Collective…

As a starter, I'm really not sure how am I typing this blog post with my continuous sleeping problems which are adorned with marvelous migraines from time to time during this week. Anyway, since I don't have much material for this post, I think it will be somewhat a quickie one.
In a continuation for my previous post, I'm still working on my project of shooting profiles (side shot) in infrared using only a candle. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in my previous post, but I've decided to call this project The Candle People. Things are now out of the profiles section as well, and I've started to shoot some face-front shots as well, upon request.

Abdullah A. (profile)

Abdullah A. (halfie)

So far, there had been only two requests to re-do the candle shots and change the profile look to the face-front look. Both from nephews. My first nephew did not like the look of his nose in such profile. Well, I guess many people are displeased with their noses nowadays (me included but I don't tend to hide it). However, I'm not expecting from people to understand the artistic values the way I see it through. In profile shots, I do appreciate the contour and the dramatic light and look of the face rather than the "beauty" of the person. Personally, beauty has nothing to do with this little project of mine. It is about evoking emotions via light and contour with no or little facial expressions. However, I've complied to the request and I still like the results. My first trial with him was to shoot a "halfie", but this halfie is not exactly done by cropping the face (even though it is a little) but by implying heavy shadows to half of the face (mainly by editing). This halfie might have a strange effect on the size of the eye here; I didn't change the size of the eye while editing, but it seems to me that is kind of large. Might be my imagination?

Abdullah A. (front)

Anyway, the other frontal shot here for Abdullah A was not exactly a halfie. Too bad though I had to crop a little too much here to balance the image because while shooting (using burst mode) the head was moving and one of the ears did not show completely in the image, which in turn forced me to crop a little from the other (and that meant cropping from the whole image and just from the side because I tend to keep the aspect ratio). On purpose here, I told my nephew to look up which I think gives a better emotional expression (at work with the forehead lines). To have some dramatic look (or to increase it so to say) I've resorted to an old technique which involves the usage of the High Pass filter in Photoshop. This of course exaggerated the noise level as well but I didn't bother to clean much of it here because the image in the first place is not intended to be "soft" in looks. This look, upward, seems to be a "hack" on its own to have a dramatic look. I've applied already with my other nephew who requested a re-shoot and seems to be OK. As I'm typing this there are still some from this series that needs to be processed yet.

Collective Ideas

Meanwhile, as I'm trying to work on the Candle People project, a flow of ideas somehow ticked my mind lately. At some level, I think the Candle People is one of these projects that just doesn't have a dead line. But it is ongoing whenever the chance shows up. Anyway, meanwhile, I think I will be back to one of my old passions, and it is a tiresome one actually, and that is: High Speed photography.
I didn't formulate a concrete idea about the subject but I'm intending to use the full set of speedlites in my arsenal (7 at the moment). I didn't make up my mind yet about how to set them up, but I think there would be two main methods or sets: a) Manual, and b) With an external trigger.

General scheme for the setup

First of all, sorry for the bad sketch here (and the bad scanning, done with my mobile in bad lighting conditions). As you can see here, this is the intended general setup that I'm thinking of for method A; the manual shooting. What I mean by manual shooting here is that I would control the camera manually with a master speedlite light on it to control other speedlites on the set. Meanwhile, the master will not shoot, but only responsible to give out the command to shoot to the slave speedlites. What I'm intending to do here is (and let's hope it works out well), is to use a very low flash power (if I can, lower than 1/32) and try to shoot using burst mood in hope that the low power consumption at this level of power would help on quick recycling and re-shooting quickly. I wouldn't know if this will work until I try! It would be a shame if it doesn't work that way though because with such number of speedlites, things could be balanced out somehow. Of course the position of the speedlites and direction is subject to change accordingly when the practical work is ongoing.
As for method B, the same schematic above applies, but the master speedlite is placed on the set as well and would be connected to a trigger. A laser trigger (which I failed using before). In previous times, I've used this trigger in connection to the camera itself but researching a bit and asking some professionals, I figured that the lag time (the time for the signal to travel from the trigger to the camera) is considerably long, making capturing the exact moment quite hard. Most professionals, as it seems, connect the trigger to the speedlite and not the camera and thus reducing the lag time considerably. I can connect one master to be triggered in that way and set others to slaves and all should (theoretically) shoot about the same moment. However, in this method, I'm supposed to leave the shutter open and work on the subject and speedlites with the trigger. For this, such method must be done in a dark environment, or maybe some ND filter on the lens would do? Not sure. We'll see about that. And like the situation in method A, the power is supposed to be set low for a quick recycling time and low power consumption.
Thinking about it, just theoretically, it seems that method A is favorable, despite my wish to get my old trigger working again since I failed using it many times. But if the burst mode works well in such setup, then things are set and I don't think I will try method B. The hardest part though remain: To setup my gear to work!

Finale

Beside the idea mentioned above, I'm thinking of other things as well but no need to put all the eggs in one basket. There had been also some simple shootings with my mobile for some geological stuff around my workplace and I've even uploaded one of the images to the stocks. I didn't upload to them in a long time.
With me now putting the contest on Duolingo behind my back, after some incidence of cheating as I've discovered, I've realized now the big mistake I've done in using this platform. I'm now trying to be more at ease and back to learn the language on my own pace instead of trying to gain more points and be leading the "score board" (or whatever they call it). In fact, I've had more time to post some articles in the Arabic forum after deserting the forum for quite a while. I've realized now how people do appreciate these posts which have some delicate matters and tips about Arabic that Duolingo is not providing for those who really want to learn the language. This made me think: What is really made for me? What I'm really supposed to do? I think this appreciation and this enthusiasm is the answer. Thinking about it, what did I really gain from being #1 on these leaderboard contests or whatever? Nothing but stress. While the solution was quite easy but I didn't see it back then; To leave these contests and focus on education and learning, and teaching those who need to. After turning off the "public" settings on Duolingo (which removes the leading board and all these scores stuff), I do feel such a relief. I have no more time and more organization capability for my time. I won't regret this.
Now, it's time to post this and go and figure my next move. A poem, or a new photo, or maybe a new article for the Arabic Duolingo forum. I can't believe it is weekend already. I'm perplexed as to whether I should sleep more, or work more on the things I like to do. or maybe play more. Two days for a weekend are just not enough… Not enough to forget what I need to forget out of my life…

Huaweific IV…

I'm typing this post in a short notice of time. I was really going to skip this blog post and call it off to have my "own" vacation, but then I re-considered. Maybe I will give myself a longer vacation from blogging for my birthday, on August 17^th. For now, I wanted to post some of the things that I've taken just in time and like one or two days before the deadline of Huawei's contest which happened to be on July 31^st and not the 29^th. That was some sort of good news to me actually and I did have the time to consider some ideas. Luckily, I did a punch of ideas just in time, even though they were not what I had in mind, but they sprang out of my mind at the spur of the moment.
I've been taking some random shots around me in hope to make some good abstracts, like this one for wafer sticks (my favorite!) but at the time of the upload, it did sound a bit normal and nothing much about it. Still, my eyes were open for any chance out there. The bathroom never failed me...

Where To

However, this shot from the bathroom, Where To, was a bit problematic to do because of my phone's lens limitations. Might have done it with considerable ease in framing the scene with my DSLR. Anyway, the idea was to make a B&W image so I've picked the Monochrome option on my phone camera. With some special arrangement with my monopod, I've managed to stabilize the phone on the monopod and hold it by hand around my shoulder's level to shoot the sandals on the bathroom's floor. Working in the dark though was not my cuppa tea! However, this was not the real catch yet.

Anxiety (remake)

The real catch was getting my brother to model for me once more (as usual) and I was lucky also to have some nephews visiting to help me out. I had some various ideas in fact but the ones that were suitable to be done at that moment was the idea of a re-make for a shot that I've made with my DSLR some months back, Anxiety. However, the situation is different here as I'm limited in editing options as well as the lighting options. Again, I had to work in a dark room here but with 3 nephews to help me out with my brother, and instead of using collage to cover the face with hands, I used the hands of my nephews (and brother himself) to cover the face. The not-so-good point here though is that my brother was like if he was looking away from the camera and did not direct his eye to the correct angle. For lighting here, I've used a hand-held LED torch or panel (small panel) which probably should have been diffused using some paper but all work was done in a haste and didn't have the time to think about such solutions. Unlike Where To, the remake of Anxiety was converted to B&W in the phone while editing and not while shooting.

At Night

I did have another idea which I still wanted to do with my brother before releasing him from my clutches and that was to have a half-lit selfie with a somewhat devilish smile. Things turned out unexpectedly wrong and funny, and horrific, all in the same time! You can see that clearly in At Night. What happened here is that I've set the phone on Light Painting mode (something similar to long exposure technique) and I was going, indeed, to paint my brother's face with the LED torch. But because of the shake in the monopod as well as my brother's movements a bit things turned awry. Instead of re-doing it, I've actually quite loved it that way and I did upload it already to Huawei's contest!
In fact, this is one of the things that I like about shooting with the phone (specifically my Huawei, don't know about other brands) despite the limitations in many things. The long exposure technique. There are various modes under this category in the phone's camera and each one of them does provide a specific look to the motion and the image in general (thanks to AI I would say). Moreover, you are able to see the results forming in front of you as you are shooting (as it happened with At Night). The negative side is, again though, the limitations; Such as not controlling the time (like when working with the intervalometer on DSLRs) but the user has to press a button or tab the screen to turn start and finish the shoot. There might be some special apps to help with that but it would have been better if they were on the phone by default as well.

Sweeping Time

Just before leaving the dark room, after shooting the two shots of  my brother above, I've noticed the new wall clock which was shining in the dark. It was a clear call to shoot! And, of course, I couldn't refuse. I think at this shot, Sweeping Time, the power of AI revealed itself. Because I do not think that my phone does indeed have an image stabilizer like DSLRs or Mirrorless cameras do, or like some expensive lenses do (does it?). During the 10 minutes (or close to that) shoot, the monopod was literally jumping up and down like a spring because of the air current from the AC above, or because my steps even though I tried my best to stay away from it and walk slowly on the floor. Yet, the image was usable and stable beyond my understanding. It was dark indeed, but I could see the monopod shaking up and down! In the post-processing phase for this image, there were some annoyances reflected off the glass facade of the clock (ahem, mine) so I had to use the mediocre capabilities of Pixlr on my mobile to edit those and eliminate as much as I can. Still not satisfied about it though. To reduce the confusion, so to say, I've applied a splash filter or more technically selective coloring on the image keeping only the green tones and eliminating some of the other colors (though in tiny amounts) reflecting off the glass. I'm really happy with this experience!

Now, these are the major photos that I've uploaded lately to the contest, beside some others done before (posted in the previous posts here). There had been some shots that I would consider just simple and not special actually, so I'd leave them out for now. Now this stress is over, let's bring another stress and think of something to do with my DSLR, and my time in general!

Finale

Well, I'm glad I was able to do it in time. I was really rushed in time. I think though that I will be taking a vacation from blogging for the next 2 (or 3?) weeks to come, specifically for my upcoming birthday. We'll see. In hope that I might produce and make something with either my DSLR or phone. My time currently have been occupied pretty much with Duolingo, beside some chores at home. Since Duolingo started the Arabic language course, I've been hooked to it to correct and help learners. Probably I should be a language teacher one day as a second profession (though I don't bear any certificates for that!). I really got some words of praise for my work with explaining and posting some long articles detailing words and some tips on grammar (all about Standard Arabic or MSA). Some users also are more eager to connect directly outside Duolingo through some of the social media platforms but I'm not sure I do have the time for this right now as I'm occupied already with many things. I do want to help out, yet I feel awkward and cuffed. All I can do for the time being is post some articles and helping tips, as well as helping others who are wondering about some sentences in the course (and many of them do bear some mistakes from Duolingo's system itself in fact). On the other hand, Duolingo does not offer a proper social media platform to connect people, but barely a public forum. I hope the moderator or admins do consider upgrading such capabilities (unless they are available only for paid members, this is something I don't know about actually). This made me think really whether I would be a good language teacher or not, giving my short fuse and losing the handle often. Anyway, it is just some ideas and an imagination for the time being. The real question for me now is, whether can I make it this year and travel, or not.

Pinholism…

Summer is here, so if you are a person who likes summer, please don't let me encounter you on any platform! It's just the 2^nd week of June and temperatures already getting to, if not exceeding, 50^oC! I had some pleasant short vacation away from work but going back now, after such a holiday, with such heat (and AC problems from time to time) is just so exhausting. Meanwhile, I'm sort of idle with my camera but I'm busy with other things. Might talk about them later. But as promised in my last post, I will talk about another photo which I've created some weeks ago and I didn't want to jam my previous blog post here about it, so I kept it for this week.

Pray

المُقْرِئْ
The Reciter

Some time ago, months ago in fact, I've made a shot with my pinhole cap (or pinhole lens as some like to call it)  picturing myself reading or reciting Quran, opposite to a shiny window. The image is much of a conceptual fine art work instead of the typical expressive sharp image that we, mostly, would expect. This shot was done in a time when I was really working on enhancing the pinhole imagery and trying my best to get it to be as sharp as possible. However, with time, I realized that this is kind of impossible to be done (scientifically) and it would be rather better to work on using this specific look which is created by the pinhole to express a specific mood, and culture. Since the make of The Reciter (it is also one of the rare occasions in which I do name my photos in Arabic actually, because of its nature), I've thought of doing another shot depicting the praying practice (as a Muslim of course) but for one reason or another I really didn't get the time to do it until Ramadhan (and being off with my little vacation) this year. The main problem, though, was to find a suitable location for the shooting; I needed a place with glass that allows so much light to come in, and must be in some good angle in relation to the sun. I guess I've found that good spot in the guest room at home.

المُصَلّي
The Praying

In this room, I had to shoot in the early morning. I did check the room several times but I thought first about some obstacles (some gypsum board wall ) that might block the view if I want to perform the shot in front of the main entrance door to this room. However, all went well in the end (with some tiny bits of cropping and fixing perspective in post-process). Then, we have the problem of the perspective, which was easily solved with my new L-Bracket, which I've attached to the camera body and it allowed me to place the camera considerably stable in portrait position on the ground. The main issue though was the nature of the shoot itself. Metering and taking test shots revealed that I need about 64 seconds. Doing some math and dividing these seconds over the various parts of the typical movements which one do during the prayer, it was about 12 seconds for each. Anyway, I was counting on my own without a timer or anything and the thing didn't really work as some movements were not recorded clearly on the sensor apparently. Thus, and again, I've found myself forced to use the power of blending to merge all the movements - I did several shots with various movements and gestures, and each in 64 seconds. Blending these shots was not an easy task as well and my typical method of blending using Lighten or Darken did not work here. I simply had to change the opacity for various shots and even canceling some shots as well to get the final look as you see it in The Praying. Another critical post-processing point here is trying to make a difference in tones between the prostrating pose and the kneeling-on-the-ground pose, but keeping both gestures or images reasonably "black". It might be noticeable better when the image is enlarged though.
Now, after finishing this image, I'm thinking, again, of a third images for this series even though in the beginning I was thinking that this would be a two-image sequence only and no more; But my mind is still playing tricks and still thinking what I could add to this series (and it must be related to the Islamic practices of course) - Didn't get an answer myself but we'll see. I've been idle with my camera now (specially after some failures) so it would be a good push to get active again.

Finale

Well, I can't emphasize enough how much I'm sick of summer already and it is still June. Sometimes I'm really hating myself for being born in August. I'm already doing project indoors as it is, and now summer is here, then just the thought of going out to shoot anything, day or night, is a No-No.
Meanwhile, despite stopping the astrophotography trend in my brain, there are some good signs, like finding a relatively-cheap equatorial mount or tracker that I can work with but I'm not ordering this now. This would allow me to take longer spans of exposures and get some proper light to the sensor in order to process them properly and show features of the deep sky objects; As all my trials before were nothing more than some constellations and dots in the sky! On the other hand, working with these images was beneficial despite the failures. I've learned new techniques on "stretching" the data out of my images which I might use any time with other types of images and not necessarily with Astro-shots.
Hanging by the ideas, I'm still looking for inspirations among the Andalusian folk songs and I do indeed have some ideas, but when thinking practically, I just get back to "normal" and abandon the whole thing and start thinking again for and about something new. This is is beside thinking about using the pinhole again for a third image to the sequence of Islamic nature, which includes the two images above.
On the other hand, with all the mental struggle here, there is a struggle inside of me trying to push myself and force myself to travel for real despite the hustle and overthinking. It might be a tiresome thing to do but it is essential to get a break before the engine of my mood and my brain breaks down in this place I'm living in. My fuse is getting shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get myself busier by adding on to my to-do-list, like learning more languages beside Irish on Duolingo. I've added Turkish, German and Russian - and who knows, I might add a 5^th one too! I really wish I can learn many languages with ease; They fascinated me since I was a kid, and now there is some good chances.
Anyway, as I won't be posting in this blog by next week, I'll be busy actually typing a post for my Arabic blog instead about "extracting" gradients from photos and apply them to other photos, and if it is interesting enough I might as well talk about it here. I hear a lot about people selling and others buying such gradients to ease their workflow and such, yet I'm not sure if this is worthy of my time but I'm experimenting and having some artistic fun as well!