Grease and Sketch...

Here I am again, idle without doing anything with my camera in this week. It is annoying indeed but I've been somehow busy with... being idle.
I have some idea for a panorama as I said for long time now (even before I go to Hajj) but the main problem here is that the idea needs lot of physical effort. I'm not sure how to do so with the minimum amount of disturbance (disturbance of scene = stitching errors).
I'm trying also in the mean time to make up my mind for another purchase. More books and more tools if possible, but of course I have to take it down slowly with some planning in the budget, and I'm concerned as well for the stupid political situation in this country and what some stupid senators stir by the name of doing good, and in fact it's all just a s**t. Probably such situation would affect the orders I'd make and how things work out in the customs. I heard customs employee are striking as well. The world is going crazy from my side.

Not really stopped everything but since this week I have been on a training course (of some sort) away from my real work (but I've started my work already, supposedly) - in that time and in between lectures or in breaks I would just hold the pen and let my fingers wander on the page. I've been reading a little from my new architecture book and I feel I want to sketch some structures, or just anything. I wish to be good one day, but I guess that is all related on how much effort I can put into it.
I've drawn something lately that I've been attached to somehow, in a strange way. A house made of a mushroom. I really don't know how I got this idea, but I just got it done before and after one of the lectures...

Gnome Home

More to come about the watermarks later on. The sketch was made by ink on a regular paper and of course I had to go on enhancing after scanning it in grayscale format (the B&W scan was so bad). I might call it a conceptual sketch, where usually artist make it out as a basic for a more complicated and finer art piece, but this is too early for me to indulge in. I had a crazy idea myself of amalgamating a mushroom house like this with a Gothic style structure! I don't think this is ready for me yet as I'm not sure how this is done. You need a strong imagination to imagine the minute details in such structures and a fine motor movement of the hands to get around the curves and lines. However, I'm sort of proud of this. It is a sketch made thoughtfully and not as usual with a wandering mind.
Also, before this sketch actually, there were two others that I did before this one but I don't think they were that much of a good sketch.

A Tower, supposedly...

Skeletal Hand, with feathers.

Now, back to the watermark topic. I've decided to get back to the old habit of stamping my watermark on my (small) images that I show to people and put here. I've realized that some people are in fact taking some of my pictures and use it as a wallpaper or something of that sort. Some of them are friends actually and I kept silent about it from the perspective of friendship, but I also need to restrict this borrowing and make myself known; however bad the picture might be. So, from now on, expect to see more watermarks on the upcoming images in the future. I know it is annoying, but I need to protect my stuff one way or another.

As for now, I'm typing this on Wednesday just to post it on Thursday, and I don't know when it will be posted at this moment. But I'm praying for more action with my camera. The weather is chilling down and it is just awesome. Winter is the most beautiful season for photography in Kuwait; if only you have the ideas to apply...
Just one instant when I was lucky, I took this shot from the roof and it was only one shot. That one only and I got down from the roof, mainly because I felt some drops of rain (and I think it rained that night).

Saga
15mm FE f/2.8 @f/20

In this particular shot, I've increased the f-number just to produce enough sparkle in the light lamps there, and although I did take 3 successive shots for HDR merging, but I think it wasn't necessary to do HDR here, and the hue and shades of colors were enough to give a mystic look like that. Now, it's time to post this and check for things to do... or maybe have a nap...

Alexander 6, V109.

Well, it's a Monday, but I don't know how it will pass still. It sounds idle even though I spent the time working in the lab and reading the books I have here. Hope it remains "idle" till I get back home.
At home on the other hand, my camera had been idle since I've been working still with images taken from Ireland last year. Trying everything from Black and White and Sepia to the low saturation techniques, and trying to avoid HDR as much as possible. Yet still, I do use HDR in some images that I didn't add before.

The Ash Forks

Supposedly, these are ash trees going up higher than the rest of the trees. The original image was in pale blue hue in fact and I worked it out in that way after tone-mapping from HDR. As you can see here, there are some halos around the trees that I couldn't remove and I didn't want to use the heal brush tool or else, everything would be a mess. Tone-mapping (in Photomatix) is a fascinating tool, but there are things you would really need to control, and it is hard to so. Exposure Fusion technique on the other hand is nice and simple and avoids such halos, but sometimes it is hard to give out such vivid colors and control over light conditions. The image above was cropped to centralize the trees.

Another image, which I'm so pleased about, is what I consider my first silhuoette, or should I say, faux silhuoette.

The Crows Tree

This scene was taken in the very early hours of the morning, after listening to some crows in the air and looking left and right trying to spot them, I've found some of them hanging around this tree which was out of the backyard of the house where I stayed, The Waterfront. The sky was cloudy and bluish but not exactly in that manner. The heavy processing was mainly in the RAW converter before the image is out into Photoshop for the rest of the operations. The image was also cropped to centralize the tree. The hardest part maybe was to neutralize the green color in the leaves of the tree. I had to adjust the hue, luminance and saturation for the greens in the RAW converter to make it less apparent, and then with some contrast in Photoshop the effect was strengethened. What really bothers me is the "noisy" bulk of branches at the bottom which I couldn't crop with the rest. The image size won't help if I have done so.

Been somehow busy after all these editions. Uploading and today I was writing down the information for these images in stock sites. There had been other pictures other than the two mentioned above. The silhouette image though reminded me of one of my doodles that I used to do out of boredom. I think I need to get back to these doodles as they help out to release some stress I believe. I've been so concerned of my habits at work. Always shaking my leg even though I'm not in a hurry or even stressed about something! What does that mean? Why I'm doing this? I tried even to mke myself busy with something else just to stop this leg shake, but no use.

Bird from Hell. One of my doodles.

My hand is getting better now and my thumb is movable in some directions, but not completely of course. I keep on taking this medicine that makes me drowsy and need to sleep most of the time. In fact I feel it now at this moment while writing this. I will keep putting creams and taking this pill even after removing the bandage by now, until I don't know when!
I had/have the urge to listen to some of the old music today, and it made me feel a bit old, doesn't it do the same with you? Well, it does to me, specially that some of these songs were there back when I was 17 years old, and now I'm almost hitting 30...



__________

2593. the Cadid then climbed up the mount with a heavy body
2594. his body was injured severely by the claws of the creature
2595. but with hard moves the Cadid reached the top of the mount
2596. and he lied on the ground moaning and groaning with pain
2597. Alexander then started to try to cure his injuries
2598. he cut some pieces of his garments and tied the injuries
2599. then he got out a vessel and made the Cadid drink water
2600. it was dark and Alexander could hardly see around him
2601. except of some cave with yellowish flame out of it
2602. Alexander approached the cave trying to seek help
2603. after some steps forward he heard something at his back
2604. he looked back to see an old man with a long beard
2605. he was standing over the Cadid and covering his head
2606. his face was not obvious by the hood but only his beard
2607. he stood beside the head of the Cadid and stared at him
2608. then knelt down on his body while Alexander was watching
2609. the old man then started to pass his hands over the Cadid
2610. and the cuts into the Cadid's body started to weld completely
2611. Alexander with a slow and calm voice did say then
2612. "the Hermit?" he said
2613. the old man said: yes, O good man, and who are you?
2614. no man visited me in this deserted place for centuries
2615. Alexander replied: I am Alexander, the king of Caqobia
2616. and the man remained still staring closely at Alexander