Heedless…

Well, this is a quick wrap for the latest events here, after some long pause during Ramadhan. Ramadhan is over now and I'm trying to hop to the regular pace of a normal life (figurative speech). So many things to do here, including preparations for the vacation I'm planning to have on September, in which I'm supposed to travel to Oman first with the group for a workshop, and then I'm planning to head to Malta few days after that trip. I didn't organize the trip and timing still, and one thing new to me here is the transportation (supposing I'm going to land in Malta's main island, while I'd like to stay on the other island, Gozo). Up till this moment, I didn't even do anything about the visa.
Meanwhile, I'm not doing much with my camera except for visiting old photos and trying to do retouches and reworking some of them (specially converting some to B&W). I'm still aiming at that goal of doing a B&W panorama in JPEG format, but I'm still not sure about the location. Needless to say, summer is killing my chances in "cold" blood… pun intended.

Arabian Eye
One of the reworked images from 2014, adding luster to the iris and more sharpness.

This said, I did spend a considerable time with my Geltani trying to prepare some graphics to put on the page. I'm still not sure how I will send this to Omniglot, but anyway the process is going on. I prepare the characters for the syllables by scanning my own handwriting and then cutting the shapes and prepare them in a specific squared sizes to fit the main document about Geltani. This said, I did already add some more sounds to the syllabic system, beside adjusting some shapes for the 3^rd or 4^th time. Yet, there are things to add, and a numerical system to fix.

ِA scan for some doodles with
trials for the numerical system.
Click to enlarge.

In addition to that, I've added (or made up the idea) a symbol for stressing the syllable just as in Japanese syllables as well. The number of syllables so far exceeded 100, which seems a lot, but the virtue here lies in the fact that they are mostly systematic in derivation (or composing so to say). It is a leap if  I should say; there was nothing and now I'm already in the middle of something. I need to check some of those phonetic values and the transliteration system, essentially to be noted down in the document I'm going to send to Omniglot. The document must be in HTML, and with so many pictures, it seems I'm going to zip it all and send it over. Doesn't sound quite right though, don't know why exactly!

With all this work, and Ramadhan is over, I'm planning for some "move" that might probably get me to set a foot in some direction. Some celebrities did ask for the collection of photos I've taken for them on the stage after checking them out on Instagram. However, because of the malfunctioning endeavor with Instagram (which is embarrassing me a lot), it seems that I have to do it in person. I'm planning as well to make a print for a celebrity as a gift. I just need to know a way to deliver those to them!

Young and Old.

Meanwhile, I've trying to push myself further with poetry as I'm trying to get in touch with my inner feelings and expressing more of myself as I used to do in the old times. I've found out that some abstract photos that I've taken before do entice the memory and some writing capabilities. Well, it's not a joke to say that sometimes you have to be tortured just to do art, any art, if possible. Anyway, I did write a piece, which I called Young and Old, inspired by an abstract photo taken from Ireland in 2010!

Not sure for now what the coming days hold for me in store. All what I really want is just a vacation. A vacation... with that I should also be sleeping without thinking about the next day! I'm sort of having what I like to call a "relapse" to Phil Collins music. I was more into Irish music for some time. Well, Phil's music is good, pretty good, but I tried to avoid it in the past trying not to lick over my injuries… and I failed.

Infra Selfie…

A week has passed of Ramadhan already. Things are going fast, and I'm trying to cope with the new timings. So far my body is doing nice job but it requires more sleep as usual. Anyway, this is the story of my life I presume.
Meanwhile, my timing seems compressed, specially that Ramadhan this year comes in the beginning of summer, which leaves me with few hours at night to do all I can do before trying to sleep (again) to get up next morning for another course of... misery. However, I had some time to do some stuff at least…

Infra Selfie

I've been trying this for 2 weeks; shooting myself (i.e. taking a selfie not with a gun) while using the infrared filter. My infrared filter is B+W with threshold of 650nm, which makes it penetrable by Reds beside infrared. Anyway, this is suitable so far for some shooting using Speedlites.  They are good sources for infrared rays by the way.

In my previous trials, I used some low f-numbers, and hence a shallow depth of field and a blurry image most of the time. I had to lower the f-number (around f/5.3) to allow more light to get in while shooting the 2 speedlites (580EX II and 430EX II) at full power. Narrowing the aperture yielded no image at all!
This time, however, I changed positions and I got the speedlites as close as possible to my face; it is dangerous somewhat - you can feel the heat wave rushing on your skin after each flash strike. At this point, I've set the f-number to f/8 (and I would go to f/10 if I had the chance to). The results were sort of acceptable. I know some people who liked these shots! Future model? Nah... not with this belly.

While processing the set of images, I was reluctant to fix the white balance as I usually do with infrared images. Mostly, I would just use the Infrared profile specifically made for such images and fix the saturation and contrast starting from there without adjusting the white balance. This kind of filter gives a pleasant hue and shade of Reds. Just for the sake of it, I did try to adjust the white balance as on the image above (and that would shift the colors to almost black and white image).
I faced some problems in processing like banding because of the excessive saturation at some point, but at the end I got to find some good shots. My dream now lies in shooting selfies using the Kodak gel filter or something like it, which has a threshold of 1000nm (more opaque to visible spectrum). That would require more flash power! If my face almost got burned for using speedlites at close distance to my face, imagine what kind of setting should be used if I used such filter of 1000nm threshold? Of course, with rising the ISO level too…

Syllabary

I've been working slowly with my Geltani project but at least I did something. Simon Ager, author of Omniglot, seems interested in this script, and thus I'm going to prepare a template for it in order to be displayed on Omniglot. Even though he did send me some ready-made templates to be used, but they don't fit into the scheme of Geltani (Geltani is Chinese-like script). Moreover, the templates he sent me were for alphabetical scripts, while Geltani contains a syllabary system along with the characters (somewhat mimicking the Katakana system to Japanese).

Scan of the syllabary
Click to enlarge.

I've managed so far to adjust and fix some issues with the syllabary system and I think I'm satisfied with it right now. The plan now is to make crops out of this scheme and put every character in a table. It's going to take a really long time I suppose! Probably the best way to do this is to make a document file and then save it as HTML.
What is left now is to re-check the phonetic values for some characters; something I was planning to do all the week but couldn't!

Finale

A lot in my brain right now; sketches, photos, designs. I don't know from where I should start. In the meantime, I've continuing my previous work with re-making old panoramas (specially those from my 2010 trip to Ireland, Co. Tipperary) to try to find more projections.
There is a pending trip to take place in September, to Oman, which would last for around 4 days doing photography projects there with the group, and I'm thinking already of having a real vacation after this trip. Not to Ireland this time, I don't think so, but it's just an idea and I have to think about it fast.
My mind and time is occupied as I'm doing an Arabic blog post about macro photography for Arabic readers - dedicated to beginners. I was hoping to post this one Wednesday but seems the amount of information included and the images needed there would need another week of working out. The only time I work on this Arabic article is when I'm, well, at work. Beside that, I'm trying to do some of the doodles and sketches that I've planned before. Not many pleasant results so far! I didn't like my own work…
So much here and so much there. I feel like breaking everything and just leave it all behind me here. This mind is cuffed to many things. I think not much is left for me here already…

Ag Éirí
(rising)

Geltani Galore…

Well, this is a quick wrap, since I didn't post anything last week (and in fact I was not going to this week as well!).
Life is going slowly in this heat. Man, I wish I can sleep and wake up and it is winter again. Not much action with my camera lately but I do have some plans that are on my waiting list. Been trying to do some clumsy DIY stuff with a Kleenex box (yes, tissue paper box) and make it as a light modifier for my flashgun (Canon 580EXII), but it was a failure so far. Never mind anyway, it was not a big deal but something to get active a bit. I have other plans in my head now.

The poor box.
Let's not go about how I made it. Should be obvious.

Ramadhan is here already, so blessed and happy Ramadhan. I can't deny my fear about it though; there shall be a lot of exhaustion more than it is there already, specially with students in college (where I work) are still on their summer classes. It surely means traffic jams galore, and with Mom's dialysis schedule, the situation is not pleasant at all this year. I don't think I would have much time for my own projects till the month passes.

Meanwhile anyway I've been keeping myself a bit busy with my Geltani project and I'm already starting to write a brief about it in order to send to Omniglot. I've sent an example already to the author just to see how it looks (because the look of the script is important if it is to be added to the website). In addition, I'm still fine-tuning some aspects about Geltani, and changing some previous rules.

Transliteration: jewno uwibañwoš', wá núc zing reñy'ču vá zing ča-xungči
Meaning: men are like bagpipes, no sound they give until they are filled.

No need to go on and explain the transliteration and the sounds of these characters. I'll keep it for another time hopefully. As I was rummaging back through my notes about Geltani, I've decided to re-adjust the Genitive case and make it closer in concept to Japanese. I had to look into this matter specifically because I'm planning to name Geltani in its own speakers' tongue as "people of rock." Modeling that on the Japanese (の) [no], the order should be then as "rock-of people." The character which will act as the  Japanese (の) [no] will sound as /xə/ (with IPA "x" sound as Scottish or German "ch").

Genitive character
/xə/

There are other things to refine as well, like the syllabary system that comes with Geltani (something close to Katakana in Japanese). However, I'm trying to keep the language agglutinating (like Turkish) as much as possible. Geltani is not supposed to be a tonal language like Chinese, but it seems I would have to refine the values for some syllabic combinations further in order to make them distinguishable in sound. If that does not work as such, I would probably have to go ahead and hit the tonal approach just a bit.

Goals

Now with Ramadhan being here already, I do have a list of goals, but of course without a specific time table to do them. I'm thinking of seriously stopping the blog during this time until the month is over. But I'm not sure about this decision yet. Some of these goals include:

1. Doing a B&W panorama out of JPG images instead of RAW (as a challenge).
2. Doing an Infrared panorama from a bridge (previously done in a normal mode).
3. Doing more doodles and sketches and convert them to vectors. A project I stopped long time ago was to make a set of sketches about a specific theme and convert them all to vectors and upload them to stocks.
4. Maybe infrared portrait with high flash pulses.
5. Staying alive.

Bridge-O-Rama
Where I want to do an infrared panorama.

I've been busy with the group and specifically with some aspects of the website (raising it up after being down), beside working on getting an international recognition for our group (or club so to say). All that kept me a bit busy as well and away from thinking about my camera. But hopefully I'm coming back to this soon.

The past few weeks had been full of headaches and sleeping problems (though I've always had them but the rate was higher this time). Now, wishing I did indeed sign for a leave for Ramadhan already…

Blessed Ramadhan folks…

Yggdrasil…

This blog post contains a QTVR which uses QuickTime plugin to be displayed. The page might load slowly, and might not be displayed properly on tablets or smartphones. 

Summer is officially here. It is already 43°C (~109°F) at daytime. I wonder how much that would be around "real" Summer? I can't even bear the idea in my mind with getting a splash of melancholy more than it is already.

I've recently finished an eye check-up (last Sunday), which is a regular one done every 6 or 7 months since I've been diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). Sounds a bit of good news now when the doctor said that the situation seems stable. I do have my problems already in walking around specially in confined spaces, but compared to my eldest brother, I can well take care of myself so far. Probably the Vitamin A treatment is doing its job in slowing down the process of decay of the retina cells. Hopefully!

Success with Mess

I've finally managed to stitch the tricky panorama taken from Al-Hamra tower about two weeks ago. The panorama was tricky because of the moving subjects AND stable subjects in the scene; adding to that, the hardships with moving the remnants of the tripod in some projection styles.

Inside Al-Hamra

Of course, the series must start off with the regular and the most humble project: the flat spherical. The major problem here was with slide 7 specifically (center, to the right a bit). There were major stitching errors in that spot specifically and there was a "gap"; because slide 7 was removed completely. Adding any bit of it would scramble the whole area, thus I had to remove the culprit and try to mend it manually. In a small size it would be fine to look at I presume (and the QTVR looks good I believe). The tripod remnant in this version is not a problem since it is at the bottom, and a simple crop was enough to remove it.

By The Crown

The next "play" was to change the perspective. When trying the little planet projection, I personally didn't like the results, thus I changed my mind directly to see what the tunnel projection would yield. The result was By The Crown. One of the major problems here is the fact that, despite my attempt to centralize everything, but, as usual, things should go astray when the final image is made! I've spent quite a time with By The Crown trying to wrap, mold, and fix the axes to meet my vision. I wasn't lucky in other styles though!

İmparatorun Avlusunda
(in the emperor's courtyard)

Before heading to the little planet projection, I paid a minor visit to the Mercator projection (usually this is one of the "last" projections to explore when I do panoramas). The shape of the straight lines in the architecture and the uneven ceiling of the place did not help in achieving a good twisted panorama, adding to that the fact that the group members do appear in a crucial part of the panorama. Thus, a simple vertical panorama using Mercator format (to have a proper width instead of a slender one) is all I could do for the time being. Yet, I allowed myself to break the normal attitude when tone-mapping the HDR panorama and tried to add more drama to the scene by using "harsh" techniques, so to say., which caused specific halos around some elements in the image.
Yet when moved to the little planet projection style, there was not much to be done in this projection. It did not yield interesting results as much as the tunnel projection did. However, changing the viewing angle in that projection was enough (in fact the tunnel projection is just a planet projection with 180 degrees reversal).

Παλάτι του Ηρακλή
(Palace of Hercules)

Changing the viewing angle in the planet projection format did in fact yield 2 interesting results as we'll see; with 180 degrees of difference between the two. The first attempt, Παλάτι του Ηρακλή, is probably the most interesting panorama in the collection so far. When posted to 500px website, it was ranked as "popular" in just 30 minutes from posting it. This panorama caused me a lot of headache when trying to fix the axes of the image to make it as symmetric as possible, and removing the remnants of the tripod was a great deal of time and effort and yet it is not a perfect render still - it might look good only in the small version. Here too, I've decided to push the HDR tone-mapping further and try to make a harsh impact on the eye by exposing the black levels and increasing the contrast (and the vibrance of colors too). The tiles of the ground were hard to keep in symmetry and I believe they were not meant to be symmetrical in the first place! I think I'll revisit this panorama soon for B&W conversion or so…

Yggdrasil

The second, or the opposite angle for Παλάτι του Ηρακλή, was named Yggdrasil. Originally I was thinking of something related to spiders, but it crossed my mind that Yggdrasil is more interesting! Yggdrasil is the tree of life in the Norse mythology. To add a twist to Yggdrasil, I've added a Photo Filter to the original HDR panorama before tone-mapping. It was a magenta tint filter. However, I have to say I somewhat regretted this decision, as working with the panorama later on proved to be harder than I thought and the tones were problematic. I'm seriously considering re-tone-mapping this panorama without this tint. Anyway, it did reach the "popular" status in 50 minutes after posting it to 500px website. Removing the tripod remnants from Yggdrasil was relatively easier compared to Παλάτι του Ηρακλή, but it did take a long time as well, and discrepancies did occur in that area later on when tone-mapped and processed. The visual impact was sealed with sharpening the panorama with a bit of overdose. In this panorama, I couldn't hold things in a square format as it was with Παλάτι του Ηρακλή before, because some features at the bottom were not adding much to the scene (and cropping from the sides a little did help eliminate some stitching errors and avoid me the hassle of fixing them). These are the panoramas done from that specific location so far…

QTVR-wise, there was only one QTVR of course, since it is all about one panorama. Again, when making a QTVR right now, I don't have to worry much about the nadir point. I've started to adapt the logo approach at the nadir point mostly right now. However, because of some recent developments, I'm thinking more about changing the style in which I represent my QTVRs on the web; even though it might takes up some learning curve in the field of coding and webpage development…

 

The difference aspect here though, is the fact that I didn't render the QTVR at the size of 400x300 pixels as I usually do for this blog - but it was rendered here in a larger size and the window is fixed at 400x300 size; I think this way is better for representing the details better in such a small space. At the bottom of this QTVR you can find the information about the location.

Revision

In the past two weeks I've been ignited again to have a peek into Chinese and Japanese, specifically after my follow up with an old cartoon: 三国志 (Jap: Sangokushi), or Romance of Three Kingdoms; a famous work of Chinese literature made into an anime.
Digging further into the names of the characters and trying to understand more the tonal system used in Mandarin Chinese, made me sweep through the language as a whole and specially some of the sounds and notations used in the Pinyin system to note down Chinese. Some of these sounds used in real Chinese are not implemented in Geltani, but I did add some Semitic sounds already to Geltani which made it a Sino-like language with a Semite touch. Some of these sounds are: voiced and voiceless alveolo-palatal fricatives. I think applying the tonal system is out of the question here since this would complicate the matters further, but it would be nice to understand AND comprehend the tones by hearing them in spoken manner. I know, things like that sound natural to a Chinese person probably, but as an Arab, tones are used to distinguish a style of speech (as in most languages, e.g. in question or sarcasm), but to use tones solely to distinguish meanings is pretty much a harder task for someone without trained hearing. This ignites in me a question of whether or not such languages do help, naturally, their speakers in musical endeavors. Would someone learning Chinese get, by nature, the capability to distinguish musical notes more easily? Is learning Chinese easier relatively for someone who deals with musical tones?
Anyway, there might not be a space for extra sounds in Geltani already, but I think it is worth some consideration. I do have some plans regarding some revision for the Geltani - and I know, I've been saying this for long now, but most of the processes regarding this project are mental and not noted down! I think I must start building a webpage for it soon and send it over to Omniglot and see what happens.
By the way, probably I should stop using the "semite" and "semitic "notation by now since lot of people, as far as I know, are reluctant to use them because they are remnants of the Orientalists who based their classifications upon the Bible majorly, and less on scientific evidence. However, in Arabic books that I've encountered so far, some authors tend to call this language group as Arabic / Arabian languages or Ancient Arabian languages sometimes, referring to the fact that most of those who speak such languages, specifically Akkadians (the first Semites to arrive in Mesopotamia and lived along side with the Sumerians) were immigrants from the Arabian peninsula, and hence it is logical to call such group as Arabian languages as a whole. Anyway, in modern Western styles, such group is called mostly Afro-Asiatic languages as I reckon.

Finale

Feeling a bit down since I couldn't accompany the group to Dubai this week to attend PhotoWorld Expo. Too many things on my plate that I couldn't really afford to go and come back just for 3 days. Anyway, many positive feedback are coming already and I'm glad that they've made it as the only Kuwaiti corner in the expo.
I've got visiting visions in my mind about writing some short story of some sort (many topics crossed my mind actually), beside writing poetry as well. Yet, when I look at the time I do have and all the things that I must attend to, makes me scared to even think about adding one more task into my daily scheme and schedule. For this reason, I might have, at some point, to give up some of my time that I do spend here in front of the PC and processing images, as well as dwelling on some social medias aspects, to pour that time down on other sides of my own self. 
Meanwhile, I'm trying to re-collect myself; my judgements, actions, reactions. Many things to go through in my life, as I get more isolated. Sometimes, leaving and relocating yourself in some far away places might be the only solution available, to gain some respect that you deserved in a long time…

What The Heck?

What the hell is going on??? This winter is just a puddle of murky water which doesn't move! No activity, just a dormant life and busy busy mind and technically like a paralyzed person who can't reach out for his camera. There are good points however in this time of the year but still I didn't achieve what I was aiming for! I didn't go out to do some photography at night; my favorite time, in my favorite season of the year!
Anyway, in the meantime, I've been busy doing some other work here and there (mostly in front of the monitor here) and specifically working on posts for my Ayvarith conlang on Instagram. It's not only to spread the word about Ayvarith, but it is also for me to revive my memory a bit! Needless to say how much I did forget about the Bulughman and how the Geltani is on hold again after doing a tiny progress few weeks earlier. Also, I've been working on exploring some of the old panoramas, specially those from Ireland in 2010 from Cashel and Cahir in Co. Tipperary. There had been some inspiring results!

Manach ag Damhsa
(the dancing monk)

One of the first trial was the Hore abbey panorama from inside the abbey. I chose this specifically because of the architectural features and specifically the ceiling which had some Gothic-like or Celtic-like design and when stretched out it is more likely a resemblance of St Brigit's cross!
I had a theory before that places with ceilings specifically are more adequate for such twisted panoramas done in Mercator projection; I think Manach ag Damhsa proves this fact. This panorama got a lot of positive feedback and my group displayed it in the group's gallery account on instagram (@bpf_gallery). The pillars here really played a great deal in making a swift-looking movement. Without those pillars it would have been probably a dull twist. I've previously done something similar, a vertical panorama for this specific scene, but it was slender and the sides had to be chopped off.
Anyway, these panoramas were done in the beginning of my journey in photography back then and it wasn't really an easy to ask to "redo" them again. There were some awful mistakes and some "smudges" where something went wrong in the exposure for that particular slide or HDR image in that angle; some were treated, some were not, simply because I didn't know what the HELL was going on there!

Ar an Snámh
(afloat)

For example, in Ar an Snámh the already-stitched panorama had somewhat like a doppelganger! The abbey had virtually some shady building behind as if covered by fog. Looking closely, I've realized these were stitching errors. I don't know how it did happen, but I surely had no time to fix all of that. Thus, I've just stitched it and made a small size out of it for display here. it is a nice effect I believe; gives an impression of fantasy and surrealism. Could be a good option for some panorama maybe (specifically those with open top, or those which got no ceiling). Some panoramas, also, showed that annoying problem of color patches which I still don't quite know what causes it, and apparently I didn't have the time to redo all the HDR merging again and stitching again. Thus, the natural option was to convert to B&W.

Gairdíní Crochtaí
(hanging gardens)

I'm not so attracted to this one; Gairdíní Crochtaí in fact never was in other forms to tell the truth. Probably the best to be is just a flat spherical panorama for this scene. To get rid of those annoying colored spots, I had to convert to B&W (and even then I had problems with tones). It was a great deal of work here trying to show some details and hide some, keep some details dark and lighten some. Some patches or zones in the panorama had a smudging problem which was hard to resolve before stitching and after that, thus again converting to B&W was the solution.

Caisleán Seilide
(snail castle)

Further I went on and completely went out of my mind when I was struggling with Cahir castle. One of the panoramas done there (in the main yard of the castle) had a strange problem which could be related to a misalignment maybe: the edges of the castle itself were glowing as if it was a halo effect. It is not a halo effect as this white line is sharp and not fuzzy or soft like the halo effect. I'm completely blank about this problem. Anyway, the idea for creating Caisleán Seilide was inspired as I was moving around with the coordinate system under the planet projection (as usual) and notice how some parts of the castle are longer than the others. The only thing I regret about this panorama specifically, maybe, is that I tone-mapped it in Photoshop. It did a fine job but probably it was harder to make a drama out of this panorama specifically. All of the above panoramas were merged in HDR slides first using an older version of Photomatix, and I didn't bother to redo the merging again to see if these problems would just disappear.

Back to reality. It seems I'm left now with some of the final images I could be working with from my travel to Ireland in 2014. Mostly floral and I got to say, they are mostly cliché. But there was some promising venture in those.

An Ghrian Gorm
(the blue sun)

Many of these shots did need a work in the focal depth; I had to mimic a shallow depth (using Lens Blur) to the background to isolate the foreground better (since my lens didn't do its job well in the very beginning!). It is a really hard work and a painstaking job, since you have to go around selecting the specific areas only that need to be protected (or blurred) before applying the blurring effect. For this reason I do expect many glitches in the original image despite the fine look when in small size like An Ghrian Gorm above. I see this radiating effect of blue and purple pleasing (despite being oversaturated at times), thus I decided to do another one.

Corcra chun Goirm
(purple to blue)

But the real catch was an architectural detail from Ashford castle (or its periphery to be precise). It began as a play, then developed into a serious venture which I'm trying to do over and over again whenever I get the chance for such play.

Stánóir an Óir
(gold gazer)

I have to say that from far away, Stánóir an Óir does look like a person with closed eyes. It started with a half face of the statue (which was on the top of the tunnel entrance leading to the walled gardens of Ashford castle). I did previous edit such a shot and wanted to do something different here but didn't know what exactly. Suddenly the whole "vision" started when I played around with the contrast if I remember correctly; then I thought this is a good chance to concentrate the light in specific areas and darken the rest to make a dramatic look. So it was, and the rest was a Photoshop game. Originally, Stánóir an Óir is just a half face, but then it was duplicated and the duplicate is flipped horizontally and attached to the rest to make for a complete face! Then there was a nose and lips job (yes like in cosmetics) to enhance the look a bit. The awkward point here is that the nose is actually somewhat out of focus but probably not that obvious after all. I had to do sharpening twice or thrice to increase the visual impact, while the golden patches were simply a result of adjusting the white balance in RAW before opening in Photoshop. Thus, a dull white statue was transformed dramatically, first by RAW editing, then by Photoshop. I'm looking now for more instances of this sort to work out my mind about it a bit. I think it is a good chance to vent creativity a bit instead of this dull winter season I'm having.

Finale

Things are going slow and sluggish, and I'm trying my best to enjoy my time as much as possible throwing back all the hardships. I'm trying to synthesize a feeling of carelessness deep within me, specially when it comes to conditions at work.
We had a meeting lately and I had to participate and the end result is a bit perplexing. According to one of the members of the committee that manages my workplace said that I did a pretty good job and I should participate more in such meetings when they are due (usually I'm not part of it). This is a good thing because it is encouraging and, well, someone expresses how valuable I am, but on the other hand there is a gloom lurking, as it means more responsibility and a careful venturing in that domain, in a time when all I'm thinking of is myself and my leisure, and doing what I like to do.

Source: Amazon

I'm in the process of reading an interesting book here, which I've brought with me from Dublin's airport, but didn't start reading it except of late. The book is by Daniel Kahneman, and as it says on the cover, Kahneman is a Nobel laureate. Kahneman is a psychologist and discusses many (logical) psychological issues, specially those affecting the general public. I had some ideas specifically about the media, and this man here, a professor, did explain exactly what I perceived in the media under his term: Availability Cascade. I advice everyone reading this now to get this book. Ironically as the title says, Thinking Fast and Slow, I do find myself reading it slowly; probably mainly because the language is English with long passages and entwined terminology, but after all English is not my first language - I guess I should learn fast-reading in English. Saying that, I'm doing some effort as well in learning Irish, at least in writing it for the time being!
I've been running errands in a continuous rhythm by now, every single day. Makes me think of a real vacation as well of doing nothing but sleep and walk somewhere nice. Alas, my duties are always calling for me…

Lazy…

OK I admit; I have been lazy in the past week. Well, 2 weeks. That's why no post last week. The temperatures here dropped suddenly with a chilling wind on and off. Truly a bone breaker. Not sure why, but I've been feeling tired and lazy lately to even go out at night in such weather which I like the most. Probably it is the erratic sleeping pattern (which persists even in working days). For this reason, I've been mostly editing and creating new panoramas, besides trying a bit of the new "observations" in the field of panoramas to some of the older panoramas. Moreover, there is one extra observation on the way as well!

An-Mór

I never thought of myself being so interested in such projection style which seemed so boring before like Mercator. The beginning with this projection was (as mentioned in previous posts) was to make a more plausible vertical panoramas because vertical panoramas are "slim" and cropping the sides would do more harm. Mercator was a solution because the vertical perception comes almost in a square ratio (height = width), and occasionally the sidelines make a nice curvature with no need to crop even! However, time had to come to push my views further with an extreme approach.

Ashford Domhanda
(global Ashford)

The beginning was about doing a vertical panorama (again) for Ashford castle in Co. Mayo, but with a twist or a swirl as it was with other panoramas recently. However, this approach didn't work out and I decided to play with the sliders a bit. All to be done was to stretch the viewing window or space to the extreme ends to show the full extent of the Mercator projection rather than compressing it, and the result as you can see in Ashford Domhanda; a global look like those maps which are also made using Mercator projection.

Casadh an tSúgáin
(twisting of the rope)
I was seeking a swirl like this
for Ashford castle panorama.

My personal impression about the implications of such projection style is that it gives sense of grandness, totality, greatness; probably these impression come from the back of my head as I used to see lot of Mercator maps (specially in school times). However, this projection style has one awkward disadvantage, even though a normal result: the stretched and blurred sides and corners. My intentions were to crop these portions out in the beginning, but that would corrupt the overall oval shape of the center, which is to be the main interest. For the time being, I would just call this style as Extreme Mercator. I'm still working on discovering the possibilities here, and specially with old panoramas.
When it comes to old panoramas, I made a trial to do the "twisting" effect again with one of the places I like and taken a panorama from back in 2013: The Arab Organizations Headquarter. Such a place with quite amazing wooden craft and Arabesque and Islamic designs. Anyway, it seems a twist here is not quite that attractive, for various reasons...

El Andaluz Bailando
(the dancing Andalusian)

Generally speaking, the hall is a mess. Despite the fact that it was wide and bears not many obstacles in view, yet it had many reflections, and twisting the panorama that way as in El Andaluz Bailando made some eyes "sore". I sort of came out with a conclusion that to do a twist, the roof of the place must be close and it is better to have the surroundings on the ground arranged in some systematic manner. In the case of El Andaluz Bailando, the roof was too high, and the surroundings on the ground were not giving out a sense of symmetry.

An Solas Sníomhta
(the twisted light)
The twisting effect appears stronger
and more concrete when the roof is at proximity

However, the work was not limited to Mercator, despite being big part of my work lately. The old tunnel projection (the reverse of the planet projection) was a target for some "surreal" editing. It is a surreal projection after all, but I mean here something out of the usual look for such projections. Something off-center.

An Cúinne Geal
(the bright corner)

Frankly, I was aiming at a sweeping movement for the landscape and the house and decided to make the tunnel projection as a starting point. However, things went out of hand a "bit". Why would I restrain myself for centralizing such panoramas anyway? Specially those which do no possess any degree of symmetry anyway! Call me an impressionist, but those curves can do a lot further when moves off the center; Curves = Emotions.
The main problem here is the cropping factor. No, not the sensor's crop factor. Here, the original panorama was 9000x9000 pixels in size (meaning a resolution of 81MP!). However, after some crops to adjust the portions of the panorama and the curves of lines (controlling those with coordinates is hard), the size came down to around 5000x5000 pixels (i.e. 25MP). Such a loss of size. Of course, I can stitch it again with a larger size to crop it back again, but that means more processing power. Imagine this: for a panorama coming down from 81MP to 25MP with such crop, then that means only 30% of the original size is used. If I'm going to do this on the usual size of 8000x8000 (64MP) like most squared panoramas before, then I would need to stitch to somewhere around 213MP in resolution, that would be somewhat around 14500x14500 pixels; this is just to crop it down to the size of 64MP.
Anyway, this is just the beginning, in hope that I would do more observations about this. One of my goals right now is to create something else with panoramas, specifically in a vertical format, but no success so far. All I can say about it right now is, it would be a diagonal panorama!

Geltani Again!

I know, I've been neglecting this project for a really long time and I've totally forgot about doing some representation for Omniglot.com as well.  However, I was working slowly for some time with this project before traveling to Ireland last October and I think I didn't post anything about these "inventions" and additions.
For a beginning, I tried to make a standard set for the "radicals"; those large strokes that contain other glyphs combinations. Usually those radicals are the last letter of the word. I wouldn't say it is a final set, but it is a trial to make it so.

A scan for some of the radicals designed already (from my Geltani notebook). Sorry for the bad quality here; I did barely make it through the technical problems! The asterisk here points to the position of the other glyphs relative to the general (larger) radical glyph.

On the other hand, there had been some tiny approaches to imagine out a general aspect for the grammar, and this was by some trials to form the passives, conditionals and perfectives. Not planning to complicate things here, so the general formula for such phrases would consist of a mix of the verb "to be" in a specific tense, with the original tense marker of the verb itself. This is the idea for now and seems it works (logically!).

Another scan for some grammatical constructions with the verb "to fly" which transliterate as "píj" (pron: peej, with "j" as in "jacket").
The top 2 columns of 4 lines discuss the direct tense (flew, fly, will fly, fly!) on the right column, and the passive form (was flown, be flown, will be flown) plus the modal (should fly) on the left column.
Next line is an example: would have flown, which literally here becomes (fly-will be-was)
Next example: he should have flown, literally here becomes (must-fly be-is)
Last example: would have flown (to...), which literally becomes (... to fly-was be-was)
As seen here in general, it is combination of two tenses of the main verb and the verb "to be"

Beside these forms, it seems that it would be necessary to merge some phonemes or sounds in Geltani when they come successively, like the sounds of "J" (as in Jacket) and "Ch" (as in Church), but I'm not sure yet of this theory right now. I hate to deal with a language like mathematics - this is not the way I learned English (even though it's not perfect anyway!), but it is important to "live" the language and make sense of it. Just get into the flow and only then things would fit into place, and this is what I'm trying to apply myself as I'm going through some Irish lessons online (sadly written and no audio available).
It is funny though how I got into formulating the grammar without even working on representing my work and the script. I've been overwhelmed with many things to do at the spur of the moment which effectively made my mind scattered in all directions.

Finale

Snufkin

The Moomins

Well, I won't be ashamed to say that one of the reasons to be lazy in the past week and this week is the fact that I was busy playing games, and watching cartoons. Old cartoons that is, like The Moomins. Well, I remember this cartoon long time ago (and played in Arabic back then of course and I'm watching this version specifically) and I used to get scared somehow every time it is played because it, simply, looked weird. However, now it gives another feelings when I watch it, specially after knowing that originally this Finnish comic and stories were dedicated to adults with some deep meanings. To me it resembles the simplicity and the life of adventure in simple terms, needless to say the imaginative stories and the countryside framework which fits my mood perfectly. I think my favorite character here is Snufkin. This is the English name of course. I like his role and I think it does have some aspects that I need, crave, or already have. This is not the only cartoon on the list; Golden Cities (or as dubbed in Arabic: Golden Dreams) is next on the queue line. However, I might not start it immediately after The Moomins. I need some time in between to reschedule my priorities!

On the other hand, I've been thinking seriously on having another instagram account for Ayvarith to post some aspects about it since there is no homepage for it yet. Another failure, I know. I have to admit, I do hate building websites! However, this will also mean added pressure, and with the technical problems I do have already with connecting to instagram and posting in it, it is probably better to wait and watch out for the next move. I'm so pressed in time with my photo-processing schemes and duties for the group, as well as my usual daily posts on instagram. In all of this, I'm giving my workplace my back, which I know it does sound dangerous a bit but I can't force myself to respect something that doesn't respect me back.

As I'm typing this, I've received an email informing me that one of my images submitted to HIPA (Hamdan International Photography Award) was qualified after the first round. The image was submitted for the Night Photography category. Meanwhile, my other images for other categories did not pass. The image submitted was Die Kuwaitische Mitternacht, but I had to translate the name into English as per the rules. It is funny that I've submitted my images in a haste just 2 days before the deadline. There was another event I wanted to role into, and also takes place in the UAE, which was an award for achievements done for the Arabic language. My aim was to submit my blog, but I had to back off. I think my blog is relatively new beside the fact that I was not sure of the regulations about electronic contents in that way. I had to let it go for now as I have more important issues to attend to (and ironically one of them is find a topic for my next article for my Arabic blog!).

Die Kuwaitische Mitternacht

Laziness in the meantime comes as an essential part of my life now. I feel that I need it strongly. I just realized that even when I play a game, it comes to me as a "duty" to do and not merely an entertainment to have. I think I've completely lost the definition of "entertainment" in my life…

Hexachromatic…

Turbulent time here. I'm trying so hard to push myself to work on various projects, and probably the only one project I'm advancing through is my other Arabic blog for photography beginners. Ramadhan will start by the next week and I have to say that it seems I'm not ready yet. The heat plus the creativity block on my side would make this Ramadhan not an easy time to pass. I even had some urge to write poetry, but words are betraying me often and pouring them to a piece of paper or to the Notepad is not an easy task anymore. Camera-wise, it's the same. Not much of ideas. The best I could do is visit my old arsenal of images and convert them to Black and White with some experimentation of Tone Splitting.

الله

I've acquired lately some amount of glycerine (a.k.a glycerol) which is sometimes used instead of water as droplets when taking shots of still life with "dew" on leaves and such. Glycerine is pretty beneficial in such instances because it has a good Surface Tension that holds each drop in a good spherical shape, beside its viscosity which allows it to be stable on the surface of a smooth leaf; unlike water drops that tend to slide easily down. My experiment, however, is something totally different to such shots.
Glycerine is also special in its optical properties; apparently a drop of it has more magnification power than water drops would have, and this property was inspiring somewhat. I wanted to use a drop of glycerine as a magnifying factor, but the problem is, inspiration was missing. The last thing I could think of is using a drop of it to magnify the holy word.

Allah
Canon EF 100mm Macro+2x Bower teleconverter,
f/5.6, 320^-1sec, ISO200.

First, I had to prepare the setup, which was simple in fact but since it was on the ground, there were some problems with the level of the camera and also how to set up the Speedlite 580EXII. On the Holy Book, I've placed a clean acrylic sheet and then put on a drop of glycerine on that. The rest was experimenting and changing the position of the Speedlite. It was hard and in fact, I never did take a good image that I really liked (not even the one above). However, I tried, and ironically, the property of the liquid that I liked the most, proved to be fatal the most; as it caused severe internal reflections and would cast a pretty dark shadow. I had to carry the camera by hand and shoot since I didn't have a low level enough, and I was sort of surprised to be able to focus at such close distance. The handshake wasn't a problem since I was shooting with a relatively high shutter speed  Many shots were made and I have to say I'm still not quite satisfied, but for the time being, this is the best I could do.

Trial

As you can see in Trial, which is one of the images made in that experiment, in the beginning this was the initial position and framing but it did feel wrong. Probably I just tend to place the subject on the left side because of my left-handedness in general. Anyway, as you may know, the Arabic script goes from right to left, and such positioning for the droplet was cumbersome somewhat. Thus, I had to change the framing and place the drop on the right side to go along the direction of the text (I think this is what they call the concept of "nose room") as it is the case in Allah. Ironically, I do like the appearance and the glossy look of the drop in Trial but unfortunately, the position wasn't right. Changing the perspective later changed everything and no perfect positioning for the speedlite (with modifiers) I could think of.
I'll stop at this, and probably think of something else to do with such droplets, and I'm already doing some "brainstorming" to try and think of some ideas to use such droplets. Most of the time, I do get these crazy ideas, yet, no way for doing them...

Hexachromatic

As I've stated before, I'm still working on turning some images and panoramas into B&W and with tone splitting techniques. By coincidence, I've encountered a very useful website: ColorCodeHex.

ColorCodeHex Snapshot.

In this website, you get to learn a lot about colors. In fact, X-Rite which provides the calibration tools for monitors and such, provides a software along with the set to help on calibrating or viewing and studying colors (specifically under different lighting when required). However, this website is different in its wealth of information provided and easiness of use, despite the fact that you cannot check the cast on a color under specific light temperature (color temperature). With this website, I've decided to do some experiments with splitting tones beyond the regular "complimentary colors" combinations.

Golden Hide
B&W + Tone Splitting

One of the experiments done here is with this panorama from Staten Island (back from 2012), Golden Hide; for The Grotto. What really pronounces this image more is the sharpness (I think it sort of makes it like cut of wood). However, to split tones for this image, I've used some shade of green (picked from the trees in the original image) to be for the highlights. For shadows, I've decided to use ColorCodeHex to know what options I have, and thus I picked one of the analogous colors provided after entering the main color's hex code. The term "analogous" means a color shade that is adjacent to the major color under inspection on the color wheel. My remarks? Well, it helps on making a major tint for the whole image as it is indeed a simple one tint but with the shadows tones under control, we can have more options in lighting and darkening the shadows - this can't be done in general tinting processes. The tint just paints the whole image. I can say that using an analogous color is a delicacy. However, the analogous color is not necessary of the same shade of the major color; it can be a color of the same color temperature but not really of the same shade. That needs more experimenting.

The Temple
B&W + Tone Splitting

Then I got to try the other concepts provided by ColorCodeHex, like the concept of Monochromatic Colors. Monochromatic colors are supposedly colors that share the same hue of the original color but are different in other values (saturation and luminance). In this panorama, also from Staten Island, The Temple, I've used one shade of yellow as the major color for highlights (picked from the lanterns hanging in the original image) and using the website I've got to know its Monochromatic colors set. From the set, I've picked the darkest to be the tone for the shadows. This way I could help on adding contrast even though I did use Curves later on to put on a little contrast too. Maybe the difference between the usage of the two classes of colors is not that obvious, but in practice it proves to be so, because Monochromatic colors class provides a wide range of colors but under the same shade (or hue), yet the class of Analogous colors provides adjacent colors similar in temperature mainly but not necessarily the shade, and hence it opens a gate for some creativity work and experimenting. My work with B&W and tone splitting is far from being over!

Geltanic UDHR

I had a chance to fix some aspect about the UDHR in Geltani and also record it. I just hope the plugins works correctly for listening here!



The sound might not be a high quality though. I really had some hard time saying some of these syllables, specially nasals. However, I think it's late now to adjust these values and I better get on moving and just train myself to say these hard combinations!
On the other hand things are going on slowly in the field of Geltani. One day I have to set up a proper document to be sent to Omniglot. Things will be handwritten though. I have to tighten the grip as well on some grammatical features and some words that still make discrepancies because of the basic wording in Arabic. I better begin writing down some rules about those!

Finale

Here I am, with my Irish visa granted and just waiting for September to arrive. I'm worried, I can't deny that. I'm even more worried because of all the events in this area.  I do ask myself sometimes, do not we deserve some peace of mind for just a month? One month of peace is all I'm asking for...
Ramadhan is coming next week and I have to say that I don't feel prepared yet despite all that fasting I did before. My time becomes always compressed in Ramadhan. I do wish if I'm just not here at this moment... somewhere far...
Now another week is coming, and another struggle to work on something and achieve something in my life. An endless process, accompanied with an endless eagerness...

Dull Times...

Another dull week, with few serious work on any front. Summer just began and I wish it's over already. It does sound sometimes as if all my problems start with summer. Anyway, work is minimum, and by work I mean my camera, not my "job". I don't have much respect for this place right now actually.
On the other hand, I'm slowly starting to figure the headache of the Irish visa (again). Things should be sorted out as soon as possible though, and first of all, I have to set a plan for the dates of traveling and such. Thank God the passport is valid till next year and I don't have to do anything about this. If they keep a record of visitors to the Republic, probably granting my visa would be a piece of cake... ah well.

Macro

It was a day in which I brought my camera to my workplace to take shots of the beautiful garbage containers that were left beside my workplace for months now. After taking these shots, I've decided to check out the garden on the side of the building, which was colorful and blooming just some months ago - when we had some "weather". Even though it's filled with dead blooms and plants now, it could be a good target for some abstract work as well.

لب (Core)
Canon EF 50mm + 30mm ET, f/7.1,
100^-1sec, ISO640.

Because this was not planned initially, I didn't bring a tripod with me, and I guess this is obvious if you check the ISO in the specs of لب (Core). After many disastrous trials, accompanied for handshake AND slight breeze, I decided to go even beyond ISO400. The sun was fine but in such a macro level (with the hep of extension tubes of course) and such a shake, a compromise had to be made. And truth be told, I'm not sure how it became f/7.1 either! It was supposed to be fixed on f/8; seems I've nudged the dial without noticing!
I'm quite satisfied with the details in لب (Core) despite the out of focus regions which might somehow plague the scene a bit. The geometry of the details inside the dead core is to my eyes satisfaction, and the overall resolution is quite good even after cropping, so that even the fine hair on the side were pleasantly sharp at 100% view. Let's call it, a "strike of luck"! Cropping though did take some time to be decided, and yet I'm still not satisfied about it. Probably the law of thirds inside the square was due and the heart of the core should have been placed in one of the "power points".

تلك (That One)
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm ET, f/3.5,
320^-1sec, ISO400.

Seeing how long are the stems carrying these dead blooms, I changed the extension tube from 30mm to 12mm. The next shot I was planning needed some perception of depth, as I was planning to shoot the stem from above. The problem here though, I must use extension tubes to allow for close distance focus (50mm's closest focusing distance is about 45cm, or about 0.18 in.). However, I think that تلك (That One) needed more than just close focusing distance. It needs more angle of view to show some curvature in a clear way (and I'm not going to use the old 18-55mm here). The situation literally left me puzzled. However, with some sharpness to a distance object (thanks to AF!), probably the depth is depicted somehow. What was left was simply squaring and adjusting to the law of thirds.

البركان الناعم (Soft Volcano)
Canon EF 50mm + 30mm ET, f/6.3,
100^-1sec, ISO400.

Back to the 30mm extension tube. This time, my eyes captured a small "volcano" formation inside a dead core, just like the first shot above in fact, but this time, the point was protruding more. In البركان الناعم (Soft Volcano) the aperture was set mainly by "sense" and not by using any rules of thumb that are usually taken in macro photography. It is almost a rule that in macro shots, the aperture should not be any less than f/8. Anyway, as I was trying to make a compromise between the shutter speed and the ISO with the aperture (I was using Av mode, without tripod, without flash), f/6.3 seemed reasonable. The final result is a perplexing combination of out- and in-focus areas which makes it hard to specify exactly where is the plane of focus, as it has rendered the shot somewhat in 3D; to my eyes at least. There were several shots in fact, because I was using the burst mode (which I like to use in times of shake!), but this one seemed the finest. The protruding point from the core was not sharp enough though, unfortunately. Again, it was squared and fitted into one of the "power points" according to the law of thirds.

I'm not sure why I did name these shots specifically in Arabic in the first place, but to some sense, it did sound more "plausible". The squaring of all of these shots sounded "natural" to me since there are lot of unwanted details and the area of interest is pretty small compared to the whole frame; a whole rectangle wouldn't look "elegant" so to say, besides, it would have added more space than planned to the shot. It is also a better choice, as it seems, to rounded objects like these dead cores!

Kill It!

With minimum photographic activity, I'm still going on with Black and White exploration with old photos. Nothing special for this week in fact, except for an interesting encounter with an old panorama taken from the Arab Organization Headquarter (February, 2013), namely the Tiempos Andaluzas.

Tiempos Andaluzas

In this panorama, as you can see, there were lot of reflections because of the polished floor and, naturally, the glass facades everywhere. To me it was one major point in the weakness of the whole panorama; if these reflections were combined with symmetry, the situation might have been different at least. However, when converting to B&W (and adding a red tint), some of these reflections were simply "killed;" in the sense of being camouflaged with the surroundings. This helped a bit here and puts forward a new venture of thought and considerations when processing panoramas. B&W render could be a savior at some point beside being a touch of art!

Comparison between the colored and the B&W versions.
Notice the black arrows on the colored version.
Click to Enlarge

As you can see, not all reflections could be eliminated, naturally, but this was a good start. Moreover, the veins of the marble floor were emphasized further because of the tint. The original tint was pretty red. However, with going on with processing, the general tone changed to (dark) sepia somewhat, but I don't think it's that bad after all. I think some tint does help on pronouncing some details in white areas more than white does at times.

Finale

Well, I was supposed to talk a little about some work with Geltani conlang, and supposedly do a recording, but I'm canceling this for now as I had some technical problems concerning recording these events. I've done a primary check up for translating the UDHR and I have to say, it does sound a jaw twisting venture; not only a tongue twister! However, I'd rather train myself on producing these sounds rather than changing the value assigned. The main work though remains on putting key rules (to myself) for producing the glyphs for words, as well as adding some touches to the grammar and words manipulation. This is important because the conlang is largely based on Arabic, and Arabic script is an abjadic script, which means we might have more than one word with the same letters, but different in vowels. Vowels (short ones that is) are not recorded in Geltani.
I've been doing my homework, and sent some email asking for help with the Arabic phonology which I'm trying to understand. However, no reply as of yet. Seems I'm not good at getting responses anyway! This matter, which I reckoned to be a simple task, swept through a learning curve of phonetics and anatomy of the mouth just to understand how I speak!

After successfully sending and printing two of my photos, I've decided to add them to printing gallery on my website; which is something I didn't update in a while! The two photos are almost of the same size (around A2 with the margin) and would cost around 35K.D. here. Still thinking of easy ways to send these prints for benefit outside but having a strong currency and the lack of means to transfer money easily, makes this project a failure for the time being. PayPal wouldn't let me receive money with my current location and credit card.

Print Screen of two pages from my website after update.

My life is getting busier now and I had to stop fasting for the time being, in hope that it would empower me to do the hanging tasks on my schedule. It's not a language or a camera matter only, but a complete sweep through my life and the capability to organize it. Just to think of all the preparations I have to do just before traveling gives me a shiver in the spine really, but remembering that it is something that I must do, makes me calm down a little. I'm starting to get careless and careless about everything around me, day by day...