Survival…

Well, here I am again, trying to force myself to post after some long time of hiatus. I've been seriously considering posting one last farewell post on this blog, because it did seem that I can't keep up with everything that had been going on in my life. Everything seems to have been under the major theme of stagnation. Winter is here already, and yet, I couldn't even force myself to do the things that I usually like to do in winter here; take a walk around with my camera and try to find some hidden obscure treasures around me, since I can't drive elsewhere, nor did I travel in some long time, and probably for some long time to come as well. Yet, nothing happened. My life had been going through daily routines and pouts of fatigue. I consider myself lucky to be typing this right now actually. I'm hoping that I will finish it in time though.
This post, anyway, is not ought to be long, but merely going through the few things that I've done in the past months since September or August even. I've ordered some new gear for my arsenal in hope that they'd incite me to do some work with the camera, but unfortunately, I've failed miserably (and I can't help but to think am I the only one to blame here).

Закрытые Двери
(closed doors)

During this hiatus (which is still going on), my phone was probably my best friends when there were moments worth of shooting. My mind could not (and cannot at the moment) participate in preplanned projects of photography, and since this phone is with me wherever I go right now (a situation that I consider new since it wasn't a habit of mine before), this phone had been my friend whenever something occurs to me that is worth shooting (like Closed Doors). Whenever the case is worth it, I can shoot in RAW in my old Huawei and then I'd complete the process on PC. Editing RAW files from the phone can be tricky though since the color system or space in use in such RAW files are not like the typical RAW files I work with from my Canon, but still, the results can be interesting during the process.

Confused VI

As I've mentioned already, I've got some few toys back in July in hope that they would incite me to do something creative with my camera and gear. Despite the "ambition," I didn't do much except for shooting my eye and making a series of shots which I've called Confused; reflecting on my mental status at that time (and now). All the shots were similar in essence, and all done using the new prism filter (from Neewer). They just differ in processing and maybe in crop and magnification a bit. Nothing creative here.

آمالٌ مُضْطَّرِبَةٌ
(turbulent hopes)

The creativity, ironically, came about shortly away from the new set of toys, with some ideas that sparked in me after reflecting on my life and my current stagnation (which is still going on). In this project, I've tried to use one of my new filters (the star flare filters set), but it wasn't quite effective, because of the usage of speedlites in this project. Nevertheless, I kept on working on it with many delays and procrastination. Initially, the idea was to shoot everything in one go, but since I've been working alone (as usual), this proved to be impractical, and I had to make snippets from each part and put them together in post-processing. So far and since that shooting (which took place back around the end of September), I've created 4 images from the load of shots I've taken in this project, three of which are from a series which I've called Turbulent Hopes. There are other images that worth inspection still, but yet I didn't manage to force myself to look at them and process them. It seems that once I've finished from the project (or so I think), I've just grown bored with it already. In fact, the setting is still up in the hall across my room in hope that I can do something else (I had some plans at the back of my head), but till then, I can't promise myself even to do anything about it. 

The setting for shooting Turbulent Hopes.

(Un)Social Media

The so-called "social media" had been off the grid with me lately as well. As the stagnation keeps lingering, I've also started to withdraw from these platforms, and I've stated that already in previous posts. Things, though, got somewhat ridiculous at some point with Instagram and Facebook, with bans and restrictions on my account being on and off. Even though the restrictions had been lifted for some time, these events really made me tired of such stupidity. Moreover, there is not much to be gained through these platforms (and I don't mean financial gain as much as popularity and propagating my work through them at least). If I was lucky, like super-lucky, I might gain 20 likes in a single post on sometimes (compared to an average of 30 to 40 likes on a single post some years back).
All this non-sense made me withdraw even further, and I've seriously considered deleting my Instagram completely, if not for the advice of some online friends who urged me to keep it. Yet, I'm not keen on posting regularly there; a single post would suffice for any week, if any. I would be lucky to get 10 likes in a month time on any post there right now. Things are even worse when it comes to Facebook, which treat me as a non-existent entity, and the people that I know there are probably busy with their own lives to notice what I post there even (and thanks to the algorithm that doesn't deem what I post important apparently anyway).
I've identified another platform, called Pixelfed, which operates in some weird way, but it is far better in terms of chronological order and the absence of ads. Yet, it is not widely known, so not much activity is expected there. It has a nice feature (like a remnant from Flickr), where a user can organize the images into collections or folders, like albums. My activity there is still minimum, and I don't post daily, as the interaction there is also minimal because it's not popular much (and it has some weird system, to me); Yet, I do think it is far better than Instagram. Maybe it just needs some time to be a competitor. One issue, though, with Pixelfed is that the Adobe1998 color space is not identified on this platform, and images uploaded would be switched to or forced into be displayed in sRGB space, which results in dull colors or less saturated colors for some images. I've sent a feedback about this issue, but I'm not sure if there is anything to be done about it.

 

The Stocks

It is strange how much can happen in just 3 months or even less. One of these things is the closure of Canstockphoto; a photo stock website which I've been uploading to since 2007. In fact, my first ever stock website to deal with and to upload my photos to. I've always kept a signature here on this blog for a direct link to my portfolio there, but now I have to remove it.
On the other hand, I still have 2 operating stock websites: Dreamstime and 123RF. I've decided previously to stop uploading to Dreamstime for some issues that I deem "ethical" to me. Meanwhile, with the advances in AI, 123RF decided to allow for AI art uploads, which I think is such a critical decision, because people would be most likely be generating their own art (specially those looking for models in the images). All that makes it easier to obtain art for various purposes, so it seems the role of photography here is diminishing in this field as well. For this reason, it seems that I'm about taking the decision to stop uploading to 123RF as well and just keep whatever is left there; if it is useful in any way.
With all these changes, I think I'm left solely with doing photography for art, whenever I can that is. It's been a while since I've held the camera and shot something (excluding the quick snippets with my phone). Unless some surprise happens, then I guess I'll be doing art for myself alone and maybe share a little of it on Instagram, just out of the desire to tell myself that I still exist in this world still.

 

Finale

秋天的舞孃
(Autumn's dancing lady)

I have my hopes now that this blog post would break the stagnation that I've been going through for months, even before my last post back in September. Loneliness, self-flogging, increased isolation by choice or forced; many things had been pushing me on the verge of mental collapse of some sort. Would I be able to travel any time soon, despite all the circumstances I'm going through and the eye condition that hindered me cuffed to this house? I just have my hopes there.
My sleeping pattern had been disturbed to some paramount measures. I would literally sleep 6 or 7 hours (which was a luxury for me during my working days) and yet wake up for 2 or 3 hours and go back to bed for another 4 or 5 hours of sleep, just like that. I guess this is what they call "escapism" maybe. Food had been also one of the issues that keep my mind occupied, ironically, from day to day, as one of the issues that make me separate from the rest in this house is my eating habits that don't align with the rest, as well as the frequent loss of appetite. I've been passing some days without having a decent meal, literally, but passing the day with coffee and chocolate (and cake, if such option was available).
One is ought to say that facing opposition in life is such a normal thing, yet I would say there are limits to everything, and any human being would get tired of everything, and tired of licking their own wounds in hopes that tomorrow would be better. I know there are things that I need to change, and yet, I don't know how to change, or what to change in the first place. Did I pick this sort of life all by myself and the only one to blame? Was it forced for some reason beyond my humble understanding for life? I just don't know… Whatever it is, I just hope it all ends any time now. The least I wish for right now is to enjoy this winter, as I used to every year.

 

Retinol III-IV

Busy busy busy. So busy that I can't even play games! Can you believe that? However, to be honest, the major portion of my time is consumed by bad sleeping patterns. All in all, I'm trying to cope with the daily tasks here as well as trying as much as possible to work with my camera and a little bit with a new venture: Adding educational posts to Pinterest. This is a new thing and probably I won't be doing it often, as other things in my life do already have their own priorities. But I'll try to do it whenever I get a new idea or whenever a friend (who is learning Arabic) might suggest.

Announcement

As promised and as with my previous posts, I'd like here to start with a little announcement for a new batch of uploads to the stocks. This time they are scattered across the usual stocks where I upload.

The new batch

First of all, one of these images (won't say!) was canceled from the upload because of some brand name and it would be such a time-consuming process to remove that mark (stock websites usually don't accept such images). Anyway, photos with faces are typically uploaded to Mostphotos, with the exception of only one which is accepted in Canstockphoto as well. The rest are uploaded across Dreamstime, 123RF, as well as to Canstockphoto. However, 123RF, again, did refuse all 5 uploaded images (most of them were denied for being out of focus!). I'm pretty sure they would not be accepted by other stock websites if they were indeed out of focus - there is something fishy or misunderstood going on.

With this new batch, I'm trying to find time to re-process some of my old panoramas, specially the old ones from 2011 and 2012 and prepare them to upload them to my Mostphotos along with the rest of the large-size panoramas there (with a width of 10K pixels). Issues keep arising here though, specially with the new lock-down and health, but I'm trying my best (with coffee!) to organize my time and priorities (and yes, I'm failing so far).

Retinol III

Then, we arrive at my third image for Retinitis Pigmentosa (this year) - which was actually done in the same day as the previous one in the previous post. It was a quickie idea that occurred to me and thought of working it out right away after finishing Sensing which I talked about in the previous post.

The Seeing Hand

The principle thing was to be simple actually; Just using the sun to shoot something and the rest is to be fixed later in Photoshop, and with the help of a fisheye lens (my favorite Rokinon 8mm), the dramatic impact can be achieved (in terms of sizes and emphasis).
The idea of the shot is about the usage of hands to navigate through our spaces as people with Retinitis Pigmentosa and how we are greatly affected with the change (continuous change or period changes) in the environment around us on us; This is specifically about changing furniture at home frequently. Something that I've often suffered from, and still.
People with Retinitis Pigmentosa, like me, are typically using their body parts and memory to navigate through places and when at home, it is mostly memory that gets activated because things are "supposed" to be in their own fixed places.
Now as for the technical part, the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens does not have provide such a shallow depth of field, thus it was one of the first things to be done (after the general color editing in RAW first). It was important, though, not to exaggerate the synthetic lens bur here. Next, it was time to fix the eye on the palm, and for this, I've picked an old image from my arsenal (of my own eye). It was a struggle though to let it be as natural as possible as if it was drawn indeed on my palm. Till this very moment I'm not yet convinced that I did the job correctly.
Anyway, the shot was liked by some people specially those with Retinitis Pigmentosa and could relate to this particular problem. Thus, if you are reading this and you do know, or live with, someone who has such disease or any type of visual impairments, just mind the change in the environment around them. It can be just frustrating; Big time.

Kika III - Retinol IV

Yes, you read that right. I'm posting 2 shots from the Retinitis Pigmentosa project for this year into one post, here. The whole thing was actually a coincidence.
As I was planning a shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa in my head (for days), Kika gave out the theme for her 3^rd week challenge: Framing; And this is exactly the "structure" that I had in my mind for my shot about Retinitis Pigmentosa!

RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game

The idea behind RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game is, again, the furniture and the obstacles that we face INSIDE the house. I was actually thinking of more like an "earthly" composition; Things set to the ground. However, after watching Kika's video for the weekly theme, framing, my mind started to (automatically) combining the two ideas and I came up with this framing, with furniture (or something similar that is) - of course with the blind cane as well to deliver the idea. Now the shoot was a bit of an adventure and unfortunately, I didn't take any shots to document the setting.

Air Remote, for wireless tethering.

The idea needed a top-view, and I guess nowhere is better to do such an idea except for the balcony (and we are lucky to have one). The problem here is, though, I am shooting myself with no help from anyone. So, it was a call for the Air Remote tethering tool, which I didn't use a lot since I got it years back simply because it does lack some features and it's quite cumbersome despite the (supposed) ease of use and the relief that it should be providing. This time, it was no exception, because it did disappoint me further. I will talk about that shortly.

Lateral arm from Photek

To shoot the ground from the balcony, it was natural to use the lateral arm to carry the camera and extend it out of the balcony looking downward. Luckily, I had those weight bags which I've ordered 3 years ago or so and never used them till this moment! Nevertheless, the situation was shaky and I had my heart up my throat. I'm blessed to have an elevator (lift) near me in the balcony to go up and down; Otherwise, I wouldn't even think about shooting this. 

The lens of choice here was my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 because, well, the field of view and the autofocus system. After shooting this though, I realized that I might have done better using Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5, to have a wider field of view and then crop it to a suitable size and boundary, and probably the manual focus of this lens won't be a big problem. After all, I was shooting at f/11, and with wider lenses, the depth of field is forgiving anyway. The main drawback in the whole process, though, was with the tethering.
Actually, day by day, I'm starting to realize that the usefulness of such device is quite limited more than I anticipated in the first place. Here for example and in this situation, I was aiming to capture bracketed images sequence in order to create HDR and be able to achieve the dramatic look by controlling the light in the image at "baking the HDR" level (i.e. tone-mapping). It turned out that because of the timer (10sec) which I've set initially to be able to do my pose, each bracketed image would be taken with a 10sec timer! Of course, holding my pose for 30 seconds is next to impossible, so, I had to go back and just take single images. I'm glad that I could somewhat achieve what I've envisioned using just a single RAW image though. I would have done it properly with an Intervalometer with proper time-delay settings to give me some time to go down to location via the elevator, and that way I would be doing bracketing quite easily, but I still need to check myself on location to pose properly. Maybe next time I will try to combine using both tools, if it was possible (honestly, never tried).
The irony is that every now and then when I decide to use the Air Remote Tethering I do get first a message for updating the firmware and I really don't know how that is done but what I really wonder about is what the update is really about? I don't see any features being enhanced at all; Specially the annoying rotating display which cannot be displayed correctly for shooting in portrait orientation. That's another story for another time and yet, there is another misfortune that I will talk about (hopefully) in my next post when I was about to take the 5^th shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa project.

Finale

Here we are, close to summer again. And yes, I'm not so excited about it. We've gone into partial lock-down here for one month period (ending at April 8^th). Everything will be re-evaluated afterward, and who knows, the lock-down might be extended.
People here are complaining about everything, about all measures and don't get me started with conspiracy theories. Each individual in this great nation is an Aristotle on its own. I just hope my mood swings won't attack me severely in the meantime as it did one year ago, last summer, when we had partial lock-down as well. Not to say it's all gone but I'm coping better. I think the routine of fasting lately beside reading the holy book added greatly to the comfort. I've stopped fasting just recently and strangely I can't stay up late now like I used to do when I was fasting; I'm getting tired easily. Probably because of the digestive operations taking place. Who knows…
Things are a bit awry on the work front, but that's a story for another time I guess. I'm trying to keep my peace of mind as much as possible by trying hard to neglect and forget about these problems. I foresee increasing responsibilities upon my shoulders, and I'm not sure how am I going to cope with these, nor whether I should trust my experience or not (apparently it's not a match, scientifically speaking). From one lock-down to another, things are just spanning and expanding and all there is to hope for form my side is…to stay away as much as possible, until some "right time" comes for a proper resignation.

 

Precautious Selfie (2020)

Meanwhile, as I'm posting these images about this year's Retinitis Pigmentosa project as well as about Kika's photo challenge, I'm still active with my camera but I don't want to post or talk about these images until I finish the Retinitis Pigmentosa series at least. I'm also anticipating working again with my speedlites, with both high speed and stroboscopic, but I'm still puzzled for what I'm going to do. Trying to seek hints from Kika herself, as well as from the work of other photographers I find (mainly on YouPic and YouTube). I'm posting these photos, of course, on my YouPic, but not yet on Instagram. You can check out the link if you like to take a peek on my YouPic profile. But I have to say that many of these images are actually old images re-made or some ignored test shots from the past that have been worked out, specifically to be posted on YouPic. My chores list, surprisingly, is building up and I'm trying to do one thing at a time (including the typing of this blog post actually). There is a lot waiting for me that I've been even postponing playing some games! No time to rest and my body is failing me as usual… also, it is time to think of a new post for my Arabic blog. I think I do need another vacation from blogging at some point, soon…

Retinol…

Busy busy busy! Been a while since I've posted here, and (hopefully) for a good reason. After putting on my last post some 2 or 3 weeks ago, which was a little advertising to my own work on Mostphotos, I've decided to go on and also do an Arabic post in my Arabic blog for the same purpose, and I've spent the past few weeks sharing and spreading the word. Fingers crossed!

That, however, is not all the matter. It is February already, and I guess I've mentioned already in some of my previous posts that I'll be getting ready to prepare some shots related to Retinitis Pigmentosa in this month, since it is the awareness month for this disease and I got into the habit of making related photos since 2016. What happened, though, is that I got into another weekly activity which somewhat ignited my imagination a bit and I really loved to participate, and that is #Kikasphotochallenge.

The #Kikasphotochallenge is a weekly photo challenge (to span over 12 weeks), with a theme proposed for every week. The theme is announced every Thursday on Kotuvakika's YouTube's channel. At the moment of typing these words, it is already week #3. At the time of posting it (Thursday), then we will be already into week #4, supposedly.

I've been trying on both ends, shooting for Retinitis Pigmentosa, and for #Kikasphotochallenge, and for that matter I've already participated in all 3 weeks with images (posted on Instagram of course). However, to keep things short and not to put all my eggs in one basket, I'll go slow and gradual by posting and talking about one image from each side of the stick; The RP project, and Kika's challenge!

Retina I

So, for starters, I'll talk first about the first image I've created for or about Retinitis Pigmentosa. First of all, I actually had to sit and pin down some ideas and also roam Pinterest a bit to gain some insights. One particular thing I've noticed about myself in this process is that I tend to gain more insight from quotes and text rather than from images.
I've pinned some ideas in my note and as I'm typing this right now, I have to say that I did filter some; I've canceled some or reformed some and changed the idea of some. Anyway, that's another story for another day. One of the posts that grabbed my attention on Pinterest is stating some facts about the glasses that we, people with Retinitis Pigmentosa wear and how or what they do (the fact is: Nothing. Glasses don't fix RP). And that was the topic of my first shot.

Visual Un-Aid

I have a confession to make here though. I was/am lazy to get my speedlite gear our (and still). Thus, I had to twist my brain around and try to find some interesting light to shoot in (and that mostly means that I would be shooting during daytime). So, my first shot here (or two shots as I'll explain) was done in, ahem, the bathroom. My bathroom's window casts interesting light in the morning and I admit, sometimes I just go there and switch of the lights just to gaze into that light (without taking any photos though). 

Anyway, as I've stated above, Visual Un-Aid is actually a composition of two shots (apparently). Using 50mm, I've tried my best not to move and to focus properly (using a cable remote of course) and shooting 2 frames, one with glasses and one without. There was a little shake between the two frames of course (tyyyypical) but Photoshop did some good job in aligning them. The rest is, of course, some game of masking to merge two and show the glasses on one side of the face. I won't go into the details of RAW editing; I really don't find any use in that. The trick, though, was to keep the shadows down but not without details still. The moral of the shot is that: With or without glasses, It's almost the same; It's dark. 

Kika I

Well, I've mentioned Kika and her challenges up above so I guess no need to list the whole thing all over again, but let's delve into the first challenge that Kika proposed for the first week: Childhood.
Again, my laziness here really got the best of me (concerning working with my speedlites), but also I really was not quite sure how to represent my childhood. Honestly, I was not that social and at this age I wouldn't be able to mimic the things I used to do with my siblings (like jumping off a cabinet and hitting my head against the chandelier, for example). Thus, I consider my trial quite mediocre, to say the least. 

Childhood Memories

Quercetti's Pallino
My most precious pastime
game during my childhood.

I looked and dug into my memorabilia (which other people in this house consider just pieces of junk) and I really wanted to use one specific toy for the shoot but I didn't find it (apparently lost to time), but I've found my Kinder Surprise toys box. Collected those around the ages of 9 to 10 (just a while before the invasion in 1990). I picked random toys here and I have to say, nothing was quite to my liking in terms of the composition.
For shooting, I've decided (naturally) to choose the sunlight for the task. I've shot bracketed and I did make a comparison between processing HDR and editing a single RAW file. Eventually, I've picked the HDR version but the two images were quite similar. However, HDR has more luster in the eyes and on the hair even though I almost wanted to discard it because of the luster on the skin which I didn't quite like. The perspective is weird a bit, I know. This is because I was actually lying on the ground in quite uncomfortable pose. Adding to my hurdles, the changing angle of the sun as it was rising made the sun beams change direction and strength as they were seeping through the balcony door. I had to work as fast as possible before it would have been blocked by the houses. Converting that image to B&W, though, did produce a remarkable "horrifying" image… which I liked.

Childhood Memories (B&W)

The B&W version though was not posted on Instagram; Only the colored version. Converting to B&W was also somewhat a lengthy process of blending and controlling highlights and shadows as much as possible and in various ways.
At this level I really wanted to stop and not think about doing any further work with this theme, as I was also working with my Retinitis Pigmentosa project. Other themes, though, were somewhat flexible with my creative juices, but that I will keep for other posts in the future.

Finale

In a time when I really thought I should just leave the thing called "Instagram" for a 3^rd time, suddenly things changed with Kika's challenge. Now, I don't know what will be happening after these 12-week challenge are over, but I kind of got into a small community within Instagram, away from the general… stupidity (sorry, couldn't find a better word) of Instagram; With all these posts that show on the exploring page having 1k+ likes and comments, I find myself digging into the lives of people that are closer to me in some way. They watch on YouTube what I watch, interested in what I think is interesting, and on the other hand we have people who suffer like I suffer with Retinitis Pigmentosa and share their exprience. My posts also, specially those about Retinitis Pigmentosa, do attract people and make them interact. To be honest, all I wanted is some Like after all. That was enough to show appreciation. This said, I don't know what or how would I be standing in relation to this platform (which I already despise greatly if not for few users). So it feels like a small bubble floating on the surface of a rampant sea, or rather a murky swamp.

I know what you might think at this point if you are reading this already. "this man is just a snob", but I'm really not. Instagram stopped me from giving Likes twice or thrice some years back because of all the Likes I used to give (thinking I'm just a bot), but honestly, I didn't find anything in return (specially from "friends" in real life that I worked on supporting them) and eventually that lead me to believe that it is just a waste of time. Compared to YouPic's community, Instagram is next to nothing. Saying this while I'm still using my free account there and not being a paying member (which limits me to post every 12 hours).
Another venue to rant about is the fact that hashtags on Instagram are literally useless except for searching for a specific tag; They have no role in spreading your post over the platform or getting it into the Explore page or even to give it a specific order on anyone's feed (if they are followers). This I've found out by experimenting. Unlike YouPic, Instagram does not have a regular or a systematic way of archiving or display new posts that one can explore, regardless of the number of followers the user has or anything else. For this reason, on YouPic, any user has a potential to attract new followers and viewers with every new post regardless of their content/feed and regardless of the (useless) hashtags within the post, and regardless of them being new comers or not. All are equal. This leaves Instagram being just a platform dedicated to businesses of all sorts (and often times users rank up via other methods outside of Instagram itself), and don't get me started with all the Story, IGTV (and the square format). Meanwhile, YouPic is indeed dedicated to photography and photographers WITH the capability of turning it into a business.

Note: I'm not advertising for YouPic nor was paid to do any review. This is purely my own sincere and honest point of view and comparison between the two platforms.

I do have some issues with YouPic myself, like the thing with the nudity content and the blocking mechanism, but nonetheless, the community (generally speaking) is more lenient and into the art of photography. So, if you are reading this and into photography and still roaming Instagram, try finding a place on YouPic and see.

I've talked before in my previous posts about preparing another batch of images to upload to the stocks as well as new panoramas to be offered exclusively on MostPhotos. The work is still ongoing with that but I'm lagging a bit because of all the projects (RP and Kika's) and the challenges that I'm taking the opportunity of to squeeze more juice out of my head. This is beside, ahem, playing some games. I've made a list already of all the files that I will try to upload to the stocks and I will do this on batches (probably 10 images each) and hopefully I will post about them here once they are up.

On the other hand, I've received an email from Trierenberg Circuit (or as we typically call it here: Austria's International Photocontest) inviting me to participate. I didn't participate in 2019 and seems that year the contest was canceled because of COVID (every year the contest start on September and ends on March the next year). Anyway, been thinking about it and I think I will be uploading some of my selfies done with the stroboscopic flash and some of these new panoramas that I've uploaded into MostPhotos already (well, they are not new but processed in a new method so to say). 

Despite not being on the go with my work but things seems to add up and I find myself forced to face the monitor for long hours indeed. Not complaining though. Things are busy this month and I'm hoping that would be a comforting agent to my ever-lasting mood swings…

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…

Review: StereoPhoto Maker…

Well, I'm back, after a short vacation for myself. Ramadhan is over now and the total curfew or lock-down, but we are back to the partial lock-down. However, I might have given myself a little vacation from posting in this blog for a week or but I was still busy preparing a blog post about infrared photography (sort of a second part for an old post) for my Arabic blog.
Meanwhile, in this post, I decided not to talk about my photos but rather do a simple review for some amazing freeware (so far) which I've tried lately for making Anaglyphs and other options. I'm not paid to do this review or anything, but I will mention why I like it and what I think it needs further adjustments, but I still don't get many aspects about it yet. We'll come to that in few, but first I need to make an announcement here, though I'm not sure if anyone cares about it anyway:

As time progressed since my return to Instagram around November 2019, after stopping for one whole year, I've decided to stop it again and probably for good this time, as I realized that working with such platform is just a vain and useless (or maybe requires more of my time than what I'm willing to give). I did indeed disable my account (@tj_q8), however, I do have my other account which was dedicated to my conlang (@Ayvarith) and which logged me out suddenly and stopped me from going in. Sent many emails to Instagram to get back this secondary account but they didn't help much and I'm totally locked out. I tried to get it back by logging back to @tj_q8 and adding it from there but that was not useful. Anyway, I left a message there on my last post on @Ayvarith, using my first account @tj_q8, to note that I've been locked out and probably got hacked) and I have no plan to make a substitute account to post for the Ayvarith Conlang. Thus, I can't disable @tj_q8 now because if I do, the message I've posted there would be automatically deleted. Hence, even though the account is re-activated, I'm not going to use it or post in it, and I think this time for good (i.e. never again). One of the ironic thing about people in this platform is they are willing to check the "story" more than they do check and like the images in the basic account; Why? That's beyond me for now. And I don't want to understand it even. So, this is it for now.

StereoPhoto Maker

Again, before I proceed with this review, I want to announce that I'm not paid for this and I'm merely sharing my opinion here according to my own (simple) usage of this program/app, and out of love for this kind of art. I have to say that this program made making anaglyphs much easier for me for some reasons I will mention, but also there are some points that would make me in need to work further on images in Photoshop.

StereoPhoto Maker window and work space with two of my images open.
Click to enlarge.

First of all, the program is (so far) a freeware with a quite simple facade (as can be seen above) and can be downloaded here. Also, on the same context, there are related-programs that I really want to try at some point here and plenty of galleries that I want to inspect as well! In the About section, you can find the credit for the creators of this marvel: Masuji Suto and David Sykes, so all gratitude goes to their effort to create this wonderful program (or app). Personally, I've encountered the program by an announcement on Twitter and proceeded to try it out and see how it works. My aim was mainly to see how it works with anaglyphs, as I'm used to do anaglyphs manually in Photoshop. However, this little program (which requires no installation, it is a single executable file), proved to be higher in potential than what I would've expected.
I have to admit though there are some terms or names that I didn't understand but the overall usage is quite simple and straight forward. So, what I want to do here first is to go through some of these buttons and go about what they do as briefly as possible. Lot of these buttons do make anaglyph-making such an easy task compared to what I used to do manually in Photoshop.

Third Section

So, if you look at the big picture above you might notice how the buttons are divided into sections. The first and second sections are "self-explanatory"; Just hover the mouse over the button and you will get an explanation for what the button does and these first 2 sections are all about the usual operations (saving, cropping, etc). So, fast forward to the third section which you see its screenshot above. Here too, the buttons are quite straight forward, but I'm interested in the first (1) button, which swaps the left and right images. In Photoshop, I used to do that manually (changing the color channels to flip the right and left images and to test which one was better illusion of depth). All this process of flipping and testing the depth of the anaglyph is done with a click of a button here on StereoPhoto Maker!
The rest of the buttons in this section are about zooming in and out but button (5) here somehow perplexed me. The guide (when hovering the cursor over the button) says "Resampling ON/OFF," so it seems to be a button that controls the resolution a bit or the compression of the photo, so I'm not quite sure (I didn't read the help files or anything, I'm brutally attacking the program and experimenting here!).

Fourth section

Then we arrive at the fourth section where the bulk of the juice is located! This is the place where you want to play around and experiment, a LOT.

Interlaced Mode
Click to enlarge.

1. Here, this button puts the 2 images in "interlaced" mode. The look of the resulting image here is like ones prepared for usage with lenticular lenses! Which makes me wonder if this is really the purpose of this process here, and if not, would it help to be used in the process of making lenticular images?
2. This button would make the typical anaglyph for you, but it will convert the image to B&W or grayscale for better perception of depth (in fact it is recommended that anaglyphs be in grayscale to avoid color distractions). Here you can also see a little arrow for more options for the make of the anaglyph: red/cyan, red/green, and some more; But probably the newest option for me here is the Rainbow anaglyph! I've never seen such an anaglyph so I'm not sure if it just for artistic purposes or there is indeed a theory behind it, but nevertheless the red/cyan tints are given to the image with the general rainbow coloring.
3. This button is the conventional anaglyph making button; An anaglyph in colors. Again, you can click the arrow here to see more options for various ways to merge the anaglyph. There are some new names for me here, like Dubois, Suto (the creator?), and some more options. To my own observation it seems that these options control the degree of the red/cyan, because (in case you didn't know) anaglyph glasses vary in types and they are not of a single type of red/cyan. The Dubois option specifically gives that typical yellowish tint to the whole anaglyph which I typically see on anaglyphs on the internet and always wondered why it is like that! There are other coloring options like Yellow/Blue. Also, in this button you can control the anaglyph by choosing Ghost-Reduced anaglyph, where you can control the Levels and Saturation to reduce the ghosting in the image (ghosting is when your eye would be unable to merge the left and right images together for various technical problems). Finally, there is an option to optimize the anaglyph (make it better) either automatically or manually. All that in this simple button here!
4. This button is to spread the images on the left and right, as to be viewed as a stereogram (or stereograph?) and in fact once you open the left and right images in StereoPhoto Maker the images will be initially in this position.
5. Like No.4, but the images are placed vertically; Top and below.

   

   Sharp 3D LCD Mode
   Click to enlarge.

6. This button merges the image for Sharp 3D LCD display. In looks, this one here looks like the image in No.1 but instead of horizontal strips, vertical ones are used. Or so it seems to me. In fact, I do think that such option might enable people with the polarizing 3D glasses (those from IMAX) to be to view the image in 3D (without losing the color) just like in No.1.
7. This button displays the two images in Page-Flip for 3D shutter glasses. Personally, I didn't try such glasses before but I know they are "electronic" and depend on turning on and off images (according to Wikipedia). Anyway, I don't think this is of any concern to me (for the time being).

Fifth Section

Now, in the fifth section, we do have some simple, but beautiful, tools that made my job easier to some extent:

1. This button, called Easy Adjustments, is to adjust some aspects of the two images, left and right. Honestly, I didn't delve deep into this section yet, but a quick glance here shows a typical set of tools, like enhancing the shades of red and cyan for the two images, as well as rotating and fixing the perspective for any of the images composing the anaglyph.
2. This button is my favorite. It is the Auto Alignment where the program does mostly everything you need and so far so good for me; It just does it perfectly in a way that enhances the depth of the anaglyph. A quick comparison between this auto alignment and Photoshop's alignment shows a clear difference in algorithm; The two alignments do not match. Also, when doing the alignment, the alignment data are saved in a folder to be called later in case you need to use it later. 
3. This button is called the Alignment Mode, and actually it is just a manual alignment mode where the program allows you to pick a point from the left image and match it to a point on the right image and voila! The two images are aligned accordingly. However, only ONE point is picked. It reminds me of the manual control points in problematic panoramas when stitching them in PTGui.
4. This button is for adjusting the colors automatically, as simple as that.
5. In case you don't like the alignment work that you've done, just click this button to reset.

The rest 2 buttons are something, well, out of my usage and expertise. Anyway, as can be seen, the fifth section is specifically dedicated for aligning the two images.
Here also, I didn't go through the menus, which really are direct and right forward mostly. However, there are a number of commands and options in the File menu that I do need to experiment with. Some of these commands are dedicated to save the stereo-image (not an anaglyph) in a specific manner with a specific border. Anyway, my main interest here was anaglyphs, and to be more specific, the red/cyan anaglyphs. So, this is for the general options available, now I'm going to move to list the Pros, and Cons.

Pros and Cons

Well, as I've mentioned earlier, I do like this little program, but I can't isolate it from my workflow with Photoshop just yet. After all, Photoshop might be needed at least to do the sharpening if necessary, right? However, there is more to this. To organize things, I'll make a list here of Pros and Cons. First let's see the Pros:

• The program supports a variety of basic file formats: JPG, GIF, TIF, BMP, PNG, JP2, JPT. I've tried to work with TIF 16-bit format myself and it works.
• Obviously, the easiness of use and being direct. If you don't know what a term means, just try it!
• The alignment of the two images might (just might, not sure about this yet) fix the problem of perspective change when you have the object in one shot larger than in the other. This is something that Photoshop (ahem CS5 for me) still not doing quite well. In fact, I see in this parameter here the seed of fixing my problem with Anaglyph panoramas.
• Gives a wide range of choices to adjust the anaglyph in terms of colors (original colors of the image as well as the shades of the anaglyph).
• The ability to flip right and left images easily to test which version has a better depth.
• Simple, very light program. No installation required or anything. Simply, unzip, and run.

Now for what I think this program needs, or didn't quite work well for me. These are just my thought of course and I don't think they would fit other people needs of course:

• Support for RAW files in some way or at least DNG format beside the basic formats mentioned above. It's hard, I know, but maybe there would be some way around it?
• The support for color spaces in such a way that the final image can be "converted" to that specific place. So far, and because I often needed opening the file in Photoshop for further adjustments, the best way to work with anaglyphs saved in StereoPhoto Maker was to "assign" (not "convert") the color space down to sRGB which might be fine for an anaglyph for a grayscale image, but for a colored image it would pull down so much vibrancy. So, if you are like me, like to work in ProPhoto or Adobe1998 color spaces, there will be a big hassle to tone down the Red and Cyan tones to fit the tones of the 3D Glasses.
• The support of more than one matching (control) point for aligning the two images (in the fifth section mentioned above). I feel one point, sometimes, is not enough. Of course, the aim of having one matching point here is originally to focus the depth of the anaglyph around one specific feature in the image, but also multi-points would help with some stretching or resizing the two images if needed, I guess?
• Adding an option to "Replace" one image for another while making the anaglyph to test and compare maybe (or simply in case of an error by using the wrong couple of images, it would be easier to replace one and keep the other).

At this level I wouldn't go far as to imagine such a little program working with HDR or 32-bit images, but who knows! It might happen one day. So far, creating anaglyphs from HDR images requires me to tone-map the two images (usually via Photomatix) using the same settings for both images. Might be fine for images snapped quickly, but could be problematic for panoramic images.

Anaglyph panorama done by StereoPhoto Maker (top) and manually by me (bottom). Personally, I do feel and see greater depth in the anaglyph created by StereoPhoto Maker. Check it out for yourself.
The tones in the two images are different for some long story, but both are tone-mapped from HDR panoramas.
Click to enlarge.

Finale

Well, this is the post for this week folks. I hope you find this review useful, even though I didn't explore the full potential of this little program yet, as there are a number of sub-menus and commands, specially those dedicated to fix and correct the anaglyph. However, this little review, as I believe, does not do any justice to the creators really. I'm already looking for any donations venue to support their work. In the pages I've mentioned above around the beginning of this review, there are a number other solutions for the anaglyph-making process and some of them are related to videos; Something I tried to do long ago but didn't succeed, so maybe these little solutions would help me further when I do get the time to work again on anaglyph-videos. Give it a try and give them some support if you will! Till next week…

YouPic: A Review…

Well, I can call this week to be a failure somewhat because I was not able to work with my camera, but I really have my excuses here; Eye appointment, fixes around the house, sleeping problems and lack of power and ideas (well, ideas are there but I'm procrastinating). And despite having 2 days of sick leave after my appointment, I didn't really invest much time into my camera. Hopefully I will do so soon and post whatever I can do here.
For this occasion and just not to keep this week without a blog post, I've decided to write a review, or more like a chain of thoughts about the website that I've recently "re-joined": YouPic. If you are reading this, bear in mind that this is just my thoughts and my observations and I'm not really aiming on pushing people into or away from the website, but it is simply my experience around it for the past 3 weeks or so since I've re-joined.

YouPic: A Review

I remember some years back when I joined YouPic, I've deleted my account after some weeks and I think the reason was, back then, that I didn't want myself to get involved so much into social media and waste time there instead of putting time and effort into my camera and real photography and away from "socializing." Now, however, I've re-joined because I've simply left Flickr and Instagram for good and this website did sound like a good substitution, for the time being. Anyway, now after some weeks of uploading photos there, I think I have to say that not everything I've encountered was positive. From my own perspective at least. To be fair, let me put that in a form of points to organize my thoughts, and classify them into Positives and Negatives.

Positives:

• Going around the website and reading the About section, the website is apparently established by a group of youth with great ambition (I think most of them are Swedes). Frankly, to deal with a website of that kind which is NOT based in the US like the bulk of the other "infamous" websites - that, for me, is a nice experiment that I'm willing to take away from the major stream.
• With paid membership (which I don't have still) one can establish a business through the website. I'm not sure yet how it works but seems there is a way to sell photos just like in stock websites, or maybe selling prints as well. Again, I didn't go through this experience because I don't have a paid membership, but the options are available and visible.
• The website has a system of "gaming" as I like to call it; Some sort of interactive awards (e.g. Award for traveling to 5 countries). I think it is dedicated who do like to achieve through challenges, and it is sort of fun to see the daily progress and the upgrade of levels and such.
• The website provides statistics for various aspects about your profile to track your progress and that is WITHOUT even having a paid membership (like the case with Flickr for example).
• Providing contemporary trending hashtags (as well as the typical aspects of social media, like messaging, commenting and sharing).
• The chance to "see" real photography with high resolution images as much as possible (unlike Instagram) and also providing categorization method for these photos (assigned by the uploader).
• It has an "Explore" section to find all about newly uploaded images or trending images and so on.
• Surfing through the website, I don't see much (if any) ads - Even though they advertise that with a paid membership, you will not see ads (with other benefits).

I think those are most of the points that occur to my mind right now about the positive side of YouPic. However, the negative, to me, is a bit of a killer on some sides, specially after encountering some incidents, which I will try to explain after listing the negatives.

Negatives:

• One major killer here is the pricing of memberships. The lowest membership type does actually cost, annually, more than Flickr's annual membership after their recent change in policies. Flickr's new policy caused some photographers (including me) to leave the platform for good as the annual membership is almost the double of what it was before. YouPic's annual membership does cost even more than that amount at about $60 for the Enthusiast membership; The lowest of the two options available.
• I'm not a fan of nudity but the website provides the users with the capability of tagging their images as "Adult Content" which does not view the image wherever you encounter it until you click few buttons. However, some people for some reason do not tag their nudity images and it shows clearly and directly making the website not suitable for some specific range of ages. Moreover, the admins of the website does not seem to track down these incidents efficiently as I can see it is such a common occurrence.
• Blocking a user is an available option (which I need to use actually). However, when blocking someone, you just block them from interacting with you only; You can still see their profile. I'm not sure if this is what most people want but for me, when I block someone, it means a block for good, in two directions.
• Starting first with the website, when I first started to upload, my images would get instant Likes and exposure. In time, the exposure did look quite limited and hard to get any and I'm not sure if this is related to the timing of upload.
• I started uploading my photos on some sort of a regular basis, twice or thrice a day, but then and out of sudden, I was shocked for the limitation of 12 hours time period between uploads because my account was Free type; Nothing was mentioned about the time limitation before in the process of registering.

I've mentioned above that there was some incidents which I might as well add to the negative side of things on YouPic, and maybe I'm starting to get a feeling that the website is trying to push me hard to get a membership in some hidden ways. Imaginations? Maybe, but this is how it feels right now.
When I started surfing the Explore section on YouPic (a nice leisure time activity actually that somewhat helps on inspiring me), I've noticed that some users that did upload ads as if it was Instagram. I did take it seriously and did report these posts and I got message from the admins thanking me for the help on keeping the community of YouPic clean. However, and strangely, after some time, I was not able to upload my photos. I've discovered later that I was able to upload through my laptop at work but not at home using my PC, and that meant that my IP address was on some kind of block list. I've contacted the admins over the course of some days to resolve the matter but nothing happened and the problem was not resolved. Finally, I'm now using a VPN service (free) just to upload my photos from home using my PC. In the course of this problem, I've received some messages from the admins offering me the membership and even with some discount using a special code as a promotion (estimating that, it was still higher than the annual fee for Flickr). This incident, now, pushed and pushes me to think that probably the problem with the sudden drop in exposure, and probably the uploading problem and maybe other downside matters might all be a "drive" to let new comers get involved with the website with paid memberships.

Please, don't get me wrong here with my suspicions. After all, they are just suspicions, but they felt and feel like true. The fact that I'm still unable to upload in a regular manner like before from home despite chatting with the admins and providing all the information they required is something that annoys me greatly despite the easiness of using a VPN, and for free.
The quite common posts of nudity (which I don't like to name as an art in the first place), which sometimes even gets down to the limit of being simply pornographic in nature and not quite related to the art of photography, and the incapability of tracking these photos effectively, makes the website not suitable for all ages (and for some people, not suitable for workplaces as well).
I think the website needs some rigid and effective push forward by changing some policies and methods used to manage the website BEFORE asking the users to purchase a membership with such prices. Thinking about it, Instagram would sound quite a suitable solution for photographers to spread and expose their images for free (despite its negatives) and with some good skills, any user on Instagram can turn his or her account into a base to start a business. For this reason, I don't think the prices of YouPic are justified still.

If you are reading this, I would advise you NOT to take my words for granted but to go out there and try the website yourself and make your own judgement about the website.