The Garden Hunt!

As planned yesterday, today I've decided to take a rest in my place; since there is no more room left for another muscle in my legs! Anyway, that doesn't mean I'm not using my camera. In fact, with the breakfast, my mind was at work planning on what should I catch for today.
My first idea was to roam the garden for some birds hunt, and specially, the Irish magpie, which made me felt like I've been accompanied by a guest all this time...

TheMagpie

Source: TvTropes.

This bird was an everyday visitor almost. Every day, at the time of breakfast, you would see him jumping in the garden catching something, most probably small insects that I couldn't see. I loved its colors and patterns. I thought him a raven or a crow in the beginning but his white streaks were destinctive indeed, and when I asked my host about its name, she told me The Magpie. The way he jumps on the grass sort of reminds me of penguins as well.

Now ravens are also nice looking birds despite the bad reputation and the awful sound they produce, and they had been a target as well. But unfortunately, no luck so far. The closest I could get to a bird, any bird, so far does not give the quality I'm seeking...

Something like a magpie, but I don't think it is a magpie, on electric pole.

A raven, picking up something from the field or yard next house.

But nevertheless, it is a nice atmosphere, and really puts me to sleep again. Cold wind, yet I like it. I wonder how is the weather back there in Kuwait. I'm not optimistic about it, but I do expect the temperature to be down to around 36C. After all, my catch wasn't that bad for today. I got a close up of this tiny little creature...

On the other hand, I tried to try my flash head today and tried to make some sparkles on the glassware, but my trials were not successful. I think I do need a darker room or a softbox. In fact, I was conducting the experiment without removing the glassware from the cabinet, and using my 55-200mm lens from a distance of nearly 2 meters or more a bit. I think the circumstances did not help on making some sparkles on the glass edges. The light coming from the window was also fine, hence no great change in light on objects. I think I shall leave it to another day. I didn't really want to remove or touch any glassware like I did last time. I didn't know how to compose my image after all.

In the mean time, I think I will be going to Cahir again by tomorrow. I'm going to check the antiques shop again. I might have done a mistake thinking it was sold or something. But the real reason is to check the gifts shop there actually, and also check the castle there for the last time. The way on cab took me around €25, and the way back to Cashel was for €20! A week passed so far, but I still feel the need to do more photography than this...

Alexander 6, V109.

Well, it's a Monday, but I don't know how it will pass still. It sounds idle even though I spent the time working in the lab and reading the books I have here. Hope it remains "idle" till I get back home.
At home on the other hand, my camera had been idle since I've been working still with images taken from Ireland last year. Trying everything from Black and White and Sepia to the low saturation techniques, and trying to avoid HDR as much as possible. Yet still, I do use HDR in some images that I didn't add before.

The Ash Forks

Supposedly, these are ash trees going up higher than the rest of the trees. The original image was in pale blue hue in fact and I worked it out in that way after tone-mapping from HDR. As you can see here, there are some halos around the trees that I couldn't remove and I didn't want to use the heal brush tool or else, everything would be a mess. Tone-mapping (in Photomatix) is a fascinating tool, but there are things you would really need to control, and it is hard to so. Exposure Fusion technique on the other hand is nice and simple and avoids such halos, but sometimes it is hard to give out such vivid colors and control over light conditions. The image above was cropped to centralize the trees.

Another image, which I'm so pleased about, is what I consider my first silhuoette, or should I say, faux silhuoette.

The Crows Tree

This scene was taken in the very early hours of the morning, after listening to some crows in the air and looking left and right trying to spot them, I've found some of them hanging around this tree which was out of the backyard of the house where I stayed, The Waterfront. The sky was cloudy and bluish but not exactly in that manner. The heavy processing was mainly in the RAW converter before the image is out into Photoshop for the rest of the operations. The image was also cropped to centralize the tree. The hardest part maybe was to neutralize the green color in the leaves of the tree. I had to adjust the hue, luminance and saturation for the greens in the RAW converter to make it less apparent, and then with some contrast in Photoshop the effect was strengethened. What really bothers me is the "noisy" bulk of branches at the bottom which I couldn't crop with the rest. The image size won't help if I have done so.

Been somehow busy after all these editions. Uploading and today I was writing down the information for these images in stock sites. There had been other pictures other than the two mentioned above. The silhouette image though reminded me of one of my doodles that I used to do out of boredom. I think I need to get back to these doodles as they help out to release some stress I believe. I've been so concerned of my habits at work. Always shaking my leg even though I'm not in a hurry or even stressed about something! What does that mean? Why I'm doing this? I tried even to mke myself busy with something else just to stop this leg shake, but no use.

Bird from Hell. One of my doodles.

My hand is getting better now and my thumb is movable in some directions, but not completely of course. I keep on taking this medicine that makes me drowsy and need to sleep most of the time. In fact I feel it now at this moment while writing this. I will keep putting creams and taking this pill even after removing the bandage by now, until I don't know when!
I had/have the urge to listen to some of the old music today, and it made me feel a bit old, doesn't it do the same with you? Well, it does to me, specially that some of these songs were there back when I was 17 years old, and now I'm almost hitting 30...



__________

2593. the Cadid then climbed up the mount with a heavy body
2594. his body was injured severely by the claws of the creature
2595. but with hard moves the Cadid reached the top of the mount
2596. and he lied on the ground moaning and groaning with pain
2597. Alexander then started to try to cure his injuries
2598. he cut some pieces of his garments and tied the injuries
2599. then he got out a vessel and made the Cadid drink water
2600. it was dark and Alexander could hardly see around him
2601. except of some cave with yellowish flame out of it
2602. Alexander approached the cave trying to seek help
2603. after some steps forward he heard something at his back
2604. he looked back to see an old man with a long beard
2605. he was standing over the Cadid and covering his head
2606. his face was not obvious by the hood but only his beard
2607. he stood beside the head of the Cadid and stared at him
2608. then knelt down on his body while Alexander was watching
2609. the old man then started to pass his hands over the Cadid
2610. and the cuts into the Cadid's body started to weld completely
2611. Alexander with a slow and calm voice did say then
2612. "the Hermit?" he said
2613. the old man said: yes, O good man, and who are you?
2614. no man visited me in this deserted place for centuries
2615. Alexander replied: I am Alexander, the king of Caqobia
2616. and the man remained still staring closely at Alexander

Alexander 6, V71.

It is one of those days that I can't call either as busy, or idle. It was something in between, but surely my mind was busy with other tasks. Went well so far, despite my wake-up at 3:00 am with a severe pain and diarrhea, again.
I started my day with the radio as usual, and suddenly, it was one of those rare times when something you really like is played on air. I wonder who would listen to rap or rock at 6:00 am? C'mon guys!
The song was "Bad Day" for Daniel Powter. It is not an old song I guess, but I do love it and for quite some time, I didn't think about this song or the words in it. Just this morning I got its spark...



It is a unique song to me because of the simplicity of words, and yet the big meaning in it in the same time. It reminds me of those damn Mondays specifically, and made me walk on with my days until this very moment. Not only that, but it did in fact inspire to write something close to that meaning, but I had to "steal" the rhyming scheme somehow (that is a-a-b-b-c). I called my piece Pigeons and A Crow. It reminded myself of some days when people look differently and strangely at you just because you are left-handed, clumsy, not the sport type, your body shape, and even the shape of your nose or what car you are driving. People can be cruel and silly in the same time... this is for sure.

The last piece was not written completely in one time, but on separate times, as I had to go out of work for some time to receive my new ID card. Boy, that was a place. But inspired me a bit to complete this piece actually. It was a crowded place with people that you don't know if they were real people, and you would walk and everyone might knock you off and walk away just like nothing happened at all, and needless to say about the hot weather and the walk from the car to that building. Not a place to work or to go in general, unless you are squeezed for necessity.

I finished adding the new words so far, but this is not the end of this chapter of work. We still have a list of "adds" and "fixes" that must be done to the pre-existing words added in the dictionary from the previous chapters of Alexander's story. This addition and fixing requires more attention even. Needless to say the fixes on the main text body that was already finished just few days ago.

Been working and checking some photos from Ireland last year and I've just discovered one image that I didn't work with at all, despite the fact that I've prepared its Radiance files (or HDR files in .hdr format, that is). It is a picture of the coffee house on the Inchagoil island, in the lake of Lough Corrib. I don't think I've managed to make this image before, specially before I know the PTGui. At that time, I always had problems with Photoshop for photomerging this image together. The image is tiled (several columns, everal rows) and I remember I've shot it without a tripod even, which made some slices of it a bit shaky. However, I can say the general look was fine, to my eyes at least...

There is still more digging to be done with my pictures from Ireland still...

In the meantime, I'm concerned about the receipt I'm supposed to receive from GoIreland.com for my booking by the phone. I don't like to start doing the visa procedure without having this receipt and printing it out first. I shall go for the tickets later. Beside this concern, we have the damn car that got into the second month now with June beginning, without any news about fixing it. I didn't pay the installment for May yet. Not for a purpose, but I'm just too sick for going there at the moment. I might shorten my day tomorrow by going there and pay.


_________
1681. Alexander wandered for some time between the bushes
1682. and found himself on the top of a hill above a valley
1683. he walked down there while his Cadid is still up and tied
1684. then he saw the trees which Biryári talked about
1685. and he tasted these fruit and they were bitter
1686. while out of sudden the Cadid on the top of the hill
1687. started to howl like a wolf would do so high
1688. Alexander moved little bit to check the Cadid
1689. but suddenly felt the ground to shake slowly
1690. he stopped to check and thought it is only his imagination
1691. but the ground started to shake more and more
1692. and the howling of the Cadid increased and been more high
1693. and weird sounds he heard of something huge
1694. something was approaching so close to him
1695. and from one corner of the valley he noticed
1696. how some trees fall down for unknown reason
1697. he looked carefully while the ground shakes hard
1698. while the dust appeared in the air from afar
1699. and from the moving dust he noticed a huge body
1700. it was but moments then he realized it is a horde
1701. it was a hoard made by group of similar animals
1702. three horns each one of them had and spikes on the back
1703. they were moving so fast in his direction face to face
1704. and the hero was paralyzed for few moments in his place