Survival…

Well, here I am again, trying to force myself to post after some long time of hiatus. I've been seriously considering posting one last farewell post on this blog, because it did seem that I can't keep up with everything that had been going on in my life. Everything seems to have been under the major theme of stagnation. Winter is here already, and yet, I couldn't even force myself to do the things that I usually like to do in winter here; take a walk around with my camera and try to find some hidden obscure treasures around me, since I can't drive elsewhere, nor did I travel in some long time, and probably for some long time to come as well. Yet, nothing happened. My life had been going through daily routines and pouts of fatigue. I consider myself lucky to be typing this right now actually. I'm hoping that I will finish it in time though.
This post, anyway, is not ought to be long, but merely going through the few things that I've done in the past months since September or August even. I've ordered some new gear for my arsenal in hope that they'd incite me to do some work with the camera, but unfortunately, I've failed miserably (and I can't help but to think am I the only one to blame here).

Закрытые Двери
(closed doors)

During this hiatus (which is still going on), my phone was probably my best friends when there were moments worth of shooting. My mind could not (and cannot at the moment) participate in preplanned projects of photography, and since this phone is with me wherever I go right now (a situation that I consider new since it wasn't a habit of mine before), this phone had been my friend whenever something occurs to me that is worth shooting (like Closed Doors). Whenever the case is worth it, I can shoot in RAW in my old Huawei and then I'd complete the process on PC. Editing RAW files from the phone can be tricky though since the color system or space in use in such RAW files are not like the typical RAW files I work with from my Canon, but still, the results can be interesting during the process.

Confused VI

As I've mentioned already, I've got some few toys back in July in hope that they would incite me to do something creative with my camera and gear. Despite the "ambition," I didn't do much except for shooting my eye and making a series of shots which I've called Confused; reflecting on my mental status at that time (and now). All the shots were similar in essence, and all done using the new prism filter (from Neewer). They just differ in processing and maybe in crop and magnification a bit. Nothing creative here.

آمالٌ مُضْطَّرِبَةٌ
(turbulent hopes)

The creativity, ironically, came about shortly away from the new set of toys, with some ideas that sparked in me after reflecting on my life and my current stagnation (which is still going on). In this project, I've tried to use one of my new filters (the star flare filters set), but it wasn't quite effective, because of the usage of speedlites in this project. Nevertheless, I kept on working on it with many delays and procrastination. Initially, the idea was to shoot everything in one go, but since I've been working alone (as usual), this proved to be impractical, and I had to make snippets from each part and put them together in post-processing. So far and since that shooting (which took place back around the end of September), I've created 4 images from the load of shots I've taken in this project, three of which are from a series which I've called Turbulent Hopes. There are other images that worth inspection still, but yet I didn't manage to force myself to look at them and process them. It seems that once I've finished from the project (or so I think), I've just grown bored with it already. In fact, the setting is still up in the hall across my room in hope that I can do something else (I had some plans at the back of my head), but till then, I can't promise myself even to do anything about it. 

The setting for shooting Turbulent Hopes.

(Un)Social Media

The so-called "social media" had been off the grid with me lately as well. As the stagnation keeps lingering, I've also started to withdraw from these platforms, and I've stated that already in previous posts. Things, though, got somewhat ridiculous at some point with Instagram and Facebook, with bans and restrictions on my account being on and off. Even though the restrictions had been lifted for some time, these events really made me tired of such stupidity. Moreover, there is not much to be gained through these platforms (and I don't mean financial gain as much as popularity and propagating my work through them at least). If I was lucky, like super-lucky, I might gain 20 likes in a single post on sometimes (compared to an average of 30 to 40 likes on a single post some years back).
All this non-sense made me withdraw even further, and I've seriously considered deleting my Instagram completely, if not for the advice of some online friends who urged me to keep it. Yet, I'm not keen on posting regularly there; a single post would suffice for any week, if any. I would be lucky to get 10 likes in a month time on any post there right now. Things are even worse when it comes to Facebook, which treat me as a non-existent entity, and the people that I know there are probably busy with their own lives to notice what I post there even (and thanks to the algorithm that doesn't deem what I post important apparently anyway).
I've identified another platform, called Pixelfed, which operates in some weird way, but it is far better in terms of chronological order and the absence of ads. Yet, it is not widely known, so not much activity is expected there. It has a nice feature (like a remnant from Flickr), where a user can organize the images into collections or folders, like albums. My activity there is still minimum, and I don't post daily, as the interaction there is also minimal because it's not popular much (and it has some weird system, to me); Yet, I do think it is far better than Instagram. Maybe it just needs some time to be a competitor. One issue, though, with Pixelfed is that the Adobe1998 color space is not identified on this platform, and images uploaded would be switched to or forced into be displayed in sRGB space, which results in dull colors or less saturated colors for some images. I've sent a feedback about this issue, but I'm not sure if there is anything to be done about it.

 

The Stocks

It is strange how much can happen in just 3 months or even less. One of these things is the closure of Canstockphoto; a photo stock website which I've been uploading to since 2007. In fact, my first ever stock website to deal with and to upload my photos to. I've always kept a signature here on this blog for a direct link to my portfolio there, but now I have to remove it.
On the other hand, I still have 2 operating stock websites: Dreamstime and 123RF. I've decided previously to stop uploading to Dreamstime for some issues that I deem "ethical" to me. Meanwhile, with the advances in AI, 123RF decided to allow for AI art uploads, which I think is such a critical decision, because people would be most likely be generating their own art (specially those looking for models in the images). All that makes it easier to obtain art for various purposes, so it seems the role of photography here is diminishing in this field as well. For this reason, it seems that I'm about taking the decision to stop uploading to 123RF as well and just keep whatever is left there; if it is useful in any way.
With all these changes, I think I'm left solely with doing photography for art, whenever I can that is. It's been a while since I've held the camera and shot something (excluding the quick snippets with my phone). Unless some surprise happens, then I guess I'll be doing art for myself alone and maybe share a little of it on Instagram, just out of the desire to tell myself that I still exist in this world still.

 

Finale

秋天的舞孃
(Autumn's dancing lady)

I have my hopes now that this blog post would break the stagnation that I've been going through for months, even before my last post back in September. Loneliness, self-flogging, increased isolation by choice or forced; many things had been pushing me on the verge of mental collapse of some sort. Would I be able to travel any time soon, despite all the circumstances I'm going through and the eye condition that hindered me cuffed to this house? I just have my hopes there.
My sleeping pattern had been disturbed to some paramount measures. I would literally sleep 6 or 7 hours (which was a luxury for me during my working days) and yet wake up for 2 or 3 hours and go back to bed for another 4 or 5 hours of sleep, just like that. I guess this is what they call "escapism" maybe. Food had been also one of the issues that keep my mind occupied, ironically, from day to day, as one of the issues that make me separate from the rest in this house is my eating habits that don't align with the rest, as well as the frequent loss of appetite. I've been passing some days without having a decent meal, literally, but passing the day with coffee and chocolate (and cake, if such option was available).
One is ought to say that facing opposition in life is such a normal thing, yet I would say there are limits to everything, and any human being would get tired of everything, and tired of licking their own wounds in hopes that tomorrow would be better. I know there are things that I need to change, and yet, I don't know how to change, or what to change in the first place. Did I pick this sort of life all by myself and the only one to blame? Was it forced for some reason beyond my humble understanding for life? I just don't know… Whatever it is, I just hope it all ends any time now. The least I wish for right now is to enjoy this winter, as I used to every year.

 

Happy new year, and I hope you had a nice one. To be honest, I wanted to take another week off from typing my blog here but I thought maybe I shouldn't and thought it would be a good idea to stress myself more beside all the things happening in my life right now on the home front. So, here we go.
As a side note, while typing these words, I've already been out in a random shoot in the morning like I would do every winter; around the neighborhood. This time, I've picked my Sigma 12-24mm lens (which is challenging really) but anyway it was a simple stroll around and I'm still "trying" to work on the photos I've shot back then. Hopefully I will talk about them in time but this post is supposed to be following the chronological order so I'm going to take off from where I stopped in the previous post (well, the previous previous post). However, before I proceed, I'd like to give just a liiiiittle announcement.

Little Announcement

I've recently uploaded a full set of images which was a project initiated in 2021 but didn't get to finish it (let's speak procrastination here) except in 2022. Long story short, after sending emails to the major stocks i deal with, I've uploaded this set to Canstockphoto and Dreamstime. However, to my surprise (and for some reasons beyond my humble understanding), Dreamstime did accept some images (about half of the set) and refused the rest and it seems for reasons related to quality; despite the fact that all images are the same with only one element that had changed.
This said, I've tried to delete what had been already accepted in my profile on Dreamstime (i.e. what had been accepted from this set of images, 39 of them) but I could only delete few. When I inquired about it, I got the response that I have to wait for 6 months until I can delete these files (Why? Just because…). Digging through the website further it turned out that it got itself wrapped up in political views that i think are not supposed to be there in such a website that offers art in the first place.

For these reasons, and despite having a profile there (and I can't withdraw anything from there), I've decided to stop uploading to Dreamstime completely. It's a loss for sure as it provides exclusive rights to images and I do have some exclusive images there, but such terms and also getting into the political issues for no reason, such issues are a red flag to me. Thus, I will stop uploading my work there completely but my profile will be active still. Who knows, might be deleted one day.

Meanwhile, the set of 39 images, which I've called Arabic Eye, is available on Canstockphoto.

Dewy

So, now, to the bulk of today's post! Now, before the main thing, I did take some shots and even edited some shots from the past but it's not the topic of this post. Some of the shots taken were simply for embracing my (new) window which I just like to gaze at in the morning when the light comes in, specially in winter time. Anyway, away with that.

This "experiment" (if I can call it so) was somewhat a "two birds taken down with one stone"; if that's clear anyway! I wanted to do some macro experiment (away from bougainvillea and picking the flowers of the poor bush), and in the same time I was looking for ideas for my Arabic blog as I didn't post anything for a while, and my thoughts led me to make an article about Super-Resolution (SR) images and how to do them in Photoshop. So, the two ideas combined into some macro job in Super-Resolution; What was missing though is a proper target. Chasing my tail again looking for ideas, I arrived (again) at my beloved colored feathers, which I didn't use for a while (maybe since 2020 or 2021) for any photo-shoot.

نَـدِيْ
(dewy)

I'd say, initially, it was a success. For creating a SR image, one wouldn't need a lot of images like in the focus-stacking technique. In Dewy, around 13 shots were taken. The problem here though, because I've sprinkled water (plain water, no glycerine added), the droplets on the feather wouldn't stay in place completely but some (just some) of them did move a bit. Originally, in fact, I wanted a simple one droplet to be stable on the tip but (surprise surprise) that nearly impossible, so I sprinkled the whole feather with water. Anyway, the movement in the water droplets between shots (even though they were taken quickly, relatively) - all was fixed in the process of merging and also some extra job was done with Photoshop magic (cloning, and stuff, you know). The dimensions with this technique ramped up from the typical 5184X3456 pixels for Canon EOS 7D (my camera) up to 10386X6929 pixels; So that's like double the original resolution. Of course, things had to be taken down, like cropping and other cleaning stuff and sharpening. Increasing the resolution in that technique is "somewhat" good, but not "absolutely" good. 

نَـدِيْ 2
(dewy 2)

Of course, I wouldn't let things go without playing around with the colors, like in infrared. I went on to do some color inverse and I think the color cast is still impressive. However, I must mention here that this is just one of the things that I've experimented with in this image. The main issue here is that I've tried to put my vision as a person who reads from right-to-left (normally, I guess); Thus, to me, the image seemed more "normal" to my eyes if I just flipped it horizontally and let the lines going from the bottom right to upper left corner. I kept the original orientation as it will be seen with Dewy 3.

نَـدِيْ 3
(dewy 3)

As for Dewy 3, it was actually a direct edit for one of the shots that made up the original SR-image (which was cropped later to make Dewy 1 and 2). Here, you can see the original orientation of the image as it was shot. Worth noting that the shot was done with 50mm lens and 36mm extension tube, and at f/22; So, nothing fancy here and no focus-stacking (that was not the aim to begin with). If I would go for focus-stacking I'd probably use more zoom power via lens reversing technique. These images gained some nice momenta on YouPic (specially Dewy 1). Nice to see such a simple experiment go wild like that. I still need to work on more though.
After this I've done some little shy shots with a leaf from one of the basil plants in the yard (didn't want to upset the bougainvillea again!) and I'm not sure if I'm going to post about them here as they were just simple shots with various zooms (exceeding the 1X limit). They got some nice details to them though. We'll see…

PSAChina

Here, I just wanted to put a little announcement about the results that I've got from participating in PSA China contest. The contest had its deadline in December, and the results were announced on January 3ʳᵈ. I have to say, for the majority of my entries, the results were disappointing. Yet, just by the last category, Architecture, I've had a surprising swift turn of luck!

Results report card

Out of the 4 entries for the Architecture category, I won 1 gold medal and 2 honorable mentions. Even though the last image is not awarded anything but it gained enough points to be "accepted" and exhibited. In fact, I've received another email asking me to upload the bigger files for all these images, beside a personal photo and some text about these images. It seems that the judges at PSA China contest do appreciate panoramas pretty much unlike other contests I've been into before (specially the Trierenberg Circuit which was ended in 2021 or 2022 already). This makes me happy, as well as sad, because it reminds me of the fact that I didn't do much panoramas for a long time now (for reasons beyond my reach already). Just to finalize this, here are the images that were accepted (and awarded):

 One thing I'm hoping for here, and that is to receive my gold medal, unlike the one that I've never received from Trierenberg Circuit back in 2018 (which was my first gold medal ever in any such contest, and this one now is my second).

Finale

I was hesitant to type this post and was afraid that I wouldn't finish it in time, but here I am. Things on the home front had been very disturbed; No maid to help with the housework and tend to Mom, and a challenging Mom on various levels with health issues, a household that doesn't feel like home, and coping with mood swings and depression, trying to think hardly about the camera to find some kind of salvation through it. I've honestly lost a lot of appetite for everything (beside food, and the camera work). Spending my day just thinking if this is going to end at all at some point, and whether it was all my fault to be here in this position and place. It's a blame game with myself, and trying hard to convince myself that I've done my best whenever I could.
Traveling is quite essential at such a time but with the world going crazy and with my eyes condition (which apparently is going down even though not as bad as my other siblings) - such conditions are just not quite encouraging. Sure, I can travel to well-known destination and sure I can just travel to get some breath away from this house, but I always feel it is a money wasted if such a travel wasn't for a solid purpose (like a religious pilgrimage for example) or without my camera. I didn't shoot any panoramas in ages and my current results from PSA China contest were quite encouraging to do something, but where and how, this is way beyond my thinking at the moment. It does feel as if my life is getting isolated more and more by every passing day, and soon, my life would be no life at all. I wonder where is that light at the end of the tunnel that everyone is talking about…

Sporadichiskiy…

I was reluctant to make this blog post. Honestly, I didn't feel like it. But here I am, trying hard to force myself. For nothing but to think of myself as being occupied.
You might be wondering about the title, well, I was going to put it as Sporadic but then I thought it would be so boring, so then I checked the translation in Russian and it was Спорадичиский, which is exactly what the title says but I didn't wish to put it in Cyrillic; Maybe in some other time, just for fun really.
The reason for this title for this post is that I'm going to talk a bit about various shots taken on different dates and not necessarily in chronological order but it's like a collection of quick-minded ideas that were done in a hurry without much preparations. 

Before I head on with the body of this post, I'd like to announce that I've uploaded some loads of images already (from 2021 and 2022 so far) and they are available on Canstockphoto, Dreamstime, and 123RF; However, one image might be in one place and not in the other because of the different criteria that each stock website uses to judge the images. Just in case one wishes to visit the profiles, they can click on the links above.

Pinhole

In my past post I've talked about creating some abstract art by intentional camera movement while having an infrared filter on the lens and shooting indoors. This activity somehow triggered me to think more of long exposures which I didn't do for a while. Naturally, using the pinhole was one of my first ideas. In the beginning, I wanted to keep it simple.

夜間孤獨
(nocturnal solitude)

To keep things simple, I headed out in the yard and decided to shoot the little palm tree we had (I've posted some shots from the same palm tree before on this blog) and my plan was to shoot a long exposure and convert the image into B&W. I've done this at night specifically to have a significant long exposure with the pinhole without the need to use any ND filters on a regular lens. However, I think I'll be defining the idea of bad luck, as my hopes for some motion in the image were just shuttered by the fact that (suddenly) not much breeze did accumulate or shake significant part of the palm leaves during the 13-minute exposure! However, I have to give due credits, as I didn't expect some colorful flare to appear (caused by the lights on the wall above the palm tree). For this reason, I've kept it in color and made another version in B&W (and posted both on YouPic).

Nocturnal Solitude (BW)

The B&W version is still interesting though, despite the fact that the flare doesn't appear colorful. The hardest part though was to gauge and control the tones in B&W (and because of the tiny details in the leaves, I disliked the idea of using layer masks). The final result, Nocturnal Solitude (BW), looked like some infrared shot done in daytime! Other work was needed though to keep the bottom of the image from being too dark and add a bit of details; Of course all of that was done in Photoshop (I don't convert to B&W in ACR often as I need more control). One particular thing that I've noticed or maybe I think I've noticed and my eyes are just playing tricks on me: The image, despite being taken with a pinhole, looks sharper than other pinhole images taken before (which were mostly in daytime). It's still blurry a bit (not because of the motion though) but I do notice that it is sharper in general, just a tiny bit. I did for sure apply some sharpening but this is now what I meant here of course. I meant the original shot. Not sure what to make out of it but maybe because the surrounding lighting was closer to the blue color? Or is it because a really long exposure? But the most strange thing of all… why did the breeze stop when I needed it to be there already?!!!

وَحيدْ
(lonely)

Another pinhole experiment (with a hope of some motion) was done 2 or 3 days later but this time it was indoors (after midnight) and including me personally. The idea of Lonely is not just having a selfie (away with the dramatic title already) but I was hoping to capture those tiny reflexes and breathing movement in a form of a "ghostly appearance" somewhat. The exposure took around 7 minutes and I remember doing it twice, and picking the best of the two. Probably the difference was in the pose itself. Anyway, the intention, again, was to convert it to B&W already and this also helped in covering up for the colorful and checkered blanket! Added some tone and vignette for some "vintage" feel to it. It was a nice shoot though; Somewhat a chance to relax and meditate while asleep! However, I'm not done with long exposures yet…

الأَغْبَرْ
(the dusty one)

I was still interesting in doing long exposure combining myself (because I have no model of course) to record the body movement. I've done one experiment in the yard using my 10-stop ND filter (which I used only once in Malta back in 2015!). The experiment in the yard somewhat failed and didn't like the overall looks. So, I moved indoors. This time I've set a challenge to myself, to stare into the camera for more than 8 minutes. I know this is not possible already (specially for a coffee-addict like me) but this is the goal of the whole thing after all.
In the processing phase, I tried to add some drama to the ghostly-shaped face somehow and made use of some dodge and burn. Well, wouldn't say I like it much but nevertheless I consider it as an achievement to stare into the camera for full 8 minutes! However, on the other hand, the linear version of this image came out really interesting!

Plastered Man

Now, I don't know how it occurred in that way but the whole thing seems to be formed by layers of skin on top of each other with holes for the eyes sockets! I really like the "linear" version more than the original. It looks like a surreal painting in some way (not sure what genre it would roll under though). Scary a bit though, isn't it?

So, at this point, I think the first part of the sporadic shooting ends (even though it's not all about pinhole). But still another part remains which I think I should include here as well. 

Frowning

I think I've mentioned somewhere in my previous post that I've done some experiments with high-speed shooting involving water and shells (walnut shells to be specific). The fact, actually, is that I've been collecting a lot of walnut shells. I've been buying those lately as Mom likes them and me too (and some times I put some of it in my coffee!). For some reason that I can't really explain or understand myself, I've got fascinated by the shells and started collecting them in hope that I would do some photography projects later on with them (which I did to some extent). My collection of them is getting quite large though and I need to find proper storage!
Anyway, I will keep the talk about that high-speed experiment for another post, but now I'm going to talk about a simple (and might be strange) quick selfie experiment which I've done with these shells. I've called the series: The Frowning.

عَبوسْ
(frowning)

The aim here wasn't really just to do something with the shells (which I'm fascinated with by the way!) but also to work and go crazy a bit with HDR tone-mapping; It has been a really long time since I worked with HDR images. I'm talking here about a span of years. But as it will be shown, normal processing wasn't bad as well (and somewhat preferable too). In fact, from the series of shots I've done with these shells, I ended up with only one or two shots that were the base of all the versions that I'm about to show now. The only difference here is the processing.

عَبوسْ 2
(frowning 2)

The shooting was done using my lovely 50mm, and at f/1.8. Even though I could've gone lower to f/1.4 but I wanted to add a slight depth to the front. I've headed out under the sun to shoot it just to ensure a quick shutter speed, as I didn't want to complicate things with such a "crazy" quick shoot and use speedlites. From the series that had been shot, as mentioned above, only 1 or 2 that were somewhat proper (with some cropping) as they had a good depth as I want it. Shooting selfies with such a shallow depth of field on your own is surely a mission for superman! 

عَبوسْ 3
(frowning 3)

All through the Frowning versions, I think each one of them has a specific visual impact and personally I couldn't really say which one is better than the other. Frowning for example, which was tone-mapped from HDR, has this look as if some nuclear explosion just happened in front of me! Moreover, I like it for the grungy look and the details in the hair (upper right) which don't appear quite much in other versions. Nevertheless, Frowning 2, which was processed from RAW (with additions from Photoshop itself of course), does have this dramatic (dark) look that probably adds more emotions to the overall look. Meanwhile, Frowning 3 (which is based off Frowning 2) has even a darker mood I guess. Worth noting that when converted to B&W, I've added a slight "titanium" tone (Hex: #B6AFA9); Honestly, I think I like this tone pretty much and will be using a lot when converting to B&W (or monochrome that is).

The Frownies

Frowning (linear)

Afterward, and just for fun and comparison, I've worked on manually blending the three versions of this shot and put them all in one image; The Frownies. Probably I can say it serves as an optical illusion, just a bit! I think it needs a bit more brushing though. Moreover, probably you could tell by now that this "linear" technique is becoming a trend for me already and I've been trying it on many images, old and new, and Frowning was no exception.
The base for working out the "linear" version is the RAW version of the shot. I still call it "linear" technique because of the basic look but maybe I should change the name at some point because for images like Frowning it doesn't quite look like linear because of the heavy texture of the skin and other things here. The technique is based on merging various layers blended with Difference blending mode, so I might as well call it the "difference technique". I think I've talked about it in this blog before, as well as in my Arabic blog. All in all, I do like the "linear" version as well for its strange dramatic look; Actually, I can imagine it being printed on a t-shirt or something like that (my mind is working on some ideas now).

Finale

So, this is some of the sporadic stuff that I've been doing in the past 2 or 3 months, and actually I'm still going on with it. There are many other stuff actually but I wouldn't put them here since they are re-makes or so of old photos, specially with that "linear" technique I've talked about already.
I do have some plans at the back of my head and I'm not sure if I can even try those or not. Meanwhile, I've just remembered some old projects that I've simply forgotten about, and I might as well try to revive those or something. All I have here is to wish myself good luck.

Recently, I've gone back to my obsession with Solitaire (the classical card game) on my phone. I didn't play it for a long time but now I'm just back at it and I could wipe half of the phone charge just playing it. It feels soothing for some reason, but I'm not sure what exactly. Is it a sign of hidden desires to gamble (I don't)? Or is it the order and structure in the game (which I lack in real life)? Whatever the reason is, I just feel it leaks away my stress. I play it the Vegas style (only one round of the deck is allowed). On the same line, I've realized that I didn't play any PC games in such a long time (even before my official retirement in October 2021). Maybe if I can find time back for this activity my stress (and depression) would be lowered down? 

They say no Man is an island, but apparently I became an island myself with my social circle. I had bursts of urge to chat, to talk, to say something, to anyone, but there is no one to talk to. Not even on the so-called "social media", which made me think why do they call this stupid thing "social" in the first place; All there is to see is trolls, ads, and people who made it their job just to correct you. Even those in fact, there was none for me in the past few days to just say anything with. I've been sleeping a lot, skipping meals a lot, and I'm just not sure where I'm heading with this, nor what's the meaning of it. All that I know is that my body is alive, but my mind is…

Kika VII…

This is somewhat a sad post. As I'm typing these words, our canary (which I've posted about in the previous post) had died after some weird illness or condition. It's a perplexing feeling really; Part of me is sad and part of me is happy. I'm sad because he is dead, and happy because he finally left the damn cage which I wanted to take him off from but couldn't; Because no one cared, and no one liked the idea. I didn't give him a name (and I don't even know if it is a male indeed), but all I can say is, RIP Canary, I'll miss you…

 On a side note, I've also been under some allergy attack, which is gone by now but a slight cough remains. The cough, though, leaves such an awful taste sometimes; Something metallic or like breathing through some plastic pipe! I just hope I won't be needing Seretide for this. I think I had just about enough for 2 weeks of time of my life!

Little Announcement

Just before proceeding with the main post, I wanted to state that I've finally uploaded ALL the batches of images that were on the queue! And now, it is time for me to work with some NEW images that I've shot recently and prepare some of them to be uploaded the stocks. 

The new uploaded batches

 

Typically, and as usual, the selfies were uploaded to Mostphotos exclusively. The rest are spread across Canstockphoto, Dreamstime and 123RF. However, at the moment of typing this, 123RF uploads are still under review (typical) while the rest had been accepted in the same day (with few rejects). Not only that, but also one of the images (1^st in 4^th row) had been sold already via Dreamstime! I remember in the old days when Dreamstime's reviewing process used to take a considerable time but things had been faster now and even more promising!
There is still one image that I didn't upload and it is ought to be exclusively on Dreamstime and that is Killing Evil (1^st in 2^nd row) which is actually a PNG with a transparent background, and thus considered a vector. I've uploaded it several times but it is not getting through and I need to check back on that later. 

Kika VII

So, we arrive at Kika's photo-challenge for Week 7, which had somewhat a weird title for it, and in fact it was not possible to put it all in a single hashtag. The challenge was about combining unexpected items or objects. I have to admit I got my head spinning around and I didn't know what to shoot here, thus I referred back to my arsenal of shots and started playing around. I didn't want to skip a single challenge at this point!

Red Escape II

The shot was taken back in March 2020, where I was working with some random ideas of mixing feathers and water, so I thought it is the right mix for this photo challenge. I've shot many in this series of feathers and water, using both high-speed and stroboscopic flash (Red Escape is apparently shot with stroboscopic flash). The problem (kind of) was that, that I did post this photo back then when I've created it. So, just to make things a bit different I've decided to make a little edit and change the jar color to blue, which I thinks adds even more contrast better than the original (where the water was reddish). All these shots in the series are uploaded to my various stock accounts (you can check one of them by clicking the frame at the end of this post).
Things though did not stop at this photo for this challenge, just yet.

Through H-Alpha

Funny thing is that before the announcement of this photo-challenge by Kika, I did some photo-shoot in the yard at home as I was experimenting with some concepts, as well as trying to practice some editing techniques (those related to creating pastel-like images). Along the way and since I was carrying my two cameras (regular and modified) with some filters, I've shot Through H-Alpha using my H-Alpha filter holding it in front of my (beloved) Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens; By hand of course! I think this raises this image of combining unexpected items (a filter and a fisheye lens!) but also combines 2 scenes into one; A normal one and a filtered one. It did require a considerable work with layer masks and levels to correct the colors outside the circle and enhancing those within the circle as an infrared shot should be, somehow. The shot was, of course, taken with my modified camera, thus even the area outside the filter was tinted because of the infrared coming from the sun. The image originally was all shades of red!

Pastel-ization

As I've mentioned already (in this post and probably previous ones), I'm trying to work on some new technique in editing, but so far, I didn't practice much of it. Most probably I would need to work on old shots from my arsenal instead of working on new ones. However, here are some shots that were relatively new in fact and shot specifically for this edit.

عَـطْـفْ (Bending)

The work here is actually inspired by a Portuguese lady artist and photographer which I, unfortunately, can't recall her name; I've seen an article (interview) with her in one of those Google suggested pages on my phone. Anyway, looking at her images and reading swiftly through the interview, I kind of managed to take the main points of such a style:

1. Saturated colors.
2. Somewhat happy colors.
3. Bright colors.

Thus, I was working on these key features. Of course, the heavy work relies on editing rather than in-camera work. However, I guess not all subjects are suitable for this type of style. Nevertheless, one wouldn't know unless one tries!

Bougainvillian Curve

One of the key points in "shooting" the images, as the Portuguese photographer stated, is shooting when the sun is high up (noon time). However, I did shoot when the sun was just rising on the yard at home, and I think I do now understand why did she mention this point specifically; Shadows and dark tones are not good candidates for such a technique! Not only shadows in fact but darker tones in general so it is better to avoid them as much as possible I guess. As can be seen above in Bending and Bougainvillian Curve, the dark black pots of the bougainvilleas are hard to render in such technique and they feel much like being obtrusive. Just to aid the image a bit here I've added a tone or two to the black or the shadows in these images. It's clear  now why the midday sun is the best for such a technique of "editing".
As I've stated, I didn't work with this editing technique much still and maybe I did some photo here and there (one of them was posted for Kika's photo-challenge). I've been swept away with other photo-shooting and, as usual, domestic issues. Hopefully I will attend to this technique further in the future and try to have a grasp on it.

Finale

I consider myself lucky to finish this blog post actually. With all the tired body and the stack of "work" to do (not related to my actual job nor to photography) and I managed to finish this blog post - but I had to start earlier than usual! Ah well…
I'm having an idea of starting a blog post in Arabic for my Arabic blog, which I didn't post in for a long time now. The post would be about my experience in shooting bubbles, which I will post here in time, as I'm trying to go chronologically here in this blog with all the images that I've taken in the past few weeks. The bubbles shoot was a big deal and I've come out with loads of images (some of them even uploaded to stocks already). However, the bulk of them are not yet prepared to be uploaded. I'll keep that talk for another time.
I've been also taken by astrology lately; An old passion and interest that got re-kindled for a while now (even before COVID time) and I've been reading texts here and there and watching videos about topics and all that. But this is a bad habit actually and I know, because there are priorities I need to tend to. This also brings to my mind the passion for Conlangs which I didn't attend to, and specially after the lock-down of my other Instagram account, @Ayvarith. Funny how this blog was first started to talk about the Conlang of Ayvarith but then changed to other topics completely. Despite being taken over by photography, Ayvarith still has a place in my heart, and it might get re-kindled after some time, along with other Conlangs and Conscripts. Who knows?
On a domestic level, my isolation is getting tighter and tighter and I barely leave my room for few minutes (mainly to make me coffee). The mental disconnect is getting quite hard to fix in this house and nothing seems to make sense to me, neither I make sense to anyone else. On a mental level, ghosts from the past keep visit me unexpectedly with the thoughts "Why did it happen that way?" or "How did it happen that way?". Quite useless thoughts and there is nothing I can do about them, but the stress that loads on my mind because of the house keeps recalling these memories. How I wish I could just afford my own place and stay alone… At least if such memories come, they would visit without a stress…

Retinol III-IV

Busy busy busy. So busy that I can't even play games! Can you believe that? However, to be honest, the major portion of my time is consumed by bad sleeping patterns. All in all, I'm trying to cope with the daily tasks here as well as trying as much as possible to work with my camera and a little bit with a new venture: Adding educational posts to Pinterest. This is a new thing and probably I won't be doing it often, as other things in my life do already have their own priorities. But I'll try to do it whenever I get a new idea or whenever a friend (who is learning Arabic) might suggest.

Announcement

As promised and as with my previous posts, I'd like here to start with a little announcement for a new batch of uploads to the stocks. This time they are scattered across the usual stocks where I upload.

The new batch

First of all, one of these images (won't say!) was canceled from the upload because of some brand name and it would be such a time-consuming process to remove that mark (stock websites usually don't accept such images). Anyway, photos with faces are typically uploaded to Mostphotos, with the exception of only one which is accepted in Canstockphoto as well. The rest are uploaded across Dreamstime, 123RF, as well as to Canstockphoto. However, 123RF, again, did refuse all 5 uploaded images (most of them were denied for being out of focus!). I'm pretty sure they would not be accepted by other stock websites if they were indeed out of focus - there is something fishy or misunderstood going on.

With this new batch, I'm trying to find time to re-process some of my old panoramas, specially the old ones from 2011 and 2012 and prepare them to upload them to my Mostphotos along with the rest of the large-size panoramas there (with a width of 10K pixels). Issues keep arising here though, specially with the new lock-down and health, but I'm trying my best (with coffee!) to organize my time and priorities (and yes, I'm failing so far).

Retinol III

Then, we arrive at my third image for Retinitis Pigmentosa (this year) - which was actually done in the same day as the previous one in the previous post. It was a quickie idea that occurred to me and thought of working it out right away after finishing Sensing which I talked about in the previous post.

The Seeing Hand

The principle thing was to be simple actually; Just using the sun to shoot something and the rest is to be fixed later in Photoshop, and with the help of a fisheye lens (my favorite Rokinon 8mm), the dramatic impact can be achieved (in terms of sizes and emphasis).
The idea of the shot is about the usage of hands to navigate through our spaces as people with Retinitis Pigmentosa and how we are greatly affected with the change (continuous change or period changes) in the environment around us on us; This is specifically about changing furniture at home frequently. Something that I've often suffered from, and still.
People with Retinitis Pigmentosa, like me, are typically using their body parts and memory to navigate through places and when at home, it is mostly memory that gets activated because things are "supposed" to be in their own fixed places.
Now as for the technical part, the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens does not have provide such a shallow depth of field, thus it was one of the first things to be done (after the general color editing in RAW first). It was important, though, not to exaggerate the synthetic lens bur here. Next, it was time to fix the eye on the palm, and for this, I've picked an old image from my arsenal (of my own eye). It was a struggle though to let it be as natural as possible as if it was drawn indeed on my palm. Till this very moment I'm not yet convinced that I did the job correctly.
Anyway, the shot was liked by some people specially those with Retinitis Pigmentosa and could relate to this particular problem. Thus, if you are reading this and you do know, or live with, someone who has such disease or any type of visual impairments, just mind the change in the environment around them. It can be just frustrating; Big time.

Kika III - Retinol IV

Yes, you read that right. I'm posting 2 shots from the Retinitis Pigmentosa project for this year into one post, here. The whole thing was actually a coincidence.
As I was planning a shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa in my head (for days), Kika gave out the theme for her 3^rd week challenge: Framing; And this is exactly the "structure" that I had in my mind for my shot about Retinitis Pigmentosa!

RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game

The idea behind RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game is, again, the furniture and the obstacles that we face INSIDE the house. I was actually thinking of more like an "earthly" composition; Things set to the ground. However, after watching Kika's video for the weekly theme, framing, my mind started to (automatically) combining the two ideas and I came up with this framing, with furniture (or something similar that is) - of course with the blind cane as well to deliver the idea. Now the shoot was a bit of an adventure and unfortunately, I didn't take any shots to document the setting.

Air Remote, for wireless tethering.

The idea needed a top-view, and I guess nowhere is better to do such an idea except for the balcony (and we are lucky to have one). The problem here is, though, I am shooting myself with no help from anyone. So, it was a call for the Air Remote tethering tool, which I didn't use a lot since I got it years back simply because it does lack some features and it's quite cumbersome despite the (supposed) ease of use and the relief that it should be providing. This time, it was no exception, because it did disappoint me further. I will talk about that shortly.

Lateral arm from Photek

To shoot the ground from the balcony, it was natural to use the lateral arm to carry the camera and extend it out of the balcony looking downward. Luckily, I had those weight bags which I've ordered 3 years ago or so and never used them till this moment! Nevertheless, the situation was shaky and I had my heart up my throat. I'm blessed to have an elevator (lift) near me in the balcony to go up and down; Otherwise, I wouldn't even think about shooting this. 

The lens of choice here was my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 because, well, the field of view and the autofocus system. After shooting this though, I realized that I might have done better using Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5, to have a wider field of view and then crop it to a suitable size and boundary, and probably the manual focus of this lens won't be a big problem. After all, I was shooting at f/11, and with wider lenses, the depth of field is forgiving anyway. The main drawback in the whole process, though, was with the tethering.
Actually, day by day, I'm starting to realize that the usefulness of such device is quite limited more than I anticipated in the first place. Here for example and in this situation, I was aiming to capture bracketed images sequence in order to create HDR and be able to achieve the dramatic look by controlling the light in the image at "baking the HDR" level (i.e. tone-mapping). It turned out that because of the timer (10sec) which I've set initially to be able to do my pose, each bracketed image would be taken with a 10sec timer! Of course, holding my pose for 30 seconds is next to impossible, so, I had to go back and just take single images. I'm glad that I could somewhat achieve what I've envisioned using just a single RAW image though. I would have done it properly with an Intervalometer with proper time-delay settings to give me some time to go down to location via the elevator, and that way I would be doing bracketing quite easily, but I still need to check myself on location to pose properly. Maybe next time I will try to combine using both tools, if it was possible (honestly, never tried).
The irony is that every now and then when I decide to use the Air Remote Tethering I do get first a message for updating the firmware and I really don't know how that is done but what I really wonder about is what the update is really about? I don't see any features being enhanced at all; Specially the annoying rotating display which cannot be displayed correctly for shooting in portrait orientation. That's another story for another time and yet, there is another misfortune that I will talk about (hopefully) in my next post when I was about to take the 5^th shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa project.

Finale

Here we are, close to summer again. And yes, I'm not so excited about it. We've gone into partial lock-down here for one month period (ending at April 8^th). Everything will be re-evaluated afterward, and who knows, the lock-down might be extended.
People here are complaining about everything, about all measures and don't get me started with conspiracy theories. Each individual in this great nation is an Aristotle on its own. I just hope my mood swings won't attack me severely in the meantime as it did one year ago, last summer, when we had partial lock-down as well. Not to say it's all gone but I'm coping better. I think the routine of fasting lately beside reading the holy book added greatly to the comfort. I've stopped fasting just recently and strangely I can't stay up late now like I used to do when I was fasting; I'm getting tired easily. Probably because of the digestive operations taking place. Who knows…
Things are a bit awry on the work front, but that's a story for another time I guess. I'm trying to keep my peace of mind as much as possible by trying hard to neglect and forget about these problems. I foresee increasing responsibilities upon my shoulders, and I'm not sure how am I going to cope with these, nor whether I should trust my experience or not (apparently it's not a match, scientifically speaking). From one lock-down to another, things are just spanning and expanding and all there is to hope for form my side is…to stay away as much as possible, until some "right time" comes for a proper resignation.

 

Precautious Selfie (2020)

Meanwhile, as I'm posting these images about this year's Retinitis Pigmentosa project as well as about Kika's photo challenge, I'm still active with my camera but I don't want to post or talk about these images until I finish the Retinitis Pigmentosa series at least. I'm also anticipating working again with my speedlites, with both high speed and stroboscopic, but I'm still puzzled for what I'm going to do. Trying to seek hints from Kika herself, as well as from the work of other photographers I find (mainly on YouPic and YouTube). I'm posting these photos, of course, on my YouPic, but not yet on Instagram. You can check out the link if you like to take a peek on my YouPic profile. But I have to say that many of these images are actually old images re-made or some ignored test shots from the past that have been worked out, specifically to be posted on YouPic. My chores list, surprisingly, is building up and I'm trying to do one thing at a time (including the typing of this blog post actually). There is a lot waiting for me that I've been even postponing playing some games! No time to rest and my body is failing me as usual… also, it is time to think of a new post for my Arabic blog. I think I do need another vacation from blogging at some point, soon…

Retinol II

To be honest, I'm sort of lazy to type this blog post! I've been loaded with many things to do and little power to do them, specially with the start of the month of Rajab in the lunar (Islamic) calendar and typically every year, I would try to fast as much as I can of this month (and the next month as well, Sha'ban). This leaves me a bit powerless most of the day and napping along on and off. Anyway, I'm trying my best to re-schedule my time and organize some of it (if I can call it so) and trying to do bits here and there. As a starter, I'll start with my little announcement here:

Little Announcement

As I've promised before, I'll be uploading more images to the stocks on batches, and I've done so already with the first batch of 8 images (originally they were 10 but had to cancel one and keep one specifically for MostPhotos alone since it's a selfie).

Preview of the batch

The batch had been uploaded already to Canstockphoto (you can also visit my profile there by clicking on the signature at the end of this post) and on Dreamstime (only 3 were accepted!) as well as 123RF (all accepted but one still pending at the moment of typing this post). As for MostPhotos, I didn't upload this batch on there because I'm planning to keep my account there specifically for artistic selfies (or self-portrait) and large files of panoramas, specially with the fact that I've received an email recently from MostPhotos stating that they have changed some of their policies, and raised the bar for the minimum resolution accepted, from 6MP to 11MP!

This said, I won't be preparing another batch any time soon I guess since my dish is full already as it is, specially with the supposed preparation for contributing to Trierenberg's Circuit (or Austria's International Photo Contest). I was reluctant to participate, but I've decided to get into it. Sounds like gambling to me though specially that there is money involved (AND I didn't receive my gold medal for my panorama back in 2018 because of the bad postal services and protocol).

Retinol II

As I've stated in my previous post, I won't be posting all my work regarding Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month altogether. Just to not keep all eggs in one basket. So, in this post I'd like to talk about the second image in the series that I've made so far, and it is a quite simple idea but I have to admit, I've struggled in the beginning with the camera. 

Sensing

The idea was simple and reflective on the process of going down the stairs. It is quite a struggle for people with Retinitis Pigmentosa, like me, specially when going outdoors in the sun or going indoors as well. The problem is in finding the edge of the step using the sense of color and shades of color (this is how most people perceive depth and distance when going down the stairs).
The hassle (somewhat) was setting up the camera vertically on the ground. Typically I would use the L-Bracket and it does the job perfectly, but this time it didn't, probably because the ground was not even. Thus, I had to fit something under the lens just to let it stand still. Exposure-wise, it wasn't a big deal as the shot was taken indoors and with most of the lights being off. The exposure of 4 seconds (at f/11) was just about enough to depict the foot motion as if it is trying to sense the step.

When posted on Instagram the shot gained some momentum (as well as on YouPic) and some people with RP did relate to it indeed. It was a "Mission Accomplished" moment for me. I guess I've proved to myself that complicated ideas are not necessarily the best. If I wanted to complicate this further I would have implemented some stroboscopic flash here. Saying this, I've been having this urge to work a bit with my messy speedlites but I'm not sure for what idea, specially with my busy schedule nowadays; A schedule that I'm still not grasping its horns.

Kika II

In my previous post I've talked about Kika's weekly challenge and the theme for Week 1 was "Childhood," and to be honest, I didn't like my simple shot then. Anyway, the week after, i.e. Week 2, bore the theme "Hidden;" As in, hidden face. 

Anxiety (II)

Once I've heard of the theme's name, that image that I've made back in 2019 jumped right into my mind; That is Anxiety.
Ironically, the shot was made in January 2019, as if it was reflecting on the anxiety that would ensue by the end of that year with the start of the pandemic.
The photo here, though, was re-retouched, for adjusting the aspect ratio (4X5) to be posted on Instagram and adding few dodge and burn, contrast, and few touches here and there and adding a soft dreamy effect. This photo had been uploaded to some photo contests before, so I figured that Kika's challenge is all about creativity and not authenticity or strict photographic rules and conditions, so I kind of had my time with such edits to my liking. But this was not the end of the story there, because I did take a similar shot just few days before that theme started already!

Three Quarters Blue

I did add the proper hashtag for Kika's challenge (#Kikasphotochallenge) to Three Quarters Blue but it didn't get that much attention I suppose because it was not new when the theme started. It was posted already few days before the theme officially started. Three Quarters Blue was shot with my Huawei Mate 9 phone while I was in the office in my workplace (yes, been there few times already to supervise the "cleaning" process). While I was waiting in my office, facing WhatsApp in my tablet for any new "orders" I've decided to kill the time a bit. I noticed that most of the protective gear come in blue color (intentional?). Anyway decided to do something similar to Anxiety and fill the image with blue, but since the phone camera can't focus up close and personal to my face, I had to take the shot and then crop it considerably in post-processing in a way to hide all other features. I've succumbed to the fact that I can't crop this keeping the aspect ratio of the original image and I had to do free cropping and that made the image come a bit elongated more than the usual 3x2 ratio (or whatever Huawei uses). The other hard part of the story was inducing vivid colors and brighten the eye. The eye would have been brightened in a suitable way if it was struck with a flash or sunlight, but with this quick selfie, it was all a burden for the post-processing. Processing JPEG files of 8-bit and in sRGB color space is not the ideal condition to create vivid colors as it is, thus one of the first steps to do was to assign ProPhoto color space to the image and work from there. The image was saved later in Adobe1998 when finalized. The eye here looks unnatural but I tried to make it so as much as I could, I just couldn't pin down the "normality" level here. All in all, I think it just contrasts the overwhelming blue in a good way.
On a side note, this photo was recently used by someone on Instagram as their profile image AND even sent me a DM to get to know me (probably it was a bot after all). Reported that, and Instagram removed the image (yay finally something good), and they put it back again and reported it again and Instagram removed it for a second time (yay another good thing). Waiting to see if this would happen for a third time.

Finale

Things are going slow on my side, and at some aspects, it kind of anxious as well. I'm trying to manage my time to the best I can in order to do the tasks that I've set myself to do, like uploading some photos for Trierenberg contest. I've uploaded a set of panoramas but I still need to add some more, and each image needs some inspection before uploading. This said, I need to see when to prepare the second batch of uploads to the stocks.
Work-wise, there had been some developments along the lane which made me awry and uncomfortable. There is seldom a moment when I wouldn't think of the upcoming events and how things would develop. There is a certainly some point along the line when I would have to leave this job but how, when, and what then? Such a pressure on my mind that leaves me paralyzed at times. Retinitis Pigmentosa is not giving me the best moments of life and I would have taken it differently, maybe, in my 20s or 30s; But at 40, that's a load on a back that already started to bend for the passage of time. I lay it all in the hands of God.