this image? Or the whole thing is really related to the parallax error? Although, from what I see on location, the parallax should not be a problem... not a heavy one at least. Been in worse conditions before, like taking a panorama of that small chamber back in Ireland:

The chamber of the small tower in Aughnanure Castle field.

This chamber was so hard for many things; a) small space I could barely rotate around myself, b) working in AF mode (autofocus) was hard and even harder to switch to manual mode to sharpen the image, because I couldn't look at the viewfinder of the camera all the time, c) the curvatic ceiling caused many erratic results when stitched in PTGui.

In the guest room panorama, the shot was run on 3 rows on different angles running around in a circle. The first row, as usual, was the middle one, or the basic one if I should say. This time I couldn't really follow the dial on the tripod head so, I merely followed the overlapping rule of the focus points inside the viewfinder. Later on, however, I managed to rotate the camera in segments of 30 degrees.The light outdoors, which showed through the windows, was dark as the night was falling. I was hoping to make it brighter really, and hence I should have done it in daytime before the dusk, but my busy schedule and home improvments tasks around the house left me exhausted and could not do a thing until few minutes before dusk, and after that the night tends to fall quickly. I wouldn't be able to race the night fall with such sluggish movements like that ones I do behind the camera! I'm trying my best to work faster, and neater, if I ever could.

A piece of advice people. Go on and download the latest OpenOffice. It is free, and sometimes when Microsoft screws you up with Word or Excel applications, the OpenOffice can be the solution for you. I can't say it is the best, as there are some options in Word or Excelt for example that cannot be found in OpenOffice, but also vice versa is true. I had for days now tried to do a simple formula in Excel and I thought I was doing something wrong when suddenly I did the same thing in OpenOffice Calc (the equivalent for Excel) and ta-da! It's all done and with a blink of an eye! Get IT! I think there are also some add-ons provided by various users to do some jobs, but I didn't try any really.

__________

625. then one night came and the moon was full
626. and with harsh winds blowing the moon became red
627. and the dust was reddish and smelled like metal
628. thus Alexander knew he was in the spot indeed
629. but what more to do if he could not know a thing
630. then he remembered the gesture of Ázilis to Charnagút
631. thus Alexander raised the sword up high and looked
632. to understand the meaning of all what is happening
633. then he noticed a ray of red light striking down on the sword
634. like how a magnet stone attracts the iron pieces
635. then he moved the sword left and right, up and down
636. but the ray goes wherever the sword goes
637. and the hero remembered the words of Ázilis
638. thus he sat down and waited with a hard breath
639. and the dust almost went into his lungs and eyes
640. then he pointed the sword to the ground
641. and he rested his hands over its pommel
642. and the sword went easily into the ground
643. like how a sharp knife cuts into the meat
644. and the land started to shake violently
645. so violent that would crush houses to the depth of Earth
646. and the Earth cracked like a piece of wood under an ax
647. while Alexander jumped to one side in a fast move
648. while the Earth kept on tearing apart from North to South

Alexander 4, V6. Last.

Ugh! Another failure!
Doing the experiment with filters and fixing aperture and time was not a good choice, despite the fact that I got some nice images with differences in exposures and lighting. The main problem is that, I never though of the consequences of the EXIF data that would be attached to the images, and which are used primaily as a source to calculate the exposures relations. Hence, both softwares, Photoshop and Photomatix, had a problem with setting the exposure values to the images even though the images are clearly different in the light level.
In photoshop it was even harder to set up the values manually (even though it gives you the option to do so), but Photomatix, was a bit more flexible in changing the values.
The other problem was that changing the filters is not a practical mean at all, specially when the lens are on manual mode (auto-focus mode is hard to work with in such darkness if not impossible at all!). When moving the filter in and out of the filter holder,  there is a great chance to change the focus of the lens a bit after fixing it (and for someone clumsy as me, it was one hell of thing to fix the camera in the first place!).
There were two methods of shooting that I followed, and hence I made 2 series of shots related to each other (but when combining I felt somehow free to combine some elements from this series with others from the other series). The methods were like (of course with a flash pointing somewhere):

1. Stacking the filters altogether and start the shoot. Then, remove one filter and shoot again, and doing so until all filters are removed.
2. Shooting each filter alone without stacking them altogether.

However, with putting and removing, I tend to move the lens lil bit and that made the focus get corrupted and the image was little bit blurry. Tone-mapping, was another disaster.

One of the series, tone-mapped with Photomatix

One of the series, tone-mapped with Photoshop

As you can see from the previous examples, the image was blurred and not sharp enough, and as for the second tone-mapping with photoshop, it is a complete disaster! You might say "I have the choice to not tone-map it to that level," but actually it was hard. This is the most reasonable curve I could get. By the way, it was one file saved in Photomatix as OpenEXR (PIZ compression), then tone-mapped in both programs.

The reflection of the flash is still annoying despite the fact that it was pointing downwards toward the ceramic floor (but in some shots I made it point to my back and up and to the other direction away from the censer).

I'm not sure I will do other experimenting today, as I am out of ideas really, but I might work a bit on some photos from Ireland, as I stopped for some time for the time being now.

I finished yesterday one of the hardest images that I encountered so far (because of my memory problems). It is the Aughnanure Castle Field again (360 panorama) but, in another projection;

The colors are not so accurate since I saved it as a GIF to preserve the transperancy. Anyway, the ring shape is not what I was intending to have really, and I was aiming more at a perfect sphere, and that's why this type of projection is called commonly as "The Little Planet Projection." However, because of the large size of the image and the hardships for making such a texture to fill up the middle area, made me neglect this idea. The image was originally around 20,000 pixels (height and width almost like a square). Yes, twenty thousand. I've reduced the size after tone-mapping to ~9000 pixels, but that was not enough still for my sick memory, so I settled down to ~6000 pixels. Of course the final output was also converted to 8-bit to work on some other adjustments, as it was also hard to work in 16-bit with such memory. I'm thinking seriously of changing the whole system, but after the difficulties I had yesterday with my connection and setting up my router back again, I was thinking "no man thank you not now."

It's TGIT time!

__________

121. and when the events calmed down
122. and Alexander was back again to normal
123. the prisoners of Zimúrá were taken away
124. to stand in before Alexander, the hero
125. and there they told him their secrets
126. their tongue and their strings of writing
127. and how are they born and buried
128. some of them are burned when they die
129. and some others are buried in trees trunks
130. and Alexander commanded the wisemen
131. to record everything they see and learn
132. and when all documents were recorded
133. he ordered the beasts to be cleared out
134. and their bodies shall be hung on the trees
135. for they are children of sinners and beasts
136. and no use of them in this life and this world
137. and thus Alexander wanted to make them a lesson
138. for the other beasts and cruel hearts in the place
139. and then he ordered what had remained of his men
140. to dig up graves for what is left over of the bodies
141. and the mourning for three days started
142. and he cried with a saddened heart
143. for the lost of his beloved, and the lost of loyalty
144. while injuries were handled and supplies were taken

   

Alexander 3, V4.

Today was a semi-idle day for me. Not so much work done to the transliteration of Alexander's story VI, but yet, I've been moving here and there in work-related issues.
I was out to submit some items for calibration to the RPD (Radiation Protection Department) and I was thinking of going back home just to check my PC which I left it operating last night. I was stitching a 360 panorama view for the castle of Aughnanure and its field (again), and since the operation was so, so, so slow, I decided to leave it like that and eventually slept earlier than regular days. Only 3 images are left to complete the next packet of picutres from Ireland, but yet I'm scattered here and there and barely completed the work on one image yesterday, which actually, I don't belive it is much of a good one!





In my office, despite this idle behavior, I was busy reading and reading about the medieval Middle East in Wikipedia. Specifically about the Abbasid dynasty. So much there to be read that I was so amazed of that time and how much cruelty was involved. The decline was not any better however. As a Shiite Muslim, I can't say I'm so very fond of these dynasties that took the role of guiding the nations before, but mainly, reading such stories and history makes my mind burn with imagination as to the events that took place. There is a movie in the story of every Abbasid Caliph (or even in the revolutionists at the time of any of those caliphs). Sometimes I do ask myself even, "did those people have time to smile even?".

Yesterday was a Monday as you all know. Yes. And you know how much I like Mondays... NOT! Right after arriving at home and before I even complete half of my lunch, I got a phone call to release the poor cat from a pest-glue that got stuck to his legs. After fierce shouts I was able to remove the glue in hardship, as the wild animal was jumping here and there thinking I'm going to hurt him, although I used to serve him food on a daily basis. His beautiful fur now is corrupted with spots of dirts all over since he escaped to the mud and sands in the house after being released from the glue. Poor guy.

__________

73. Carnúg went with his horse racing the winds

74. until he reached a place between the two tops

75. where Dágh, the red, lied over his right side

76. and on his left side lied Daghíl, the white

77. he took a look over the valley of Malúnet

78. you can see from afar he was paralyzed in his place

79. his legs got frozen and his voice got trapped in his throat

80. it was some time until he got his power again

81. then he got back to his camp sweating like a waterfall

82. everyone gathered around him waiting for his tongue

83. but his tongue was stuck like a piece of wood

84. Alexander passed his hand over his head gently

85. and with a smooth voice asked him to go on

86. Carnúg shouted then: Blood! Blood!

87. everyone looked to the other in amazement

88. Carnúg continued: the valley is full of blood,

89. and there are creatures from other lands

90. another lands not similar to us by any way

91. they eat whatever comes their way in any way

92. barbarians with no one like them

93. some as tall as trees in the forest

94. and some as dwarf as rocks of the desert

95. nude never heard of a cover for their bodies

96. and their smell is that of the fresh blood

What a vacation...

What a busy week. It was a good thing that I've decided to take a leave from work for one week to do all the business related to my car leasing back again. I hate cars, this is for sure.
After 3 days of struggling I managed to lease the same car for one extra year and this time no automatic deduction via the bank but I have to do it myself, manually, either personally or by online. I hope their online service is as reliable as they said! The bad thing is, when I tried to pay for the first pay by visa, the card didn't work there and I had to pay by k-net (i.e. directly from my account). Judging from later events and how I used the visa card many times in many places afterwords, I got a feeling that I was fooled by the guy behind the counter. The visa card worked perfectly in several occasions and never failed to!


However, I had this little semi-vacation for myself; sleeping as much as I want, but yet I had to wake up early most of the days in this passing week. I had a plan to go to Miskan island alone yesterday but I didn't feel like it and I preferred to stay home (and in fact I slept afterward), plus the weather was (and still) windy. Might not be a good time for cruising in a ferry.


However, yesterday was not a completely idle day just like that in fact. I woke up in the morning and went out of home just right after the morning prayer and up to Soog Sharg. Don't remember that place? Well, here it is:



I had a plan earlier to take a photo for the parking lot just in front of this mall. I liked the view of these columns carrying light lanterns with a background of purple hue at dawn, and for this, timing was so very important.
I speeded up my way to there and parked some where as much isolated as possible and went on clicking with my camera in many angles and then finalizing my work with a hasty work of panorama. All shots were taken with bracketing exposures between -2 and +2, and I was flipping the aperture size here and there. The light was strong since I was close to one of the columns so I think those images taken with a large aperture were not so much what you would call, innovative. While those with smaller aperture made a star or a sparkle around light sources.

Large aperture (small f-number)

Smaller aperture (high f-number)

The disaster in fact was, when I got back home I discovered that all my shots were taken with ISO 800, and that gives a big amount of noise or grains, so I had a hard time combining the images for HDR (which increases the grains almost like triple) and working on cleaning them and such (which is never perfect anyway specially with such large number as ISO 800). Photomatix was not much of a help in fact because the noise levels became so much exaggerated and its internal "noise reduction" did not make any wonder. Thus I had to refer to the typical HDR merging in Photoshop, which I don't like much, but I had to.

As for the panorama, and because of the problems mentioned afore, it was also a hard task to make one and also it is not perfect at all with many errors. After all, I gave up the idea of combining HDR images (in OpenEXR format) and stitch them together, but I got a hold of the +2EV sequence and that, to my eyes, was the best solution. As for the errors, I tried to do my best with Photoshop but yet, it was not much of a good work. It is sad to see nice colors gone that way with erratic stitching (and mainly because of my lack of proper tools);





The funniest thing in all of that was the security guys in the place. In Kuwait, you can't take a photo of your own house I believe without a permission of some sort. When I finished shooting the panorama and was on the go and collecting my stuff, this security guy came to me asking me where do I work and whether these photos for some magazine or for some newspaper, but I just replied with "I'm a hobbyist, and this is for myself". The guy couldn't do anything and just wished me good luck! I went into my car blasting with laughter!
You might think that a permission is needed indeed because it is a private property, but it is not. It is a public parking lot and a permission should not be necessary, specially that no trade marks are shown in the image or anything. However, I got away with it this time, I don't know if I can do it another time though! Imagine yourself being a hobbyist and required to make a permit for everything that your eyes see as beautiful... this is ridiculous.

In the mean time I'm still not finished with Ireland and the Irish beauty. There are still some issues not settled about some of the images and panoramas. Panoramas taken from Ireland are a critical matter since I can't go back and take the pictures again, so I try to spend more and more time with my images and try to make them as much acceptable as possible. At least to some viewers.






Some of these images are repeated as I added them beforem but this time I think they got more enhanced colors. Not all people appreciate the weird-looking tone-mapped HDR images, so I try to keep them as much natural as possible.
On the other hand, there was a great deal of a chance to make my first spherical panorama (i.e. 360x180) but again because of stitching errors and technicality, I had to reduce this dream to simple 360 panorama. The panorama is for the small tower in Aughnanure castle from the inside. The panorama makes the space looks so wide open, but the truth is, I could barely move inside with my camera!



Also, while flipping through many of the effects and coordination systems, I discovered that I would get some nice effect with a "circular" panorama (not spherical);



It has that nice look for peeking through a keyhole I guess! Now this panorama is what I call a hard stitching process. It took overnight to be done. I know for prefessionals this time is nothing, but to me and for my humble poor PC, this is too much really.
With this, I should try to examine all my choices when I do any panorama even if not a 360 one.

As I'm not going to go out today, I might write some words in my diary which I didn't write anything in it for long time now (since my back from Ireland!). I shall see to it if I can do something about the translation work with Alexander's story... if I had the power (or urge) to. I'm almost close to finishing it and I hate the feeling of laziness just when the work is about to be done. But this work, when done, will open the gates for a heavy load of work to be done later, specially with the awaiting website for Ayvarith conlang.

The Birdy...

First day of the week. Quiet working conditions, but tiresome mind and body.
The yield for today was the usual 2 verses in translation, and yet I cannot write ay poem or any story, just trying to so something with my black ink pen.

The sketch above is something I did last week, and of course out of boredom as usual. I called it the bird from hell. I don't know really how I do it or why I do it, it is just my hand works by itself. I thought it is a good idea to make a vector image out of it for Fotolia, and after all, as usual, it was rejected. I think it is time to move on and look for other sites to post my pictures and photos, otherwise, nothing will spread. Despite what people say about my photos, they are always rejected (while shaky images get accepted). I wonder if I can find myself another business with such photos.

I decided to give it a try again with the image that made my life hard enough till now, that is the window of Aughnanure castle which was taken on several parts (66 images each composed of 3 shots, totaling 198 shots). Now, I'm trying a new approach and hoping my PC's memory will aid me on this. This time, I worked on converting the shots into a form of reduced HDR images converted to 8bits (which I discovered later on to be really 16-bit images and the software did not do as told). I reduced the sizes of the 66 images by 70%, but I do not have a tool to batch-convert the files into 8-bit images, and that forces me to do all the photomergy operation with the original 16-bit images and then convert the whole thing into 8-bit, if the operation was complete that is. I still get memory issues to cope with.

On the other hand, my stupid AIM suddenly disconnected me and never want to join the network again. I can join AIM in the laptop, and mobile, but not in own PC. I tried to re-install it, but yet no luck, and THAT screws my mind a bit. Let's hope I can do something about it today when I get back from work... yeh... work...

Last Friday there was unpleasant incidents at home that made me really think of killing someone... why do I always get the burden on my back? And why people do remember me only when troubles come? I do need to change this...

Wireless...

It is my first week at work and I was burning my fat, but not in work, but in some other matters. At work I'm still trying to get my previous mood for writing (which did not work all the time except at work, specially when the time was close to leave the office).

Yesterday was just too much. I woke up at 11pm Tuesday and went to work Wednesday morning without sleeping, and yet I had the urge to go and buy the wireless printer that I wished for and also to my ISP headquarter to get the wireless router that I wanted for some time now (and it was a must now since I have a wireless printer, since I don't have a wireless adapter in my desktop PC).

After coming back from work, I spent my time working on my new stuff and turning my room into a real mess. I just realized later that I was awake for more than 20 hours just at 9 O'clock. Thus, I had to fall down like a dead horse and decided to continue the work today. I went back home after spending some time in the office and just as if by miracle everything with that damned network in my room was done correctly! Now, I have to work on connecting this printer to other laptops around the house.

For all of this I didn't work on many photos recently. Plus, my progress is so slow and I didn't even begin working with my translation for Alexander's story so far. I got back working with the window's photo that was taken from Aughnanure castle, which is still a challenge. I minimized the partial photos thus photoshop can work a bit easier and faster (relatively) but yet no luck. I wish if I can take these photos again to compensate for such a mistake! Anyway, I'll try to think of some trick, hopefully!

Caisleán Achadh na nIubhar (again)

Today, I went walking back to the castle of Aughnanure after breakfast, because I had some ideas for some photos that I wanted to apply and see. For my surprise I discovered that there are some things that I didn't see before in the last visit. There is a tower in the corner and seems the inner structure has gone, and the niches in the hard rock wall were filled with some plants.

I had to get out of narrow tower though in a hurry because the wasps seem to have a nest there, and the weather was nice and shiny which made all sort of activities for all these insects!

Also in the castle, I discovered a passage that I did not go into before and it leads to the back of the window that made a shot of before, and I found out that it had ornamentations at the back with an arc. Since I couldn't catch the whole scene with my lens, I decided to go on and make separate several shots for every corner in that window, to stitch them together later on.

On the way back, I was barked at by a dog near one of the houses and I tried to stay calm as much as possible. Combine this with flying wasps all around you, and you will have a very nice feeling!

Tomorrow, hopefully, I'm thinking of some shopping... if the time allowed me to!

Fáilte go hÉireann - The Beginning...

Here I am after a tiresome traveling from one country to the other and with "somehow" troublesome time, I got finally to my final destination... The Waterfront - Oughterard, Galway Co. in Ireland.

I took off from Kuwait Airport around 2:20 a.m. at the 29th of September. The destination was Istanbul, Turkey. The flight took around 4 hours or more a bit, and generally it was a nice one since I didn't have anyone sitting beside me at all (there was on guy who left to some other seat as it seems). I didn't expect the number of people though. In the plane I was trying hard to sleep a bit by flipping my head left and right or leaning my head against the window and so on, till I reached Istanbul. In in Istanbul, all I had to do is go on with the rush wherever it goes and follow the signs and ta-da I was in the transit zone. I had to wait for 4 hours there for my next flight to Dublin. It was a great waste of my time really. I was coping to keep my eyes open all the time, and I found some people sleeping there already but no place for me... thus I decided to take some Espresso from the Starbucks café in the transit zone. I guess that café was the only thing that I wouldn't really miss from Kuwait at all! However, the expresso effect wasn't effective enough. Finally the time was up and I had to go on to my plane. I was surprised to see the number of people traveling with me in the same plane! I thought tourism time is over and people don't travel at this time of the year, but most of the travelers with me were actually Irish people returning home! Thus, it was a crowded place and I was stuffed like a sardine in my seat.

My seat was another story. In this flight, the curse of children started to follow me like if I was at home. Children crying and children kicking my legs... why don't these guys use glue? However, I was seated, and 2 old people sat beside me then suddenly (as it seems) they discovered that they made a mistake and they must sit at the back and not in my row. That was a relief for some time till the stewardess came to me to ask nicely if I can change my seat to give a chance for a lady with her 2 children (african, and her kid was kicking and crying all the time) because they got separated in seats. Thus, I had to go to some other seat, with 2 people sitting there and I had to stuff myself... at that moment only I was thinking of a diet indeed.

After reaching Dublin, I ran around looking for a taxi and I got one to pick me to Heuston Station where I have to collect my ticket. Unfortunately, I missed the train and the lady on the information desk told me I can get on the train of 10 O'clock, which meant that I have to wait for more than 8 hours!

After all, I got sick of waiting and then after asking again some other lady, she told me I can go on the next train to Galway. I had only 15 minutes to catch it and I did. We moved at 7:20 p.m. and the train kept on stopping on several stations until we reached Galway station at 10 p.m. . The train though was a bit miserable inside and stuffed, and with my heavy luggage and backpack it was tideous. I found a place later with 3 other people who accepted me. The funny thing was that later on the way to Galway (but before stopping in some station before Galway) , we heard some cracking and it was a scary sound indeed, and the train was shook a bit. We stopped for 10 minutes almost and then moved again, and they informed us that it was a sheep that lost its way! Few minutes later we heard the same sound, and I said to the lady in front of me "hope it's not a cow this time, this sound looks stronger!"

After reaching Galway finally, with tiresome body, I got a taxi and asked him to pick me to the nearest hotel. He delivered me to Carlton Hotel. I remained there till the next day for breakfast and then made a confirmation for one extra day in the Waterfront, the place where I'm going to stay most of the vacation.

The owner of the place, a very nice lady, didn't expect me because they did not tell her about the update (i.e. the agency did not tell her), but everything went smoothly. The road from Galway to the place in a taxi was like 45 minutes.

I spent my first day in the Waterfront in phototaking first (until the owner prepares the place for my arrival) and then once I got into my room... I fell asleep one time after the other.

Today, my second day at the Waterfront, I went to the side of the lake, which is called Lough Corrib (Gaelic: Loch Coirib), I wonder about the meaning though. After that I had some rest and headed to the Aughnanure Castle (Caisleán Achadh na nIúr) which belonged to the Flaherty's in medieval times. I got dozens and dozens of images all the way to there and from the castle itself. It was like a dream. However, I will work on the photos later to put on here. I'm just so tired to type this entry even!