Back Home…

Just back from Dubai last week, and nothing is changed it seems. I had to get my engine clogged with problems as soon as I arrived. Anyway, meanwhile, I got myself into some activities and projects, and some of these are related to Dubai's expo somewhat. This is going to be a quick wrap.

Photography Live

This was main title of the expo. The one held last year was named PhotoWorld. Probably the organizing company had changed and hence the name was changed as well. Anyway, this event was a major gathering for all photography-related parties and companies. It was a quite professional gathering and I did finally find professional printing companies who know the meaning of ICC profiles!
Three days plus one day of preparations, all made it such an exhausting stay. Positive feedback was galore and many people had the urge to join the group. Unfortunately, the group is not yet quite open to the outside world with its limited options for delivering workshops. Anyway, this is left for the management of the group to decide.
On the other hand, I didn't do much documentation for the expo since I brought my camera with 2 lenses only. However, I did record some videos (yet I'm no videographer). The videos weren't that good anyway, but I'll post one below. This was taken as I roamed the grounds checking various parts of the event. The most interesting part for me was those corners for companies related to printing and printing materials.

I won't be exaggerating if I say that the real work started after coming back from Dubai. This is because of the ideas and information gathered during the event and which must be studied for a while to help on advancing further, specially in the printing field. However, I've been busy with other things lately…

360^o

This is the name of a mall here. I'm going to spell it out from the very beginning: I hate it. I hate its location, and hate almost its internal design as well. Anyway, I was pushed to enroll in a special contest regarding this mall (by friends), thus I decided to pay a visit and check what I can do about it. The contest is dedicated to the so-called Vertical Gardens which is a prominent feature in a specific corner of the mall, which in return is filled with cafés. Visiting the mall prior to the shoot didn't change any of my opinions about the place; it's a waste of space. My choice was a panorama and I decided to go in the very early morning before the busy hours (realized later, that the mall is open even if the stores inside are closed, and some people jog or walk inside in the mornings!).
Doing a panorama there is really exhaustive, and to make things harder, the light meter died out, thus I had to depend solely on the camera's metering (which was fixed on Evaluative).

First Version

Despite the mall being without any visitors almost, there were the workers and the security, and all contributed to some blurry movements in the scene (which was hard to clone out in Photoshop too). After stitching and tone-mapping the First Version, the very old problem of colored spots (blue mainly) showed up further. Had to work lengthy hours just to clean these spots (and later in other versions I didn't).
After finishing from this panorama, I tried to shoot some infrared shots with my other (converted) camera, but checking the images, it seems that I've focused more on the decoration and international design (the ceiling specifically) which was one of the few nice things in the place, but forgot totally to include the gardens in the image!
Having the situation in that way, I've decided to produce other projections of that same panorama and submit them for the contest (3 images maximum). Anyway, I think I can do some other projects with these infrared shots. Anyway, I won't be posting more at this moment, and probably I will be waiting for the closure of the contest by May 21^st. The awards sound nice, but the subject is next to null. Had some ideas for capturing a motion with long exposure somewhat, and suggested this idea to other friends, but it seems even if this is possible, the interior design and angles would be hard to find and work with. I'm not optimistic about any good results in this contest (typically), and I can imagine that the future winning shot, is merely a documentation of the place. Meanwhile, I'm attending more important contests, for the group and for myself; namely the Epson's first panorama contest. This is a contest that I'm eager to roll in, even though my chances are weak in the world of professional panorama-makers.

Finale

It's been a week now since I've got back from Dubai, and seems my schedule is overloaded with activities; work problems and contests, and also considering options and studying. The bird inside of me is clicking in need to travel and change scenery. Alas, summer is here scorching my body and mood, and Ramadhan is coming soon as well with my sleeping turbulence.
I know that I've forgot about lot of my life's pleasures, and I would need more time for myself. But what would I do with this time if I "create" it? I'm technically losing interest in many things as I grow older and older. It seems life is but a silly chain of events in my eyes, no more, no less…

Die Spinne…

This is a quick wrap again for this week, just going over the latest on my schedule. My time is up almost and I will soon prepare myself to travel to Dubai for an exhibition. I didn't even think of what to pack yet! I just hope it would be easier for me to do some documentation.


Meanwhile, I got the chance to print (finally) a panorama from Malta and I've prepared it with varnish and then wrapped it. The plan now is to deliver this little gift to the Maltese embassy on Thursday (the day of posting this). Let's hope all goes smoothly. I know security can be a great issue around such places.

The print after the varnished had dried off.

The print is for L-Orizzont; an image that I've submitted to a number of contests already (and it was accepted like 50-50). However, it is a second version from the original, which I've processed specifically to make it look more normal, beside cropping the sides significantly.

L-Orizzont: version I

L-Orizzont: version II.

 

To my ill luck, I've forgot to sharpen the final image before printing it on canvas. I was lucky though that the print shop, the one I frequent for printing on canvas, was able to print this despite the size which was larger than A0; slightly. They charged the same price for A0 size in fact. Now, it is wrapped and kept in a box and waiting to be delivered.

On the other hand, I've been playing around with my only ultraviolet panorama so far and trying to extract some other projections. The fact that I was way off-center this time (more than the last time I did a panorama in this location), made it hard to accomplish much. Projections must be picked carefully in regard to the asymmetrical attitude of this panorama.

Die Spinne
(the spider)

The hardest part here was cloning out the remnants of the tripod at the nadir point, which was too obvious, and the ground was of mixed media and hard to be cloned out. Probably it looks fine in such small size, but definitely it won't be acceptable at large. I'm still working on this and yet have to discover new projections.

Finale

Everyday now sounds like it's a race against time. But for what? I'm not sure. Though everything is ready for the flight, yet I don't think I'm psychologically ready yet. This said, I had to put some stress on my budget to make this work. Mood swings have been severe lately, and it definitely is putting some blocks on my way of thinking, creating and working with what I'm planning to do. What can I say anyway; had not it been like that for years now? My last hope is to have some "fun" in this upcoming travel to Dubai, despite the hard work which I know is awaiting for me. Maybe a busy body, means a thoughtless mind…

Xiŋwiñzaji!

A somehow idle week with iterative sleeping problems. Not sure though if the sleeping problems are related to my back and legs muscles pain, or are they related to my busy mind. Because of this, my activities were minimal and I didn't even head to work for some days (also because some painting job in my office). Yet, I was working on some ideas while in the meantime uploading more photos to some new stock sites which, unfortunately, seems not doing any good.

Glossa

I didn't work much on Geltani conlang this week and I doubt I would do much as well because of all these time-consuming "problems". However, I've done some trials to solve one problem that was buzzing my mind for a while, which is the ambiguous formation of words from Arabic into Geltani in which the short vowels are different but the main consonants are the same. Just to give out an example:

laħam [لَحَم]: (he) welded

laħm [لحْم]: meat

luħim [لُحِم]: welded (passive)

In Arabic, there are many examples of this kind. In one of my previous posts I gave out a similar example with the root [M-L-K], which is related to ownership and ruling.

However, since I've been making trials with verbs for some time right now and decided to derive verbs from nouns (mainly because nouns would vary significantly in their consonants), which solves the problem partially, I've decided now to derive nouns of professions and titles in a similar manner as I decided to do with verbs. Thus, The word for king would be derived from the noun kingdom. Just to show:

Kingdom

King

Kingdom: Xiŋwiñz'

King: Xiŋwiñzaji

"X" as "CH" in Loch,  "ŋ" as "ng" in English, "ñ" as a nasalized vowel, and " ' " as a schwa.

Of course this transliteration and vocal system is still not finished but let's call it a demo. I'm not sure if I'm happy with the "-ji" suffix because it sounds too Japanese and I'm trying to put something on the same line but would better sound differently. However, I'm not going to put much thought on this issue for the time being, as if I didn't find another suitable substitute then I'm going to accept it as it is. Notice that I've added a vowel "a" before "-ji" to merge it into the word, this is because "Z" has a schwa and not into a syllable itself. 

I've made up a special character for this characteristic syllable (or maybe I should call it the profession syllable), but a critical question come to my mind amid all of these fuss: what about the Queen?

In Geltani, unlike in Ayvarith, I've tried to strip the gender bases in formulating the words, but as time progresses, I find myself creating words for He and She or words for His and Her. It seems to me that however I try to step away from this issue it just pulls me back in and there is no escape but to create a special grammatical entity based on genders. This said, I might be inventing a special character for the profession in a feminine form (like in Queen), and probably the suffix would be simply "-jin". This is just the beginning but I'm willing to think it through and see if there is something around this problem. Another problem that is already prevalent somehow is the fact that with such method of deriving from nouns, the writing and pronunciation processes might be longer than normal. 

I might be the first to invent nounal verbs instead of verbal nouns? And then, what about adjectives? For the time being, I'm taking adjectives as they are, i.e. transform them directly from Arabic (in masculine form) without referring back to any idea about derivation from verbs or nouns. Might be a bit illogical in the context of the process, but hey, it's a language after all!

Smokes

I've been planning to take some pictures of smokes for a while since the time I've seen this lovely censer among Mom's possessions. It wasn't until last week though that I've finally began to do some experiments with this subject, and I've hardly done it.

Censer I
Tamron 70-300mm @124mm,
f/13, 250^-1sec,
ISO125.

There is a funny story about these images but I'm going to tell that in the next section of this post. When I decided to work with this censer, I've taken around 30 minutes or maybe more just trying to adjust (and search) for everything. It was late at night in the weekend which is the perfect time to work peacefully with no kids at home. In the beginning I had to take several test shots using only my 580EXII speedlite with a correcting gel (to balance the flash color temperature with the tungsten light in the room) affixed with a reflector and a panel for turning the reflector into a softbox - nice stuff from Expoimaging Rogue lighting kit.
I kept some white boards at hand and it proved very critical for some minute details, as I've used it to pour some light on the dark areas (and the dark areas would change with any slight change in the speedlite's orientation). 

Censer X
Tamron 70-300mm @124mm,
f/18, 250^-1sec,
ISO125.

The next hard part was to fix my other speedlite, 430EXII, to light smoke that comes out of the censer. I've used a spotlight setting (with honeycomb grids) to direct the light and make it spread as less as possible to other parts of the censer - but this specific detail was changed several times to see which setting was the best. Burning incense sticks was not successful enough, thus I had to resort to a more robust solution: burning tissues (Kleenex). With burning tissues, I had more smoke and could test my 430EXII and see if it is really working with the smoke. I put two gels on 430EXII just for fun and see the results. However, the result was like a mix of the two colors; naturally!

Censer XV
Tamron 70-300mm @300mm,
f/14, 250^-1sec,
ISO125.

After taking some shots for the whole body of the censer, I've decided to go deeper and get a closer look (since I'm using Tamron 70-300mm already and no need to move the tripod). The final result for the whole experiment was something close to100 shots, but after filtration and picking those special ones, with specific move in the smoke, a total of 21 images are left out. There was some editing in Photoshop as well to enhance the saturation and to darken the background completely, as the background I've used was not completely dark and it did reflect some light (probably from the room's spotlight rather than the speedlites), beside some unexpected additions to the scene that I didn't notice during the shooting session! I wanted to increase the shutter speed beyond 250^-1sec, which requires using High-Speed settings, to kill the ambient light completely (and darken the background even more) but unfortunately because of using the wireless function to control the speedlites I was not able to achieve this. This can be done with a cable or cord only (and some specific wireless controller or radio transfer probably). Such situations make me more eager to get a long soft cable rather than the helix-like cord that I have already (which hardly extends for more than 2 meters, i.e. around 6.6 ft). I made a mistake here though for not creating a sweep as a backdrop and I've simply placed a black board behind the censer, but checking the limits of the space itself, I think creating a sweep was also out of hand.

Jokes in Stocks

I've stated in my previous post that I'm looking forward to upload some of my images into other stock sites and try to increase the exposure. However, I'm quite aware of the fact that I'm not a commercial photographer and I don't deal much with tabletop photography, so far. Thus, my mission in this regard is not an easy one. Stock sites are not like fine art dealers nor like beauty lovers; they want something practical for usage in designs and ads. Nevertheless, some of their methods and ways in sorting out images are still funny to mention. I've realized that I've created a login in some of these websites long time ago and it was just a re-discovery from my side. Probably I know now why I didn't like the idea of uploading to them in the first place.
Dreamstime: In the beginning, they rejected most of my images and accepted only 2 (out of 10 or 20?). Now, I'm back again uploading to them. I've started to upload almost with the beginning of this week (including the 21 images of the censer) and so far, till the time of writing this blog post, no updates about the rejection status. Yes. I'm not that optimistic about accepting these files.

Depositphotos: This website has really good humor. My account was actually a buyer's account and I had to contact them to switch the login to a contributor. To be able to upload you need to fill in the tax form, and then upload 5 images as an examination to be able to upload to the website. All of my five images were rejected BUT hey! my tax form completion was done successfully! You can't imagine how happy I am. One more happy news here is that I can't put images for examination again till the passage of 10 days from the first examination.

123RF: All what I can say here is, stay away from this website. If Depositphotos rejected 5 photos from the examination sample, this website rejected 30 out of 33 images I've submitted, including ALL of the 21 images of the censer. You see, I'm not expecting all of the images of the censer specifically to be good - after all, the reason I've made several shots is to make different shapes of the smoke and also different zoom levels. For example, Canstockphotos did already rejected 11 and accepted 10 out of 21. When I checked closely, I've realized that reviewers on Canstockphotos did accept mainly images of the censer as a whole and rejected images of the censer in close-up. Here with 123RF, the whole set was rejected under the reason of "Poor lighting/Composition". OK, I understand the fact that I'm not a good photographer, but what kind of composition you are expecting for an isolate object in a tabletop photography? Or what kind of light you are expecting when I state in the file description Golden Censer lit partially? If they stated the reason as "Not marketable" I would quite understand that, but poor lighting and/or composition? That just doesn't add up. From some info bits in their website, I think the website is based in Dubai, and that thing specifically made me more optimistic about submitting to them but now, the whole game rules have changed.

FeaturePics: This is one agency that I do have some hopes for. They did reject some of my images and they did accept some others. One thing I don't understand here is the fact that I have to have 10 accepted images to be able to upload via FTP; my favorite method. So far, I didn't upload my censer images set onto this agency because I do prefer FTP for such large quantity of files. One thing I don't like here is the change in my images titles but to be fair, they did explain that already in their uploading tips, as they see poetic titles are not a good way for marketing and makes it hard for search engines to find the image, i.e. such titles would lessen the exposure to the public. They got a point somehow, even though I think in search engines routines it is usually the keywords that play the key role and not the title.

I'm still looking further but I can't get into any stock website I see. Canstockphotos and Mostphotos seem to be my dominant admirers for the time being.

Finale

There remains some experiments to be done yet but I didn't have the time this week, mainly because I need a model, and my model is, usually, my brother. Even though I did some tests and the results were fine so far, but I do need a good background.
I've notified the group about my inability to enroll in Redbull's contest and they expressed their disappointment. What's significant in their response is their reply: our participation is weak and we will disappoint them. When I asked about who was the initiator for such offer, turned out that the group was and Redbull's team didn't come to the group to ask for participation. I've blamed them (gently) for not checking on the preparations and the readiness of the group's members before involving the name of the group in such contest - specially that my own circumstances with my mother are well known and it is natural that I wouldn't have the full capabilities and time. Their response in fact, to some extent, did prove my point that they did have some heavy dependence on my shoulders which I didn't meet.
For the time being, it seems all I can do is concentrate more on tabletop photography and try to find new subjects to photograph with a twist. Probably this will have some marketable value as well. And they say don't carry the globe's load on your shoulders - how that is even possible?

Dubai Back and Fro...

Well, been to Dubai for 3 days this week and I couldn't have much time to take some photos or work on some pictures. I received and invitation (as I've mentioned in previous post) from HIPA to attend to the ceremony of awards giving.
The stay was fine and Dubai is a nice place to stay (I couldn't imagine there was no traffic jam!), but unfortunately way too expensive for my budget. In just 3 days I've spent what I would've spent in Ireland for 5 days or more!
Despite the beautiful atmosphere it was hard for me to take any pictures from there, and the sum was a total of 3 images only and 2 of them were, well, fine.

Dornige Schönheit
Canon EF 50mm + 20mm tube, f/22, 160^-1sec, ISO100.

I went strolling outside of the hotel after breakfast on the 18^th, first without any camera just to check my surroundings, but then I went back to my room and got my stuff and went out again to catch some weird looking plant (but then I've realized it is abundant in UAE). Weird for me at least as I'm no botanist! In here, I've used an extension tube (20mm I think) and took several shots with and without flash, but I think after all Dornige Schönheit was the most stable of all. I did took shots from above but I needed a larger zoom to hide my other hand which was holding the stem. Lately, I've been using the extension tubes a lot with my 50mm lens as I see it a nice and fast substitute for the heavy 100mm macro lens and would give a single hand the power to control the camera body properly more.

Columns and Columns
Tamron 70-300mm @300mm, f/8, 500^-1sec, ISO100.

I've walked and wandered further away and took some shots (mainly of abstract nature) but lot of them didn't turn well, and finally reached a construction site where I've noticed some raising columns under construction - probably the only thing that really caught my attention.
That night there was the ceremony which I went to Dubai for, the HIPA awards ceremony. Nicely done and I got the chance to see such amazing photos indeed. I'm checking with HIPA to see if the ceremony will be published on youtube.

I do realize that lot of people are surprised for the fact that I didn't take much pictures and I didn't go out a lot in Dubai - but this is back to the simple fact that I don't really consider it a vacation (or completely a vacation let's say). I would spend a vacation in a calmer place like the countryside or a sea village probably, but not in a big city. Also, I'm not a shopping person and I didn't go there for shopping in the first place, and photography-wise, the urban scape is not greatly inspirational for my mind. However, it is a nice city with nice people and there were lot of things to think about by observing my surroundings - Culture, attitude, and arts. Dubai is a big city but not within the same reputation line as other big cities like New York or London. This would seem hard to explain but probably easy to observe in Dubai itself!
Anyway, after a fast roll over Dubai events, I'm back to my previous regular work with my own humble photos the week before.

Flora Mood:

Well, they say it is spring already but years of living here as a native, I sort of realized that Kuwait has no spring. It's simply: Winter, Summer. It's an On-Off case, so to say. However, some blooms and flowers had sprung already and I didn't want to miss the chance. I think after my last workshop with my teacher about geometrical plays in floral arrangements, it seems that I'm (or my mind is) more aware of floral arts and the inside arrangements of floral lines.

Aglow
Canon EF 50mm+ tube, f/16, 50^-1sec, ISO400.

These images were taken the week before I travel on two days, when I started packing my camera and taking it with me to work. This time, however, I decided not to take my tripod. In fact, a tripod can be a hassle in such situations specially for one heavy and cranky tripod like mine!

Quinquenia
Canon EF 50mm + tube, f/20, 60^-1sec, ISO400.

As you may notice from Aglow above, that even f/16 can have a shallow depth of field in such situations (with extension tubes in used). Lately, I've been using the tubes a lot (I've mentioned that already above) because it is fast and easy to get a close up and ALSO because I can use 50mm lens which has a maximum aperture of f/1.4. This is of course a very shallow depth of field and when you compare it to f/16 which still has a shallow depth, f/1.4 might not be that good as an option. However, adding this value to the range of stops available is pretty valuable and I wouldn't know when would I need it. Anyway, in both shots here, Aglow and Quinquenia (and also shots that would come later) I was forced to raise the ISO little bit and use the on-camera flash. Here comes another advantage for using extension tubes: the length of the 50mm lens with an extension tube (be it 12, 20 or 36mm) is shorter most of the time (I'm talking here about connecting only one tube) and it gives a good close-up abilities. This relatively shorter than 100mm macro lens length makes it feasible and possible to use the on-camera flash easily because if the lens is too long like the 100mm lens, then a shadow cast is most likely to occur. A cast from the lens itself that is. Of course, we are talking about on-the-go photography and not the precise and making-art photography in which a photographer would spend many minutes if not hours studying the situation and settling the tripod and picking the lens and then choosing the appropriate moment.

Green Ankh
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm tube,
f/22, 200^-1sec, ISO100.

The on-camera flash solved lot of problems, and mainly allowed me to use the manual mode on the camera to speed up the shutter speed as much as I like. I would say though, if I was to use my 580EX II speedlite here, I would need help or something to stabilize the plant's stem at least. In most of these situations, both of my hands were busy and the on-camera flash seemed the appropriate solution for such situation, even though a slight shadow might burst out as in Quinquenia or to a lesser degree as in Green Ankh. The on-camera flash as well helped to create that translucent look and glowing atmosphere in Aglow; but the talk about the ISO noise is something else of course.
Yes, the on-camera flash does eat out some of saturation of some colors specially if no gels are used as it is the case with Green Ankh where the plant's stem was faint in color and I had to reduce the highlights and boost the vibrancy of colors (not the saturation) to some degree. But such situations are easy to deal with in general.

Quadraspinasphere
Canon EF 50mm + 36mm tube, f/20, 20^-1sec, ISO400.

As I've said before, using the on-camera flash allowed me to work with manual mode but this is not always the case. Like in Quadraspinasphere, I was not so sure where to begin with my shutter speed so I've just turned the the dial to Av and let the camera choose the shutter speed for me (in combination with the flash). Here, I was lying on the ground after putting the car shade on the floor out of my work place (and thank God no one was there to watch me do it!), thus it was reasonable to concentrate on my approach to the plant in such a low level, rather than work or think about the shutter speed. I had to crop Quadraspinasphere to make it as a quarter of a sphere as I envisioned it, but one of the hardest points in taking this picture is the fact that I have to work in manual focus most of the time. A fact that had been persistent with using extension tubes, as the auto-focusing function seems to be baffled when it comes to extension tubes, probably!
One of the tricks that I usually do in such situations with manual focusing (and with such bad eye vision like mine), and with a shaky situation (like a plant in the wind or breeze or a shaky hand) is to do a scanning with continuous shutter speed clicks. Meaning: with relatively high shutter speed (20^-1sec seems fast enough but slower with flash turned on), I set the camera with continuous (or burst) mode/drive and check out a point where the sharp focus is most likely to occur (all within the viewfinder). After that, I get closer to the subject little bit (not much!) and press the shutter button and keep holding it while moving my head slowly to the back getting further away from the subject. This way, I get load of pictures of course, but at least my chances for getting a sharp image in between are more. It is a talk of probability and statistics if I should say. 

Thoughts:

There is a hard mix in thoughts right now, specially after this trip to Dubai, and regarding many aspects. In Dubai, it seemed to me that people talk about arts wherever you go, and galleries of art are displayed in public - it was like a public education concerning arts. How was this done? What elevated the level of consciousness of the people of Dubai, at least those I've been meeting on the way, about arts. Such level of thought that I didn't encounter so far in here. Needless to say, that such big city get a traffic jam only in the rush hours time (morning and evening), unlike us with 12 hours a day.
I remember back in the 1970s and 1980s Kuwait was something like that, and the simplest form of art appreciation would be seen in the National Day celebrations, when people and schools used to go out on the streets in an organized parades with props and stuff made memorizing and emphasizing the history and the identity of this country. Where did all that go? All these parades are now replaced by a bunch of sanitarium inmates going freely outside and splash each other with water and foam and traffic jams blocking the roads. Is this the identity we are commemorating?
It is clear and evident that the foreign policies and the openness of Dubai to the world made it a global center with an elevated level in most aspects of life - but do we really need to be open that much as much as to indulge in (mostly) western culture to be elevated in the level of consciousness? Logically and from the perspective of history, Arabs did conquer such place in time and now it is gone, hence, I think building over what was achieved and not merely adapting to the western way is possible; thus, creating a self-identity awareness. The thing is, where and how to start and what could spark people about such advantageous endeavor? One particular clue lies in the ruling family of the UAE and Dubai specifically. I was surprised that HIPA (which stands for Hamdan International Photography Award) was established by the crown prince of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan and he, himself, was a contributor. He is a young man, and I thought he was old, or not-so-old type of person. I realized at this point that the upper class and those under in a community like UAE's is really entwined to some extent and the leaders themselves push people in that direction and encourage the openness of thoughts and arts. He should be an example to be followed in the region, and the ME in general. This is what I believe.

Writing this now, with a call from the main organizer in the group about another fair or expo that they want me to get involved in. I have to say frankly that I'm getting tired of this. At the time that I want to raise consciousness and arts appreciation in the group members and make them stronger in spirit facing the criticizing of their images, needless to say raise their technical skills, the management of the group on the other hand concentrate so much on the aspects concerning the group's reputation and pronouncing its name. I wonder now, how this can be done with members that don't even shoot in RAW format?!
I've been chitchatting with a friend on dinner last Friday and he made a note that he felt that the group and its responsibilities are pulling me down, and I'm pulling or carrying the heavy load of the group's well-being on my shoulders like Hercules. He suggested that if it didn't quite work well, I should quit.

I'm not memorizing all those beloved projects that I've established some time ago along with Ayvarith conlang, like the Bulughman and the Betenic for example. I need to continue and I need to spend more time with these projects that suddenly stopped in time. My Geltani project is also postponed and can barely touch it with all these responsibilities over my head. I have to say NO to many stuff just to sit down and complete some of these fantasies of my own. That might mean, for some time, saying "Goodbye" to my camera and have some rest from all the mess and confusion that I've got myself into with photography world - specifically here in Kuwait.

Mawahb 3

Finally it's over. What a stress and what a scramble and entangle of times and schedules it was. This year, however, I didn't have the mood to go around and take photos of various booths around the expo, even though there were some nice people and some nice talents. I was just too tired to do all of this now.
I did take photos after all from various locations around the expo just for trials and not as documenting. But because of the ongoing event I didn't have enough time to work on these photos once I've taken them - add to that, a panorama of the booth took over my little available time between my work and the expo.
The location of the expo this year was changed and I have to say it was a miserable location for parking places were shared between students, participants and visitors (and later I've been told that the expo location itself was on a parking lot making huge harassment for students there!).

We'll come to the panorama and the QTVR later in its own section, but for now I guess I'll just list some of the images that I've processed so far, and maybe a little story behind some of them!

The Sax
Tamron 70-300mm @209mm,
f/5, 200^-1sec, ISO1600

In the beginning there was the stage which I thought of snapping at for several times on several days (the expo was for 5 days). It is a good target because of the lights and the atmosphere - a real test for the camera and the lenses, but a bad atmosphere for my ears!
The situation was good for all sort of light tricks but it needs concentration and a good lens, and apparently Tamron 70-300mm is not that good but it did some nice job. I say it's not that good, but I'm not saying it's bad! The lowest f-stop could be achieved is f/4.5 and it increases to f/5 with increasing focal length. Moreover, the zooming ring can get jammed a bit and hard to move (this can be good and bad in the same time). Probably the cold weather and air at night does affect this lens but I'm not sure of that. With lowest f-stop being f/5 in zooming situation, it was essential to raise the ISO severely in lot of shots taken with this lens, as is the case with The Sax, which was done with a fast metering for the highlight areas on the stage and stopping down the shutter speed (make it faster) to make a slight touch of light on the bodies. Notice how the shutter speed is barely 200^-1sec while focal length is 209mm, and all at ISO1600.

Happy Drummer
Canon EF 10mm macro, f/2.8, 250^-1sec, ISO800

Just to give an impression how it is to work with such f-stop as f/5 in the darkness, it is enough to look at the other image taken with Canon EF 100mm macro lens at f/2.8 (smallest for this lens). At ISO800 it was barely light enough to catch the drummer's happy moment. Probably the red lights made it worse for the noise-cleaning process. The ISO value was cut to one half.

The Lonely Sax
Tamron 70-300mm @176mm, f/5,
60^-1sec, ISO1600.

Cropping images is a prevalent feature in such images taken from the stage and I think it is a must. It's hard to control such a chaos on the stage but you have to keep your eyes open for specific expressions and/or specific light patterns on the performers' bodies and faces. I wasn't a fan of such type of photography but I think it did change my mood a bit by trying something out of my comfort zone (with architecture and landscape). Amazingly, as well, images like The Lonely Sax did give me some sad feelings and touch, most probably because of the light and red lights and the dark atmosphere, while on the stage, the musical play was a happy Latin tune.

Old laptop and monitors users careful here as the colors might appear smudged and/or banded.

Now, this picture really sparked some thoughts in my head about the possibilities I do have out there, spiritually and mentally that is. What are the possibilities of changing the emotions of the scene intentionally? Is it really easy to change a happy scene into a sad one? Or maybe it is easy to change a sad scene into a happy one? Of course the light plays a major role here in the formation of the feelings surrounding the image, but I'm pretty sure it is not the only factor. I'm already aware of color-to-B&W conversion and its power in conveying emotions through an image, specially those that are intended to invoke mystery or melancholy. Yet, I feel there is a general formula for all this turmoil. Probably my scientific-based mind is largely getting involved here; where it doesn't belong?

The Player of The Sun
Tamron 70-300mm @176mm, f/5, 400^-1sec, ISO1600.

Doing silhouettes is another possibility for objects on the stage with so many lights rolling around, but behold, it's not that easy as well - since stage lights were circling around. I think The Player of The Sun was just a hit of luck for me when all lights on my side went off at the moment and only those on the far side kept on - a must for silhouettes. There had been other silhouettes other than this but I think the one above is the best of them all. The spot light on the far end did help the look I guess to make it something outdoors-like rather than indoors-like and on stage.

Stephanie McGeehee
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 80^-1sec, ISO800.

Our booth was visited frequently and sometimes by some celebrities. One of the major characters to me, however, was Stephanie McGeehee. Stephanie is the owner of METALfusion - a shop for printing on aluminum and one of our major sponsors for this expo. The shop itself can be a target for a panorama and I've thought seriously about sending an email to her suggesting the idea with reduced prices in exchange of a self-advertising by adding my own logo and website to the panorama. Not sure how it would turn out, but I didn't advertise for myself seriously since I decided to start a website of my own back in 2012.

Planeta Columnium

 She was amazed with my panorama Planeta Columnium and was wondering why did I crop it. When I've told her that we have our own critics in the group who decide what to put on the expo and contests and what to crop or not she replied that that this panorama is better be symmetrical as it is intended to and the crop did really take a lot out of the panorama.
Maybe you did notice the shutter speed and the ISO just to make a sense of the lighting conditions there! Yet, the images I've taken of her were mostly out of focus - the darn f/1.4 is so shallow that a slight move can take the whole scene out of focus!

Happy Birthday!

By the last day of the expo I was surprised to know that it was my teacher's birthday! Out of sudden the Birthday chants started and everyone was gathering around the cake singing and wishing. I didn't have time to react here but I just grabbed my camera and started to shoot in Manual mode. Naturally, lot of these shots was out of focus mainly because of the crowds in front of me who interfered with the focusing points and the camera focused on them instead!

Glowing Bahaa!
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 640^-1sec, ISO400.

Magic and Magician
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
1000^-1sec, ISO400.

Just to note, these images were processed accordingly with my calibrated monitor of my PC, hence the luminance level (and so the visual impact on the viewer) can be different that what I intended!

In a fast rhythm, I've started to do some metering in a hurry and change the shutter speed accordingly. I was trying to work as fast as possible before the fireworks go off. I didn't even pay attention to the ISO (which proved to be hard to clean later)!
In Glowing Bahaa I had to emphasize the luminance on the face manually and then work out more with dodge and burn. I have to say here that this image look better in small size rather than large size, yet I'm not sure how the print would go on with this one. On the other hand, Magic and Magician was completely done by luck. As I've mentioned above, objects interfering with the focusing points dragged my focus sometimes away from Bahaa himself and this is exactly the situation here; except that I got a lucky effect. Notice that in this event the lights were on and it wasn't dark in the expo! Well, probably someone turned off the lights of the booth itself but generally speaking, the light conditions were normal. It is all a play of the shutter speed (and no flash).

Booth and Panorama with QTVR

The panorama for our booth was taken around the third day of the expo and to do it I had to leave my work place earlier and head to the expo location. Despite the fact that the campus was stuffed with cars, but I've been told that in such time visitors to the booth are almost none - and it was so! I needed the least disturbance I could have to complete this work.

BPF Booth - Mawahb 3
Version 1

What I didn't get from disturbing people in this panorama I got it from other sources. As I got into the location the AC was turned on and the roof of the big tent started to wave; giving me a clear warning of a hardship to come. This would be exactly the same situation when I've shoot a panorama in the main court of Ikaros hotel on Failaka island last year.

It took me some time to settle down with my tools and to check to what elevation level I should raise my tripod and the VR-head. The main issue here was the reflections from the TV and the rest of the aluminum prints. As for the TV it was turned on so I can relax a bit about it - not much reflections going to come from that direction. As for the prints, I've decided to lower my stuff and myself down to avoid direct reflection (angle of incidence equals angle of reflection).

After settling with the level it was time to decide on my exposure. With my simple light meter I've taken (incident) readings from various angle and distances from the camera and the values varied between 4^2/3EV and 5EV; and of course I've put my favorite f-stop to work in such situation: f/8. The result was an exposure of 2 seconds and working with brackets of -/+2 made the exposure as: 2 seconds (0EV), 0.5 second (-2EV), 8 seconds (+2EV).

You might be asking why it is called Version 1. Well, the problems that rose when doing this panorama made me stitch for 3 times! Yes,  t h r e e. Maybe I should sort this out in form of points:

• In the beginning, the HDR stitch was hard to be done because (it seems) the slides were too dark to establish control points in between them. I had to tone-map all the slides, and align them then save the panorama as a model to stitch the original HDR panorama.
• When tone-mapping the original HDR panorama after the stitch, the usual weird color spots appeared and it was hard to fix this time. This time, however, instead of getting the usual blue spots, they were accompanies by highly saturated red patches on the wooden surfaces around the booth, and some harsh blue reflections out of the aluminum prints.
• After looking at this problem with the original HDR, I decide to stitch the model that I've made out before from the tone-mapped slides - and this was Version 1. Since I've tone-mapped them on the basis of showing details to the stitcher to create control points, the effect is surreal somehow and I thought other group members won't like it, hence I thought of creating a normal one.
• To create the normal panorama I had to convert the RAW files of the 0EV exposure (i.e. 2 seconds exposure) to TIFF files (since my old PTGui doesn't read EOS 7D RAW files) and start from there with the stitching process (which was relatively easy). 

BPF Booth - Mawahb 3
Version 2

Of course in all cases there were the broken lines that I had to deal with by cloning out. I have to say I was lazy here to work with Blending Priority in PTGui to cover up for such broken lines, but it seems that the shake in the roof of the tent which was caused by turning on the AC could have probably affected other slides and caused broken lines elsewhere. Usually in such situations I would check if I can emphasize the Blending Priority of the middle band of the panorama (i.e. the first row of images in the panorama) so these slides would overlap the upper and/or lower portions of the panorama to cover up for such broken lines.

Despite the easiness of cloning for the ground here (because it's all unique in texture and almost unique in light level), but I've decided to use my logo as a nadir point. Later, however, group members asked to have the group's logo as well as this QTVR and panorama could be used officially. Hence, I had to work around this situation by combining both logos and put them as nadir point. Generally, two QTVRs were made for both versions of the panorama.

  Version 1


Version 2


However, in Version 2, the seam line could not be matched while it came naturally as is in Version 1. Also, the TV in Version 2 was a bit off and I didn't fix that, while in Version 1 I did some work to darken the TV a bit. All of that seems to make Version 1 better and superior to Version 2 when it comes to QTVRs, while it's vice versa in the case of flat panoramas.
This said, there is much more to be done with these panoramas, but I need to process some files and some work to be done first before having fun with projections in panoramas!

Going Crazy

From time to time, I do like to get some venting out from the conventional photography and aesthetics topics and just do what my fingers exert. Literally, going crazy with a style that is not my usual style. During Mawahb 3 expo I think I've found my typical target - Cars.

Cars are a typical target for HDR madness. I say madness here meaning the abnormal tone-mapping and the grunge style (which is mistakenly named HDR). 

Going Crazy 1

Going Crazy 2

Maybe I've taken a lot of HDR shots (i.e. bracketed exposures) but I've chosen to work with 3 of them only so far. Probably more to come later. The sole purpose for working in such mode (and mood) is a sort of a stress release, if I can call it so.

Amazingly though, even though I don't like cars and I've picked them specifically for this task (to work as crazy as possible!) - there are still people who do like such colors and hues and shades. This proves my point about the rationality of style and photography. I'd rather sell an art piece to someone than having a critic trying to adjust my style with the assumption of making my skills and work better in the future. I don't mean to be materialistic here, but rather I like to be realistic. The main point here is, do your best and there will be always people who like your work - and there will be always people who hate your work (critics are included on both sides).

Going Crazy 3

I think what critics should do is to help photographers do a better job and not really criticize their work. Yes, there are technical issues that a critic might alert the photographer for, but trying to change the style and the sole purpose and chain of thoughts of a photographer? This is like self-projection and shadowing over the photographer's thoughts and philosophy in photography. This is exactly what happened with my Planeta Columnium panorama which was cropped just to please the critics. Many people were amazed to know that such panorama was cropped while the main idea of it was keeping symmetry. If my idea was to resemble a rising sun, I would have done it already, but simply, this is not what I was thinking of!

Finale

BPF Group

It was a stress time that flew away for now. I'm just hoping that we learn from this experience and from the many mistakes that happened in the preparations phase. Most importantly, I'm just hoping that group members look forward and be careful with the technical aspects of photography (like shooting in RAW format!). On the other hand, I just wish of critics to be more realistic in their expectations (and stop projecting their own style and fashion on their judgements). One of the critical information that I'd like to apply in the future how to tie the viewing distance with the print size (which in return has an impact on the resolution). Such information is available online and can easily be implied, but at the time of the preparations we barely thought about it!

Now, I'm trying to get back to my normal phase since my camera became cold because of the work with this expo and I'm trying to find new ideas yet and new exciting stuff to do with my camera. On the side as well, my thoughts are still going through my archive of Ayvarith and Geltani, while keeping some space of thought for other conlangs that I've created a script for but no concrete language still; like Betenic. Amazingly, I've discovered that some of the words that I've implemented already are already real words in Akkadian and Sumerian - some of them with the same meaning even! Example for this is shá which means "which" or "that" in Ayvarith (for masculine) and also in Akkadian; but in Akkadian it is probably not related to a gender.

I'm writing these words now as I've booked a ticket and a hotel in Dubai. I've always told people that I won't be going to there since it's a city; one big city. Not the atmosphere I want to spend a vacation in! However, the situation here is different not really a vacation by itself. But I've received an invitation to attend a ceremony by HIPA. I've, with some group members, enrolled in their photography contest back in December 2012, and totally forgot about it! However, I've received an email from the committee inviting me to attend the ceremony, and when I checked with other members of the group they stated that they didn't receive anything. I'm not sure what does that mean but maybe I can take some fresh air for one week (and go to Failaka?). I just hope things go smoothly in such big city.  For this reason, I'm not sure there will be a post by next week, but we'll see!

Maschinen Auf...

What a busy week. It is good to be busy sometimes; it makes you forget stuff you don't want to remember, mostly. The trend of such busy week is still going on and might go on for the next week as well because some group members are going to Dubai in the coming weekend and some responsibilities are flung at me. It would be my first time to organize and be responsible for a field trip to some distant area.
It seems as if this week is spreading seeds of reputation and a renowned name. I'm getting personal invitations and simple requests for occasions related to photography. I wouldn't say I'm on the road of being famous, but it does give a portion of confidence that I needed for some time. Say, would I be reading my horoscopes daily if I do have some support on my back? I wonder...

Blooming Me!
As Mawahb-3 expo is approaching closer and closer, the management of the group realizes that not many fine photos are available, if there is any, for a large number of members in the group. For this reason, my teacher and the leader of the group thought of giving a workshop (workshopS in fact, see Andaluz below) concentrating on geometrical shapes in flowers and their beauty. Personally, I'm not a flowers person but since the topic bears some resemblance and sense of an abstract work, I've decided to join in.

Silhouette in The Heart's Rose
Canon EF 100mm macro, f/16, 500^-1sec, ISO 200.

After some advices and a short lecture by my teacher, the work started. He prepared a rose under a monolight with some gobo, but I picked my own rose or flower (which according to my teacher was the most expensive of them) and started  to work on it on my own. What attracted me to this flower specifically is the stems in the middle (sorry, don't know the scientific name for those!). Frankly, I don't know why or how did I forget the ISO on 200, but anyway it worked just fine with the pulses of the speedlite.

Harmonie
Canon EF 100mm macro,
f/16, 800^-1sec, ISO 200.

My 580EX II speedlite was connected with TTL cord to the camera and attached with honeycomb grid giving 16^o range. One of the hardest parts of all was to fix the flower on some stable ground and up high close to the camera's level, and the only way to do this was to put the flower into the handle of the small bag which carries my speedlites and filters! After that, I was free to move the speedlite around the flower and testing the results. Even though my teacher doesn't recommend using the LiveView feature to do the metering and focusing, I do find this way is really useful and I can almost never imagine myself without it now. With LiveView you can move a cursor to the desired location to do the focusing, and this is much more easier than depending on zones or points in the viewfinder. Metering, however, can be a bit tricky with the rectangular cursor across the display and also the possibility of leaking light rays from the viewfinder that can put the exposure reading off track, but still it can be useful to take readings from various areas in the scene without moving or tilting the camera - that is for comparing the differences in stops and so on.

Die Glänzende Finger
Canon EF 100mm macro, f/4, 400^-1sec, ISO 200.

As I've mentioned before that I was moving the speedlite (and changing the depth as well) which yielded some interesting results. It did feel like working in a studio full of diffusers and reflectors but in a macro level! Images like Silhouette in The Heart's Rose for example was achieved by using the petals as reflectors for the speedlite pulse and hence creating a silhouette out of the stems in the middle of the bloom. On the other hand, Harmonie was achieved by using the petals behind the stems as diffusers which also painted the stems in red giving something in between ethereal and a romantic look. Well, some people pointed out it is scary as well! Just worth a mention here that Harmonie is originally in landscape orientation but I felt it's more appealing to make it in portrait position.
Even though we were supposed to exchange flowers and work on each for some time, but the time was limited, and personally after shooting Harmonie I thought I did achieve my purpose for this session already.

Award:

Award to BPF
Canon EF 50mm, f/4,
1600^-1sec, ISO 200.

Just one image but it has to be mentioned here for it did take some deal of experimenting with speedlites. Last week I've received an award dedicated to BPF group (the group I'm member of) since I was the representative of the group and the middle man between the group and Kuwait University's Cultural Festival last January.
What I really loved here is the wooden texture and its touch (yes, its touch). I wanted to show an image focusing on the group's name (upper white line) while showing fine details for the rest of the shield. After experimenting which consumed a great deal of time, I've held my 580EX II speedlite with a snoot on top of the shield pointing downward, while controlling via wireless a 430EX II speedlite in front of the shield but pointing away from the shield with  reflector in front of it to spread some light on the shield. I guess I achieved the desired look little bit though I wished it to be brighter over the logo and the group's name.

Christmas in Ahmadi!
With the beginning of the last weekend, a friend in the group suggested that we head out to Ahmadi, a town or city down south with around 30 minutes of driving from my place. Ahmadi is known to be a home for many foreigners and citizens who are related to the oil industry. I dare say even that it is a town created and established by oil companies alone!

Stern von Licht
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 125^-1sec, ISO 100.

It Snows in Ahmadi!
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
125^-1sec, ISO 100.

We don't really celebrate Christmas in here (not officially), but Ahmadi was lighted up with decorations made of light patterns in shape of miniatures for the celebrations of the national day (mainly February 25^th and 26^th). It was one heck of a night and an absolutely fantastic spot for night photography. If only I could head there on my own I might have tried my luck often there. We had our share though from the annoying people and hooligans but around 1 p.m. it became relatively quiet.
We spent around 2 hours taking shots and experimenting on only one road, and we were leaving the place we noticed prettier scenes even but it was time to leave specially after getting a pin penetrating my shoe and sticking to my foot! This incident was the end of our journey that night and we had to leave. I didn't go to the doctor to get any injection (tetanus?) but my foot feels just fine right now and as I'm typing these words, the pain is almost gone and I don't limp as I used to when I first got the injury. Well... just in case you care anyway!

Star Spangled Kuwait
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 25^-1sec, ISO100.

Candy Clock
Rokinon 8mm, f/3.5, ISO 100.
HDR

One of the significant features in Ahmadi's general design is the light miniatures in every roundabout you go around. I think it works so good as a land mark! Other areas in Kuwait would resemble just one big maze for their roundabouts within the area.
One of these roundabouts did fascinate me the most though; it was one with a small clock tower which carried lighting tubes and lights were going on and off like a running fluid. A long exposure for this clock tower didn't give much beauty for the lighting conditions there, thus I've decided to go on to the roundabout itself and do some HDR shooting right in front of it. There was a total of 6 images taken in a range of -6EV up to +2EV. Despite the usage of a tripod that was flattened almost to the ground level (and I had to clone out a portion of the leg out of the image), yet the image on 100% zoom seems to be shaken and because of the long exposures taken here, the merged HDR had lot of noise specially after tone-mapping, and some portions looked shaky as if the camera was shaken. I don't remember any staggering wind that night despite the cold weather! The final result is, after all, an image that looks like a sweet candy in small size, but not suitable for printing as I believe.
Too bad I won't be able to go out there this weekend because my friend is going to Dubai with the rest and I have yet also to process some images from that night that I haven't touched because of the events that followed after that night!

Andaluz:
It was place that I could spend my week taking photos inside without being bored. The ideas in that place are just, simply, abundant and there is a chance in every moment, in every corner. That place was called The Arab Organizations Headquarter (AOH).

A La Luz
Rokinon 8mm, f/8, 10^-1sec, ISO 100.

As part of the efforts by our leader to increase the amount of publishable works from members of the group, as I've stated before, more activities are on the run, including a trip to Dubai this weekend. For him, it was easy to gain access to the AOH, as he said. "I just needed to do a phone call," he stated! This is the good thing about our group - not only we're trying to do the best we can, but also we are under the leadership of a renowned photographer that got access to many places I wouldn't even dream of.
As soon as I heard about the plans, I've prepared my VR-head and made it ready for panoramas. As soon as I got into the place, my mind was completely boggled for all the fine crafts and the handmade wooden decorations along side with the Andalusian style of architecture. It was indeed a dream! However, because of the time limit and the practicality needed (along side with cautions and precautions for walking around such a paradise!) I couldn't just walk and do panoramas wherever I settled with my tripod. Thus I've just wandered off to take some shots from various locations.

Anti Gravitatis
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 320^-1sec, ISO 400.

One of the first locations to be visited was the reading hall or library. Once I got in there, my teacher told me to be careful for the high contrast around the elliptical stairway because there is a light fixture on top (in shape of a chandelier). I was looking for such structure because I was thinking of some sort of a shot for some long time now - an abstract shot with an 8mm fisheye lens from the ground level of the stairs. First, I've used the tripod but it was not so flat and the framing was not appealing much, thus I had to use my hand and lay completely on my back and take few shots, most of them are shaky. I was planning for HDR merging because of the high contrast but A La Luz was made from a single shot while the others were shaken and unclear. This experiment sparked some ideas for improvising something or making something already to handle such low-level shots.
When I wandered into other rooms, I've found a fountain with some faucets that were somehow a good target for a long exposure. However, I've found out that however stops I add to the shutter speed (with the help of ND filters), the water's outlook does not change drastically despite the speed of the water, thus I've concluded that the turbulence in the water waves or currents (including changing directions) is essential to long exposures done for the water to show some dynamic attitude for the image. Otherwise, The long exposure image would look just like Anti Gravitatis which was taken as a test shot from the very beginning. And by the way, when Anti Gravitatis was taken and then viewed on monitor back home, the image was not in portrait position as it was taken originally (this is because I turned the rotation option in my Canon EOS 7D). However, I liked its look and how the water is like flying in the air!

That One
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm tube, f/1.4,
25^-1sec, ISO 400.

Enlightened Curves
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
100^-1sec, ISO 400.

After settling in a place above the reading hall (seems to be a cafeteria or a reception area) and doing a panorama there (see below), and after having a break with a cup of coffee and a chitchat with my teacher, I've resumed shooting at some details of the miniatures and the fine wooden work like That One and Enlightened Curves. These two images specifically were supervised by my teacher. In That One, I've decided to use the 12mm extension tube along with 50mm lens to reduce the minimum focusing distance and I was surprised for the magnificent isolation of that piece of the rail. I can almost say that even in regular circumstances and under f/1.4 this would be hard to achieve in such a way. Anyway, the image was good as my teacher said but it does not have that touch of light that makes it special, and he's right. So, he guided me to my second shot, the Enlightened Curves. In a hurry there were some long exposures for a fountain outside as night befell us already, but the framing was done in such a haste and apparently, the final results could not be adjusted properly. They might be a subject for some work later on though!

Panorama and QTVR

The day I've received the news about going to AOH, I've realized it is a significant chance for a panorama, and the first thing I would grab was my VR-head. Even though I didn't see the place before but my friends who had been there before assured me that it is an architectural gem and a good spot for panoramas.
When I got there, I started to wander around and in fact I've found 2 suitable places for panoramas just at the reception place inside! But if I was to start to work on panoramas in every location I'd get to see, I would not give a chance for single shots. Thus, I continued to wander around taking photos until I arrived at a place just above the library (and can be reached from different entries) which was, as I believe, the cafeteria. Such a vast place with Andalusian designs in marble and wood; it was an architectural heaven!

Tiempos Andaluzas

The wooden decorations were intriguing indeed. I still need to test my lenses against these structures but unfortunately, I had to leave, naturally!
When I started to settle down in this spot, I've started to take general readings from my lightmeter in incident mode. I was going in a circle around the tripod and camera set and pointing the lightmeter towards the camera as I was circling the tripod and measuring the light at different angles. It is the first time I apply this, since I usually prefer shooting my panoramas in Av (aperture priority) mode, which specifies the shutter speed automatically for me. Now, I'm working in a completely (M)anual mode, and I need a starting point for bracketing my exposures for the HDR technique. After completing a full circle around the tripod, the average reading was around 6_1/3EV, corresponding to something around 1 second at f/8. By the way, f/8 is one of my own personal favorite f-numbers when doing panoramas because I can easily gauge the depth manually on the focusing ring of the Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens, and next comes f/16. Thus, bracketing the shutter speed for HDR in the range of -2EV to +2EV would be something like: 4^-1, 1, 4 seconds respectively.
In this panorama, the zenith (topmost) shot was not hard; the ceiling had enough details to be stitched easily within the rest of the slides. The nadir, as usual, was a big problem.
I didn't bring extra tools with me to take the nadir (and I was standing on some tiles with decorations) thus I had to improvise something. I've tilted the set a bit (and almost fell to the ground!) but back at home when stitching, this method proved problematic and not suitable enough; probably my shot was far away from being flat. However, I had to render the QTVR putting my logo after all, after a long fight with the stitcher!


for a larger version, you can download it here

The Hanging Andalusian

One of mistakes that I've done while doing this panorama is picking such a location between two distinctive features, making the flat version of the panorama having two focal points, or two points of interest for the viewer: the fountain, and the wooden decor. However, I was afraid that if I situated myself behind the fountain I would lose some details from the decoration itself. Hence, I've decided to work on a vertical panorama in which both features are aligned vertically. It still might be competing for interest that way, but usually in vertical images the eyes would scan the view from top to bottom!
Yet there is more to work on with this panorama, and more points of view that might be intriguing still. All of that, beside working with other images taken from Ahmadi last week, and from AOH as well. All of that and more to come probably after Saturday's trip to a reservation down south. I'm not the kind of person who shoots for wild life but it is something I have to take care for with other members.

Finale:
Here I am again, busy all over again with projects and barely have the time to think of my personal life. Can be good and bad in the same time. The heart is swinging in the current time; it says something, and the mind says something else - isn't it always like that?
I've been thinking a bit about Geltani and trying to complete some aspects about it but with such a fuss of projects and the pressure with the group I couldn't really collect my thoughts about some aspects. And still the problem of ambiguity in between words of similar letters and different meanings persists. I've collected my leaflets on which I usually write down my thoughts about the Geltani conlang, and brought them all back home with me so I would stay, hopefully, calm and meditate into them and think of something. On the other hand, the chart of sounds for Geltani is still not complete, and the syllabary system for writing foreign words is not thought of yet. I'm surely lagging behind with my ideas and achievements - it does sound like a time for a vacation to work more, rather than a vacation to rest...