Linearity…

Well, I'm typing this a little bit late so I hope I can finish this post in time to be posted. Thus, I think I will keep it short.
Been some busy week(s) lately. Last week I was busy preparing an Arabic blog post explaining a technique that I've been using lately to make some linear art out of some of my images, and I think I'll talk about it here. On the other hand, my mood swings been severe lately as well as periods of fatigue. And, of course, work is there which occupied my time for nothing else but frustration as well as exhaustion from driving to and from the workplace.
All that made me postpone creating this post and I was almost going to skip the post for this week actually but I changed my mind then and thought: Well, maybe I can make it short with few samples of what images I've been editing lately.

Editing

I'm still not active much with my camera (ahem, planning to), but on the other side, as usual, I've been editing old photos. Recently, also, I've been using a technique that I've developed myself and I've used it in one of the images uploaded to Mostphotos, but I didn't do much about it back then. Now, though, I'm exploring more about it. This is exactly the same technique which my Arabic post for the last week was about. Anyway, since my Arabic blog is dedicated to beginners, I had to do it in details (with illustrations) there. Here, I guess, it would be enough just to say that the whole technique involves stacking images and changing their blends to Difference and then nudging each layer few pixels in a specific direction. This would create some sort of a colorful line-art. Of course, more editing is required to enhance the image.

The Shining Kisser

The Shining Kisser (Line art)

I'm still experimenting with this technique actually, and apparently not any image can produce such a neat result; So, one has to be picky about what to convert into linear art like this. Along the way, I'm already planning to do a collection of such images and upload it to the stocks and see if they attract something. Apparently my bubbles series which I've uploaded months ago is not doing much lying there *pout*.

One of the images that didn't work out well I guess with this technique

Anyway, beside all this editing, I'm trying to use my phone from time to time though it is limited in choices and techniques but it has some cool features that I would struggle to achieve with a DSLR camera (e.g. long exposures with trails); Thanks to the AI in these phones (and my phone is considered old by now: Huawei Mate 9). Despite that, though, when it comes to shooting RAW images, things can be a bit awkward. 

Birds and Bird
Processed from phone RAW

Shooting RAW on Huawei Mate 9 disables the capability of zooming. I think that proves that in other modes in the camera where zooming is allowed, it is all done digitally. There are apps to edit RAW on phone of course but, as always, I usually prefer editing those on my PC with ACR and then Photoshop. The lens being about 4mm or so in focal length and not changeable of course would require me to crop a lot sometimes. Of course there are accessories for such phones to change the focal length but they are not in my mind right now. I'm still not giving up on my DSLR! Besides, it is better to be creative as much as possible with whatever is available at hand.
Aside from these difficulties, it seems also that the dynamic range for such sensors is still quite low; At least in my case as I worked with Birds and Bird (and few images in the past). When working with the phone's RAW files on ACR, the choice of colors seem to be limited somehow and not vivid enough despite working, as usual, in ProPhoto color space. Anyway, away with the RAW capabilities of the phone, it is a good catch for some crazy ideas to be done in a whim, like the other day when I thought of doing a selfie at work while rotating the phone, and picked the long exposure/water trail option for that task. All editing was done in-camera.

 

Finale

I'm typing this blog post mostly at work. Despite the "vacuum" in this place, yet it stresses me out. I'm waiting for some official documents to be issued from the Agency of Special Needs here to specify, officially, what is the level of my handicap (i.e. Retinitis Pigmentosa and sight level). It's been 2 weeks already now and no news is coming over. Which means I must be going to check with them again. I need this paper so bad right now to get started with my retirement process. Every second I spend in this place is like a ticking bomb. With my more-experienced colleague out of the place, the load now is pretty heavy on my shoulders and I can't bear with it further. Needless to say, moving to the new campus which is further away from home and in an area which I've never been to before at all (with bad planned roads as I heard) makes my feelings about it even worse. I lay it all in God's hands.

With that, I'm already racing my mind through and thinking about the future and what I could be doing after I get my "rest" from all of this. I think I would have no excuses to work further with my camera! I must! That brings also some thoughts for conlangs that I've forgotten about already. On a side note, I'm getting some reasonable positive feedback from some readers about my own writings and poems on Writing.com, which kind of sparkles some ideas; Some of which have been delayed since 2020 actually. 

It all sounds but like pink-tinted dreams and views of life for the time being, but surely I'll be able to breathe once I'm over with that place. Or so I hope, and pray…

Backies…

Hello! Here I am, posting again, after some break from blogging. Actually, this post is just a little announcement to tell that I'm still around and didn't forget completely about blogging, despite the lack of content really!

August had been such a busy month for me and still. To add more load to the mix, I'm officially back to work now (with all the rush-hour jams and those nasty stuff). However, I've been taking my first steps in recognizing my disability with Retinitis Pigmentosa; Meaning, I will be given the "special needs" (or "disabled" if you will) status in an official way and in return I'll be given some "small" advantages here and there (like a special permit to park my car in special needs/disability parking lot vacancy). However, the far-fetched goal is to get a "medical retirement" if possible.
The whole story is just still at its beginnings and I'm already having some problems or glitches in the system because of the paperwork and the messy job done by some in such governmental agencies. From my side, I've done all the required tests so far and I'm just waiting for the final decree in my case by some committees (and all that related jargon). I'm living in somewhat strange status, where I feel pressed and relieved at same time. I just hope these people don't make it harder for me to get that certificate and getting my retirement ASAP. Worrying is inevitable here and I just wish that I could blink and all is over with. 

Photo Work

Aside the paperwork that I've just mentioned, not much has been done photo-wise except for editing some old photos. However, I did indeed re-create some new panoramas from old ones as I was planning to be adding them to my Mostphotos exclusively, as large files to be downloaded and printed. As I'm typing this, I've already uploaded 2 more, and 3 more are waiting to be keyworded to be uploaded, but I'm having some hard time in creating keywords for these panoramas, and to focus in general. My brain feels fuzzy and blank. 

Failakan Sunset

Entry

In editing old photos, I've been revisiting old folders, as far back as 2011 (and even 2009) and been trying some new tricks on these old photos, specially those that were never touched because I deemed them useless (and this is one more reason to not delete bad photos). In the process, I've kind of "invented" some technique or style I would say for creating a linear art out of the photo. I'm also considering writing a blog post in Arabic for my Arabic blog about this technique specifically.
I liked the style of these images actually and I'm considering also doing a series of photos (or even taking new photos for this purpose) all to be in such linear art form and upload them to the stocks. Just an idea so far and if I would go ahead with it, I might consider mainly photos of fishes or plants. I think this technique is also suitable to create some of these "coloring book"-styled images.

The Shining Kisser (linear)
A sample of such art

Anyway, all of that is going on at the back of my head at the moment since I'm busy with other things specially with me going back to work right now. My mind is totally blank that I'm out of new ideas to shoot with my camera, and I didn't touch it in months right now. In order to get my fingers cracking with it, I've tried to shoot my 8-month old nephew in the house (it was also some practice for using the back-focus button, but seems this method is not in my favor for the time being).

Finale

So, this is a quick coming-back post. Without much fuss for the time being! I think I need to check previous posts to see where did I stop with photos, or maybe I'll start something completely new away from that series of posts.I'm not sure yet. Meanwhile, I need to prepare for that Arabic post for my Arabic blog, so I'm not sure I will be able to prepare a post for the week after the next. But I will try.
On the other hand, the weather here is miserable (i.e. normal) and I just can't wait for winter to be here, or at least fall (if such thing exists here). In the past few days I had to run errands, coming and going with my sister, under such sun, and such hell. Also most of the days in the past week were humid that it feels like drinking water just by going outside; And it's NOT a cold one.
As my brain is wandering off with ideas and images of what would happen next as I'm going through my plans for retirement, as well as Retinitis Pigmentosa itself, I'm trying hard to keep my feet firm into reality with this mundane day-to-day life. Other matters are also occupying my mind and take space, and it feels like my head will explode any moment now. But all in all, I'm trying my best to keep calm (and that makes me tired all the time really).
So, as for the camera work, I'm waiting for winter as I'm thinking of doing something at night like in the old days. These ideas were ignited when I started looking at some of my old panoramas from the seaside and I noticed how the stars did actually show clearly in the night sky in that panorama despite the high ISO and the noise, but they are there (and I will upload it soon to Mostphotos after keywording). This time, though, my plans involve using the modified camera to capture the seascape at night and not a full panorama. I wish though. We'll see about that when winter comes. For the time being, there are things that are just about enough to keep me worrying… and they are doing such a great job.

Kika VIII…

Here we go again! I was busy typing my post for my Arabic blog so I didn't have the time to post here. Typing an Arabic blog is not quite as easy because I type it outside the blog website (on LibreOffice's Writer) and post it there because I do have more control over specific formatting issues there. Also, putting images there and typing captions, and sometimes getting stuck in translating into Arabic some English terminologies; All that really require patience and some time. Now, I'm back to the usual (hopefully), so let's get back to Kika and her photo-challenges!
Just before I go on with the post, I'm not sure I did announce this already or not, but just in case I didn't here you go: In case you'd like to check the bubbles set of images which I've created lately, it has been uploaded to Canstockphoto. You can visit my profile by clicking the signature at the end of this post.

Kika VIII

Well, I remember at this level with Kika's photo-challenges, things at home started to get busier and busier on many fronts. So, from this challenge and on, I would say not many new stuff had been created really, since I was in a race with time.
So, the theme for Week 8 was "Multiply." A theme which I can relate a LOT to since I used to work with stroboscopic flash as well as collage and stitching images manually (object panorama sort of thing).

Schizophrenia

The one image that popped in my mind when the theme was announced was Schizophrenia, for apparent reasons! Shot this in 2018 and posted it many times (and enrolled it in some contests as well). Ironically, I didn't upload it to the stocks! I think I need to do that soon (to Mostphotos). As I've mentioned already and for many times, I was quite busy but as soon as I got the chance to work on something, I went on with it, regardless of my vision about it and my assumptions about its success or failure…

تَفَضَّلْ، كُلّي آذانٌ صاغِيَة
(go ahead, I'm all ears)

The funny thing about I'm All Ears above, is that when I did it was aiming to the idea of "multiply" which was Kika's theme for week8, but then realized that it works well as a theme for Retinitis Pigmentosa! However, it was done in March, whereas February is the month named as Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month.
The thing about this shot is, I just did it. Without thinking, without preparations, without any much thought except for the core of the idea itself; Something I usually lack (and it hinders me big time but I can't help it!). I picked my camera and my Sigma 12-24mm lens outside (with a tripod of course) and sat there in front of the table and shot 3 to 4 images, then went back to my room and started to work on the collage - Just like that!
Even though my initial aim when the theme started was to use stroboscopic flash because it was the best candidate for "multiplication", I was actually out of ideas for stroboscopic flashes. Anyway, the idea of having ears instead of eyes sounded funny to me (can't remember if I was inspired by something) and it does include the idea of multiplication here!
Since my Sigma 12-24mm lens does not have much of a shallow depth of field to form a bokeh or that sort of thing, I had to do things manually in Photoshop. In addition to that, I worked on emphasizing the sharpness, contrast, and saturation of the body to stand out more against the foreground and the background. You can already tell the haste of the work by the unshaven face I guess!

Bougasso

It was a nice weather time back in March. Of course, it is spring season (even before the official start of it) but typically this is not the case here. Thanks to COVID-19, temperatures had gone down a bit. Temperatures here on May would already be reaching 45-50 degrees on occasions (and even before May), but this year (and probably the year before) temperatures are just reaching 40s.
Anyway, away with the weather forecast introduction already. My point here was to give an introduction as to why or how I was shooting photos for the bougainvillea trees or bushes in our yard still, in March. In fact, at the moment of typing this in May, they are still there though lost a big portion of its magenta blooms, some magenta still remains anyway.

Cracking Bougainvillea

For a moment there I really wanted to go crazy, just like in the old days (not that I'm sane nowadays anyway but I mean with my processing attitude). Thus, I've tried to do a collage of slides taken for one of the bougainvillea bushes, shooting these slides in HDR (i.e. bracketed then combined for HDR). From there, I went crazy with my toning. However, I've realized the crazy part was not there yet!
As I was working in Photoshop to align the images, as usual, I would try to see the automated process done by Photoshop (it does some good work sometimes!). So, after aligning, I tried the blending and to my surprise, I got something that I've totally unexpected, as you can see above in Cracking Bougainvillea. It's not something that I would upload to the stocks for sure, but it is beneficial for my brain I guess to get out of the norm and do crazy stuff; Stuff that people "usually" maybe hate and do not consider as photography. Maybe as a reminder that I'm an artist after all and photography is an art. 

Reaching Out

So, after doing Cracking Bougainvillea, I didn't find myself satisfied enough. Mainly here because the shots I've taken there were kind of random in various directions. So, I went back to shoot it again, and this time I've worked on moving the camera vertically only. Worth noting that both shooting were done with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens.
Again, with Reaching Out, I tried to get out of the ordinary and do some art and I did a "trick" here which I didn't do in a long time (I think I've done it back when I had CS3 or CS4 of Photoshop!). Ironically, I've done it also to a picture of bougainvillea, but back then it was a full tree (we had quite a suitable space for planting then). Again, like I've stated in the previous post when I was working with the pastel-like look, it seems that it would have been far better to work with such effect when the shadow was minimal or non-existent altogether, since it is making the isolation process quite troublesome; As well as the looks.

Moon's Delight

Orangina

Beside these 2 shots there were some minor shots for some flowers but I thought it would be just unnecessary to talk about them in detail, since they are simple macro shots with the usual editing process, but I'll just post them here to keep up with the "time-line," since I'm recollecting my photo-shooting memories from months ago!

Finale

It seems that I've been going through some dormant phase lately, as bed seems to be my best friend. Or maybe it is a trial to escape reality. Ramadhan is over now and I'm trying to get back to normal life schedules as before. My work with the camera is low as well and things just feel empty. Or maybe it is me who is empty. I just don't know.
Things seems to be on the way to be back to normal here after more than a year of closure and being off work. To be honest, I kind of used to this life of not going to work every morning, despite the hectic habits and sleeping times which I need to put on check. I feel that I'm still not ready to go back to work whenever they would call me to it. As things go in that direction, I'm also working on getting proper reports for my eyes condition, and who knows, I might as well file for medical retirement. Moving to a new location further away from home, as well as being sort of alone in that workplace which is supposed to be about science (but not much science in it) makes my anxiety ascend further. I just don't know where life is throwing me into, but all I can do is lay my trust in God…

Athdhéan…

As promised some 2 or 3 posts ago, I wanted to talk a "bit" about re-making some old panoramas (specially that I'm not shooting any panoramas lately, even before COVID season!). I almost abandoned the idea and thought it is somewhat useless, but I proved my own self wrong in fact. In this post I'll explain the story a bit further.

Remake

As a starter, the reason that I'm visiting some of my old panoramas to remake them is that I want to change the processing. Most of my panoramas are done in HDR and then tone-mapped (typically), except for few "special" panoramas which were done using long exposures.
Anyway, as I'm learning new editing techniques (in RAW), specifically those considering dark exposures to add more drama to the scene (instead of making a normal bright exposure), I've decided to try and stitch some panoramas using the dark exposures, or reducing the exposure if needed. All was to be saved as TIFF 16bit mostly (to keep as much as data as possible in each image), and then a trial to stitch was set.

Inchagoillic

The beginnings were not quite "easy," starting with Inchagoillic which is a panorama shot inside Inchagoill church on Inchagoill island back in 2014. I picked this panorama specifically because I didn't really like the version that I've made out of it using HDR technique and it was hard to fix the looks:

The older version

There is a problem also with the perspective apparently. Anyway, my focus was on the colors and the general looks. The process was not easy because of some change in exposure (brightness/darkness) of the images specially of the top row images. This row specifically mostly comes dark in most panoramas (that is the set of the same image order in the sequence of HDR shooting, which happens to be the 2nd image here from each set).

The preview of the initial stitch in PTGui. Notice the dark arch and the dark splotches on the tree and elsewhere, all concentrated on the topmost part of the image.

I've tried some solutions here, but eventually, none did work out properly:

• Make a stitch of the first images in the set of bracketed HDR shots, editing them to be darker, for the general mood that I wanted to achieve here.
• Make a merge between the original set of 2nd images, and picking the top row from the set of 1st images.

Both of these solutions didn't work out well for one reason or another, and generally speaking the exposure was not uniform or smooth in some way. My last resort to this problem, then, was to cut out a portion of the blending for the top row of images (i.e. reduce their contribution to the whole image).

The borders of the blended portion of each image in the panorama as seen in PTGui. Notice how the dark splotches in the top row (14-25) are mainly accumulated in the lower part of the images. By reducing the "blending priority" of these images, the lower portion gets omitted and would not contribute to the overall looks.

Despite this "fix" for these dark spots, the solution itself was really dependent on the panorama here and the nature of the scene. Also, the final stitch was not free of more work with dodge and burn to enhance some areas, specially whatever remained of those dark spots. Going through some of the old panoramas trying to figure out a number of these solutions made it clear that it is not the solution I was looking for and in fact it became lengthier than working with a HDR panorama itself. On various occasions though, it was possible to cut the panorama short (crop from the sides or top and bottom, etc) to make a somewhat good looking panorama, like Gnomes Asleep.

Gnomes Asleep

Gnomes Asleep was a panorama that I've shot back in 2012 for the Victorian B&B but I've never stitched it before because of the troublesome contrast when it was shot. The gap in exposure values exceeded 2EV and even though I've shot it for HDR stitching, it turned out that the highlights were out of the range still. Adding to that, I didn't quite like the perspective and the angle of the shoot. Anyway, there was a final shooting trial which made its way and was "proper" in terms of exposure and perspective. This forgotten panorama did have a chance though through editing the RAW files and stitching them (after converting to TIFF 16bit) but the problem remained with those dark areas and splotches. To solve it, I've simply cut out the panorama short.
Those who are familiar with PTGui probably do know already that there are options and controllers to adjust the exposure of the panorama and fix few issues related to that, and I did indeed give it a try. However, the results were catastrophic and nothing really worked. I do believe now though that these options are there for HDR panoramas specifically. It would have been a good option if I can just stitch the RAW files and save the outcome as some sort of DNG, where I can edit this stitched panorama like I do with any RAW file and hence do the effects and the split-toning required for the looks I want, but this is unfortunately unavailable and the RAW files MUST be edited and prepared for the stitch. This fact, forces me to convert RAW files into TIFFs and stitch from there.

In The Grace Of The Cormac

All these limitations made it clear to me that there is no easy way out, and I've really started to lose heart with it. It wasn't all bad though. In panoramas like In The Grace Of The Cormac, for example, I've stitched the panorama twice: One time as a normal stitch, and another time with exposure adjustments or optimization done inside PTGui. I've noticed that with optimization, some areas are better in exposure than the normal stitch (which was either too bright or too dark). In Photoshop (of course!) the two versions were merged and enhanced with layer masks combining the best of the two as much as possible. It was flattering indeed to see this panorama being marked as "Inspirational" on YouPic as well!

Fothrach Órga
(golden ruins)

Still, despite the progress a bit with In The Grace Of The Cormac, it was inevitable to do the lengthy hard work: Editing all photos of the panorama in RAW, each to its own, to fix the exposure, because I was not lucky all the time. Apparently, the whole thing was more time consuming than working with HDR panoramas, but it is worthy to try if it was about adding drama to the panoramas that I've done in the past (specially that they usually look bright and shiny with HDR, and getting them dark a bit sounded a bit romantic at times!). For this reason, I've developed a routine to make things as steady as possible (but it is not really):

1. Pick a focal image (focus of interest) and do all the editing needed on it. Typically this would be the first image in the set, but it can be another image in the set at times.
2. Synchronize all these edits for all images.
3. Now, go over all these images and check how bright or dark it would be in comparison to the edited image in the beginning. At this level, I try to not touch anything except for the exposure slider, and if that didn't work then I would adjust the tones with the parametric curve section. 
4. Usually a sub-set (e.g. the images of the top row) would have the same problem, so I synchronize them all to the adjustments (in exposure) done to the first one in the sub-set. 

As it can be seen, it is such a lengthy work. However, the goal of adjusting the exposure is to be close in brightness and not absolutely pin down the exposure between the slides. PTGui still do some good work (though limited) when it comes to equalizing the exposure among the slides of the panorama, but apparently fails when the gap in brightness is great. So, it is enough to just get them close, visually.

Ceann Scríbe
(destination)

With all that hard work, it was still inevitable to do various versions of the same panorama but with changing the exposure or optimization in PTGui, just in case it was needed. Usually, one version (the regular or normal stitch) would be enough but there were times when I've used 2 versions of the panorama and even 3 versions merged together, as is the case with Ceann Scríbe, where I've used the topmost portion of the bright version, and the ground for the normal version, and then used the darker version just to enhance the sun flare as it was too bright in the other two versions. It sound like HDR but it's not; In HDR, the images are combined in a special format and technically it's like "painting with light in the image" but in this work we are getting a bit picky about what pixels do we need and not. However, many panoramas remake so far were done using only one version or the regular stitch version from the RAW (after editing them) without any need for the other versions, but I keep stitching them just in case.

Don Eaglais
(to the church)

Along with these new stitches or remakes, comes a change in perspective. Many of these panoramas that I've been doing (and will keep on for some time) had been altered in terms of composition or changing the center of attention (which was typically placed at the center of the panorama). Panoramas like In The Grace of The Cormac above, was done keeping the human element (the lady photographer at the center) which was originally removed when I stitched this back in 2010, and the point of interest was shifted left or right as is the case with Don Eaglais (and even adding a touch to the sun there to make up for the dramatic look), or as is the case with Ceann Scríbe where another point of interest is placed at the center (and I think it is even better). I would have posted the old and new versions of each panorama for comparison but it would make the post even longer than it is already.

Finale

So, this was my story with the remakes of panoramas, old and new; Well, all are old in fact. The work is still going on with more panoramas and I've been quite amazed by the results. They are kind of astonishing more than the original HDRs that I've created in the past. This said, however, that does not mean I will not be shooting HDR panoramas the next time I'm on it. Better play it safe and do the routine and then think of other choices, like the thing I'm doing here already.

الأَنْدَلُسِيْ (The Andalusian)

As for the reasons behind all of that tedious work, the answer lies in the looks and inspiration. Generally speaking, we have to admit that many of our inspirations as photographers do come in the processing phase rather than at the shooting phase. Not to say that there is no inspiration at all during the shoot or prior to the shoot even, but processing sometimes yields results that we didn't imagine at times or simply did not think it was possible. Viewing things in the viewfinder or on the LCD at the back of the camera is not the same as viewing an image, on a monitor, using a wide color space such as ProPhoto (just an example). The colors are simply beyond the simple rendering of the LCD and the human eye even at times.
For such reasons, I've decided to cross the mile and try to do the lengthy work with the RAW files instead of the HDR as it was done before. I might be able to produce the looks using the HDR indeed using many adjustment layers and many layer masks, but the knot that needs to be tied here lies in the fact that I'm not sure what I'm expecting and what is that I'm really seeking out of the looks. There are some panoramas that have changed completely in looks, not only by colors, but also in composition. I've even created 2 separate versions for some of these panoramas and published them both, and I might try a trend with "bright" panoramas whenever it is possible to do so.

An Castán Dorcha
(the dark chestnut)

An Castán Geal
(the bright chestnut)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is my "little" story with the remakes of many panoramas, and many to come further, hopefully. By doing all this, I've been actually giving myself a dose of confidence even at some level here, specially with the success of stitching the nadir point in The Andalusian. It was one of these rare panoramas were I would usually take a nadir shot and try to stitch (with few procedures on-location and in PTGui); A practice that I didn't perform much really but this seems promising and for some reason, seems a bit easier to be done when stitching from regular files like TIFFs, instead of HDRs. 

On another plane, I think I've been getting back my appetite to work with the camera further, rather slowly, specially with the weather change here (we already had the first rains of... winter?). I had my first stroll outside, which hopefully won't be the only one, and I might blog about that the next time!

Let There Be Dark…

Well well well! I gave myself a little vacation from blogging, again, as it was my birthday (August 17^th), and also because of some health issues with my gum. At the moment of typing these words I'm on recovery phase, I hope! My face was literally like a balloon! I'm still having some issues eating a bit and I can't open my mouth hard, but at least the severe pain has gone. Meanwhile, I'm keeping swashing and stuffing my mouth with cloves.
I was already in cold water with my camera; Not much inspiration, not much mood to work with it, and with my mouth problems things were doubled, if not tripled. I barely had the power to even get up from bed (well, my recliner) or even to process some old photos. Things are getting better a bit now and hopefully I can work with my camera more in the near future. I've made it a habit of mine to take selfies in the first few hours of my birth-day, typically with my DSLR camera, but this year I was so tired to set up things, so I just used my mobile for this purpose, and a LED flashlight. Anyway, in this post, I'm not here to talk about my selfies, but rather about something else, completely. A processing venture.

Let There Be Dark

Actually this post won't be like a tutorial for some process in Photoshop (or whatever editing software) but I wanted to give a glimpse of the general story of this "technique"; If I can call it so.
This new method of treating RAW files sheds some new hope onto some of the old images that I've simply neglected for one reason or another. However, the main advantage with this "technique" is the ability to deal with relatively dark shots (underexposed that is) and create something interesting out of them. I think what technique emphasizes is that shadows are your friend; They add depth, meaning and mood to the image.
Before I proceed with talking about this technique, I had to admit that it is not something flexible but rather an approach (i.e. no fixed values), so I would skim through the changes in a bit. This technique is also a merge between two or three methods that I've encountered in some tutorials; I've "unintentionally" started to merge these methods while editing some of my photos, and to my surprise, the "cinematic" look that was working on polishing and perfecting, was somewhat achieved using this method that I will be talking about.
The technique is based on three major aspects:

1. Lowering the exposure (darkening the image), and increasing the highlights/brightness.
2. Fixing the white balance at 50K (with tint at 0).
3. Split-Toning.

These are the three main aspects of the processing, but of course the story does not end with the RAW editing, as other edits are to be done in Photoshop itself (e.g. adding diffused light). These steps were originally, somewhat, separate. That is, each technique or step did belong to a separate tutorial (unfortunately, I don't remember them to post them here right now). But as far as I remember, the first step did belong to a tutorial about "adding a dark atmosphere to a portrait", while the other two did belong to a tutorial about "adding vibrancy to a night city scene".

Remnant of A Fairy Tale

These steps became like a norm right now when editing any photo (specifically old). It might not turn out good for every photo, so I try to twitch and change some sittings. If nothing works out, then I'm back to my "normal" editing. But given that most of the photos I'm working with this technique right now are old photos (which were processed differently before), I would simply forget about it and look for some other photos to work with.

Lejla Maltija
(A Maltese evening)

Sometimes, I try to reverse the settings (when it comes to white balance specifically) and see if things change. I've realized that, usually, it turns into a somewhat a night scene. However, it's not always workable like in Lejla Maltija. In fact, I was lucky to have it worked here. The clouds though did give it away as they are not supposed to be that bright. All in all, it is worth trying in a number of images still and trying to turn them into a night scene.
Anyway, one of the virtues of this method is breathing new hope in dark images (that are dark for some reason or intentionally anyway). On the other hand, I'm very doubtful about printing such images with such process because of the noise level; I'd say, almost certainly a canvas would be better (to absorb the visual effect of the noise). This said, I do, of course, use my plugins and other methods to reduce the noise that pop-up with such extreme editing. However, I don't think this is always enough. Also, to combat against this noise upheaval, I do follow a "selective" approach to sharpening and noise reduction on my images; Time consuming!

Herr Fengus

As I've mentioned, the process is not done mostly to old photos. However, one of the new photos that undergone this process was Herr Fengus, which surprisingly was marked as "inspirational" on YouPic within few hours after posting! Herr Fengus is a macro shot for a little fungus that showed up for some time on the soil of one of the pots in the yard; I've noticed it during my daily "Sunning" routine (where I try to get some dose of sun every morning). The shot is probably the only stable one from a set of shaky shots, since it was done handheld (at ISO 320 and f/6.3). Frankly, I didn't imagine it would be that good for YouPIc, but well, it was! The blue and yellow mix here was majorly a work of the processing method mentioned above. I've also created a 3D anaglyph of some of the shots in that session but probably didn't work out well after all.

كـائِن
(creature)

This process also worked well for some selfies or self-portrait, specially in combination with the Adjustment Brush  in ACR which I rarely use. I find working with this brush within the RAW environment is more creative than doing the editing of some specific areas later in Photoshop itself. Well, I know it might sound like an old thing and how come I never use it, but that's just how my workflow developed over time (besides, I'm using an old Photoshop and an old ACR with it). In Creature, I've used the brush to bright the eye specifically because it got dark when I did the general process mentioned above. So, the brush helped on increasing the exposure on the eye alone. Typically, I would do such edits in Photoshop itself out of the RAW environment, but comparing (mentally) how things would look, I do "foresee" the difference between doing this step specifically in RAW and doing it separately in Photoshop environment, either in 16- or 80but formats. Also, doing the edits with the split-tone in the RAW environment makes everything look more natural (as if the lighting in the original shot was indeed colored) than doing that effect in Photoshop itself.

السّـاقي
(the cup-bearer)

 Infrared shots particularly don't have much flexibility with this process, and the first step of fixing the white balance at 50K must be neglected, because infrared shots typically do undergo a color fix already. However, the split-toning between warm and cold tones (yellow/blue) do somehow add "natural" sense to an infrared image specifically if it was a portrait as in The Cup-Bearer above.
So, this was a "quick" stroll about this method I've been using lately to edit a lot of my photos. I didn't want it to be a tutorial though as actually there is no fixed values, but there are main or general aspects of editing which I've mentioned above already. When working in that way, expect a lot of noise!

Finale

Laziness have been my companion lately. Or rather mood swings that just disabled my desires to hold the camera and think of new things to shoot. As we are officially into Phase IV of going back to normalcy (as per the government plan), I'm expected to go back to work any time now, and with the daily rush and jams.
Things around me (specially in the news) to make me feel sick indeed. I don't understand why do people hate us that much nor respect us, but I'm spending my time praying to God to get us the justice we deserve. Soon.
This said, and as days pass by, I'm getting convinced day by day about the vanity of this life. With people changing their values the way they change their underwear, it seems to me there is no place for me here. Who needs a 40-year-old grumpy man anyway?

Oldies Anew…

I was not sure really how to start this blog post. I was thinking seriously of giving myself a little vacation from blogging for few weeks and come back later when my "esteem" gets better, specially that the country is going through a slow opening-up after a long lock-down since last February (partial and total).
Meanwhile, I've been coping a lot with mood swings and I've already started to isolate myself from the so-called social media (which have nothing social about them really). Add some toothache (or gum problems) to the mix and you will be having a blast of stress on a brain that have already been coping with a handful of problems already.
All that lead me to slow down with my camera work and the shooting new ideas. However, this pushed me to work a bit on old shots (directed at keeping the streak count on YouPic) and this kind of helped me at looking differently at some of these old photos that I've neglected - even test shots shot at ISO 12,800 are subjects to this artistic venture.
In between all this mental mess, there is in fact a series of images that I'm working on; Some sort of a story, but I decided not to post about them here yet. Let's hope I get the chance to work more on the ideas that I've already planned ahead, which I've postponed so far because of, well, life problems. So, this post will be dedicated more likely to those work of art that I've accomplished by re-visiting some of the old images. They are many, but I won't be posting everything of course. Just few for now, and some for later!

But First: A Little Announcement

Just before I proceed with my (boring) talk about some of the oldies, I wanted to give a little announcement here about some of my photos, specifically selfies.
Since uploading any photo of any face requires a model release and sometimes there is some hassle even when uploading my own selfies about this issue, there is one particular website which accepts these photos without checking but they make it clear for the contributor that they don't bear any legal consequences for any missing model release, so they just advise the contributors of providing such a release. This stock website is MostPhotos.
Unfortunately, MostPhotos doesn't provide handy tools for contributors like other stock websites (e.g. Canstockphoto), so it was a bit hard to get some banner fixed into my blog. Thus, I'm having a direct link to my MostPhotos account here, in hope that it works. It should lead you directly to the newest contributions I've made on MostPhotos.
Even though, as I've said, MostPhotos doesn't require a model release to upload such images, I did in fact create my own simple model release just to upload my selfies and I've attached the release to these images. So, I think I will work further and try to find some of the 3D anaglyph images (which are not normally accepted in other stocks) and selfies that I've created in the past to upload them to MostPhotos. My main aim for my MostPhotos account is to contain some of the fine art work that I think are not quite useful as a stock, which is commonly dedicated to designers and web-developers.
I just wished that there is some kind of a banner to add as a signature to some of my blog posts or any formal settings instead of sharing a link to my profile like that.

Some of my selfies artwork that are uploaded to my MostPhotos only.

Oldies Anew

Driving With Retinitis Pigmentosa

Starting with one image that is not so oldie, and this one was part of my project to create an image for Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month (February) in 2019. The experiment was a fail in general because of the bright sun and my speedlites not working under the sun (they use infrared and not radio transmission) and after taking some test shots back then I've just called it off and went back home (which is less than 5 minutes walk away from this location).

What's different now, though, is the realization of the artistic potential (well, pushed by the desire to keep the streak of upload on YouPic as well), and while I was thinking of making the shot "whole" as much as possible in-camera when I shot this back in 2019, now I realized that I could work on it in a different way, even though not to the exact vision I've had back then.

This said, viewing the image under the light of some editing styles that I've been reviewing and applying lately, I decided to work on this simple shot and add motion to it (something I was not planning to do back then). In a nutshell, the process involved:

• Adjusting the tones and contrast, and adding vignetting.
• Adding lens blur on various levels in the image to add some depth; i.e divide the image to fore-, mid-, background by blurring to various degrees on each zone (farthest is the hardest).
• Adding motion blur, again, to various zones (closest is the hardest). 
• Adding radial blur to the tires. 

All of this blurring did require a lengthy work of selecting specific areas and be careful with these glass windows. The motion blur specifically was shifted a bit to the right after applying it to keep the blurry lines following the car and not in front of it. Cropping was also due here even before working with the image. Got to say, this work spices up my appetite to editing.

Speeding Light

Another oldie came from the year 2013; Back to the days when I used to go out at night and shoot. This shot though is a bit far from home. It's from Ahmadi (city) which is known typically for its National Day decorations every year. I used to head there with a friend (he drives) and shoot as much as we can. Unfortunately, though, I never made a panorama there. Anyway, I've revisited the RAW files again here and picked one image that I didn't process before and started to do the latest I've learned with it, and again, I've added some radial blurs (no motion blur here).

I have to say though that, despite its simplicity for me, I had some hard time deciding what to do, and how to do it. The image had been cropped to a great extent actually to remove some excess lines that I've seen as distractions. To be honest, its not quite what I've envisioned. I wanted to depict a real camera movement which would make these arches of light zoom in (or out). Anyway, things didn't turn out exactly as I wanted them, so I had to satisfy myself with this at this point. 

Some Night in Oman

The last one for now, is an image that I've processed several times actually, but this time as I've stated before, I'm trying to apply some new techniques in editing (which involve tone-splitting, big time!). The photo comes from Oman, 2015, when I traveled with some group members (back when I was a member in a photography group). The shot was actually a test shot originally but yet it was acceptable with its noise level (when viewed in a small size).

Original first edit

One of the things that I've processed differently, beside the tones and colors in general, is the cropping ratio which I went on "free" mode to crop in the new edit. It might be sound or seem an easy thing to crop an image for some, but trust me, it is a hard task specially if you have a tint of OCD in your personality; Where you tend to keep everything in a specific aspect ratio because, well, this is how to be perfect! So, I can say that during the new edits of old images, I'm trying to release myself from the sense of guilt as I crop. Now, Color-wise, I do like them both actually even though I have to say that the original or first edit of this image from Oman gives a good contrast to the stars in the sky. However, the new edit is more dreamy-like and some people expressed their love for the colors in this image actually. Must add that there is also a B&W version of this image but it's an old edit as well, so no need to put it here.

Finale

I think this is enough for now, but the list is pretty long actually, specially with photos from my travels to Ireland, Malta, and Oman. Moreover, I've been "hunting" for anaglyph images from these old photos. There are many occasions when I've shot successive shots which turn out later to be suitable for 3D anaglyph making because of some minor movement. This, and with the help of StereoPhoto Maker which I've reviewed in my last post, there are better chances even to create "deeper" anaglyphs from such images, as far as I've witnessed myself actually. Things are promising in this field.
This said, now seems my only outlet for such art is YouPic (beside stock websites of course), after ditching Instagram for good this time. Even my other account, which was dedicated for my conlang, Ayvarith, can't be returned after being hacked (apparently). Thanks to the "security" system of Instagram.It seems that my introversion has cast its shadow even on my (so-called) online social life. Deep inside, there are things; things of feelings. Feelings of disgust for all these social platforms. For this reason, I really need to fill this gap in life and time where these platforms used to take place with something more productive, beside editing. I'm currently reading eBooks and planning to do more and more readings if possible. Now I'm starting to imagine what if people, or a group of them, just started a campaign to boycott or simply stop depending on Instagram for their artistic, creative, and marketing needs? During such times of COVID-19 this might sound a bit hard but I do think it can be done (and in a reasonable way). Whatever the solution is, it absolutely should not be under the management of Facebook. At this point, I have to mention that I've even stopped logging (or keep myself logged) on Facebook and I just drop from time to time to see if there is any new comment or message, and to upload a photo to my albums. We, definitely, need a new platform for communication and arts.
My mental status is going through some (harsh?) upheaval lately. People, or community as a whole, is pushing me gradually to get on serious with the thought of living alone, in my own home, if not leave this whole country just to gain some of the peace of mind. I could be exaggerating for one reason or another, but that feeling of opposition wherever I go is just unbearable. I seriously keep asking myself, am I that stupid really or people simply don't understand my suffering, my needs, or even my normal speech? I don't know what the hell is going on with my life but I know one thing: I want to have my own place. How? I don't know…