Camera Doodles…

Well, I think it had been one hell of a "vacation" from blogging, to blog. Did I stay away from this blog for 3 or 4 weeks? I can't recall really. All I remember is that in a week's time, I had so much going on in my life that I could barely sit in front of the PC and do anything except of checking the so-called "social media" (which I pretend that I have). I had some allergy attacks, and a slip on the stairs ending me with a twisted foot and a pain in the tail (or rather the muscles around that tail bone). Meanwhile, I was already engaged in typing a blog post for my Arabic blog, which made me stop everything at that point. On a positive point, I did work on a tiny experiment with high speed, but probably I shall post about that later on as I'm following some chronological order in this blog and I'm supposed to post something related to the infrared shot I've made before and talked about in the previous post.
Meanwhile, I think I'll be busy as well doing an "inventory check" for images from 2022 and 2021 (and maybe even 2020) to see what I can prepare of them to be uploaded to the stocks. This is a tedious task specially when ti comes to the keywording process. I've tried to find a tool to help me out with keywording time and again, but failed to find a suitable one. Anyway, for this reason, I might be away from this blog for another 2 weeks or so (providing that I don't slip on the stairs again!).

Camera Doodles

This sit of images is quite quick, and thus this whole blog post might be short actually. This set of images was taken the day after the shots in my previous post were taken. Not much was done in these images except of fixing an infrared filter on the lens (I think it was Neewer's IR720) and moving the camera around (indoors where not much IR sources exist). Ironically, my aim was to test something outside and check if there are "hidden" clouds in the sky, but nothing interesting was there, so I came back inside and started to shoot randomly at light sources.

شُـهُـبْ
(meteors)

Generally speaking, the images were red (of course) but I added some twist to it to make it purple and interesting. Indoors, most of the lighting in fixtures comes from LED lights; Not a significant IR source but apparently IR720 do let in some of the spectrum from these lights. Anyway, I've tried various movements between shots, and some images like Meteors have been rotated to make it interesting somehow. Even though it is an abstract in general but seems to me that the direction of the "tails" in such images is important; I could've also made the tails going from the top and downward and probably would still be representative of meteors falling down. Anyway, abstracts are abstracts and those coming up won't have a direction most of the time as we'll see.

Camera Doodles 1

As for the next 2 abstract shots I can't quite remember what orientation were they when they were taken, but apparently I wasn't pointing the camera towards some light source like the fixtures in Meteors. Looking at it, it might be suitable for some background but I'm not quite confident that the stock websites would be accept such images, as it looks quite random. Camera Doodles 2 looks even more random than Camera Doodles 1. 

Camera Doodles 2

My guess or let's say I hope that such images would be accepted for their colors rather than their "composition" (if such word applies here). When I come to think of it, I think the hardest part is to assign keywords to such images right now, as they are completely random! Even though some websites state that something around 20 to 30 words are just about enough, I got into the habit of not feeling satisfied in less than 40 words (probably affected by that time when I had an Alamy account some years ago). One thing though about Camera Doodles 2, and that is that I think I've applied some inverse somewhere in the process but not sure how or when!

Moving Door

The last in this series (and I've skipped one here which I will post at the end) and probably my most valuable shot here is Moving Door where I've set the camera on a table and manually rotated it as the exposure was to be taken (about 6 seconds). It did require some trials to do it right though despite its simplicity; Just the right angle and the right spinning speed. The door here leads to guest room and then to the outside so I'm guessing some bits of infrared are seeping through. Worth noting that the place was busy with people and good thing none (I guess?) appeared here. I think Moving Door has this sense of horror movies despite the floral design on the door. Surely will be keyworded for upload to the stocks.

Finale

So this is a short and quick post for some quick abstract shots done with an infrared filter on 50mm lens. I think my plan for the next few days from now is to work on some images and prepare them for the stocks. This will take some time so I'm not sure if I have the time to post here but we'll see. Meanwhile, I'm also trying to dedicate some time and effort to shoot something (anything) and probably I should also think of a proper topic for my Arabic blog for August. I've already skipped June!
On the other hand there had been some problems on Instagram as I've been trying to upload a video of my latest shots (which I will hopefully talk about here in the coming weeks). I've been trying to upload the video daily, and for more than one week, and kept getting some error message which doesn't explain a thing. I've issued a ticket but I didn't get a reply, yet the problem was resolved few days afterward, so I'm thinking that they did respond to the ticket. Too bad though I didn't take a picture of the set when I did this high-speed photo shoot but I might reenact it, though it's not a big deal I guess.

Meanwhile, I've been also thinking about participating in photography contests (from which my inbox is flooded with), specially after the closure of Trierenberg Circuit lat year (or was it this year?). Anyway, I'm not sure what I would be aiming for in such contests; Like, I'm OK with the money but not sure if it is worth it much. On the other hand, would I get some recognition? Again, what for. Anyway, the idea is still flipping in my head, left and right, and couldn't reach  decision about it, but I might as well participate in few of these contests. We'll see…

In relation to the so-called social media as well it felt being so isolated in the past 2 weeks. Despite the fact that I spend most of my time alone, but I had that urge to talk to someone, anyone, just talk... but there was none. Neither on this social media, nor in reality (from which I'm escaping I guess). It felt as if there was something broken inside my head, staring aimlessly and just doing nothing, and having a nap after another, with total fatigue. Funny how this social media which is supposed to help you grow your circle or do something about the stupidity of the social norm, in fact locks you down further in wait for anyone to reply to your comments or look at your posts and nothing happens for hours and hours. Just the ridiculous life I'm leading…

Tunneling

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