Brain Mess…

Things are starting to get on my nerves a bit. Everything seems to be on hold for some unknown time and I can't move on. It's been weeks now without touching my camera for a serious work on any of my projects; Either those I've set up to myself for the future, or those that are supposed ongoing. Which makes me think seriously of abandoning some of these, namely the "Scopa" project because of the lack of cooperation around me. Of course, some would advise me to get some models of some sort but this is out of question. I won't be paying some models to come home and do a photo shoot for 5 minutes only; Needless to say, the money talk involved in this is not something low and easy. Weeks pass and I'm still stuck in the same square without doing anything advanced. I hope some hopes though with my on-the-way shipment, and specifically the Hot Mirror filter that I've ordered. I can't wait to try it out with my B+W ultraviolet pass filter (under the sun). In preparation to further experimenting, I'm trying to somehow mimic or produce the effects of blacklight indoors but so far, all is failing. Those tricks I see on Youtube about converting the phone LED light into a blacklight seem all in vain so far but I still have something to try out and see for myself.

One of the videos about this trick

Meanwhile, I'm also thinking of getting some cheap flash unit (speedlite that is) of any brand (but I would prefer a Canon) and work on converting it to a source of UV light by removing the front Fresnel lens, which acts also as a protection and a blocker for UV light emitted by the flash tube inside the unit. I've watched some videos as well about this process which involve dismantling the unit piece by piece and removing that glass piece and then putting everything back together, but honestly, I don't think I do have the patience for such a process. I might use brute force with some tools that my brother acquired lately! But first, I need to check if I can find the schematics for such flash units just to avoid destroying the flash tube inside the unit.

Glas ar Ghlas (remake)

Meanwhile, all I'm getting busy with is digging my old files, from Ireland and Malta mainly, and trying to re-do some of them (or do new ones that I've totally not touched before) with the aim of creating a somewhat attractive looks by editing those images in LAB; An old technique that I used to use back when all my work was in sRGB (because I didn't know what color space is) in order to pump up the colors and make the image more vivid. Probably this is now kind of fixed with simply assigning the color space to ProPhoto, but still, the LAB technique has its own magic yet. The only problem here is that the artifacts produced with such a technique that sometimes gives me extra headache to fix the image further. But anyway, that would be some other tale to tell. 

Multi-Hashim

One of the surprises that I've encountered, though, as I was going through old files, was series of multiple shots of a fellow member in the club during our visit to Oman in 2015. I'm not sure why did I take these shots (probably I was light-metering in-camera before doing the panorama?). Anyway, I saw this as a good opportunity to create something surreal and new. It was just a matter of blending several shots (using Darken blend) and then cloning out some unwanted gear thrown all over the place outside. Apparently, the shots were taken with a tripod since the door of the mosque here was quite stable from shot to another and the only moving body was my friend's, which made things quite easier to work with. The shots were also taken with relative speed (1/250s at f/10; apparently the sun was shining hard!). It was a muse to my eyes and I really want to do something similar with old or new images or even think of something to do anew. My camera (Canon EOS 7D) has no Multi-Exposure option like full-frame professional cameras but still, things can be managed in Photoshop. Contest-wise, I'm not sure if this is considered as an edit to the image or a true photographic art, but in any case, I don't care much about this matter for now. There are some tiny details to be attending to though (depending on the image itself), like for example in Multi-Hashim you see here, the green bars or cage is penetrating and surfacing, while I guess it properly should be behind the moving body completely. All that depends on the nature of the image of course and the movements involved.

Speaking of contests, I did already submit my entry to Trierenberg's Circuit, or Austria's International Photo Contest. However, this time, I'm rolling in alone under my name only and not under the group's name. Generally speaking, I'm not expecting any win from this participation (as usual), but one important aspect for me is to show a specific work of art to the public, which is the panorama from AbdulHussain AbdulRidha Theater which I've done last September (after a great effort to get into that theater!).

فخر بلادي  (Pride of my homeland)

This panorama was one of the images that I've submitted to the special sorting meeting of the group for this contest (as it is usually done every year). This image, unfortunately though, was rejected and did not pass under the claim that judges will not understand it or understand its value to us. The claim was kind of strange to me because I've been always told that judges of such contests (i.e. those held in the Western hemisphere) are eager to see new sights, new ideas, and new cultures which are not so common there! With this, I've made up my mind that I must participate under my name as well as under the group name if any of my images makes it through the final sorting process of the group. I got only one image passing, but I got the news late as this image was already uploaded and paid for for my own participation; Thus, I'm saying bye bye to the group's participation this year. As for the photos I've submitted, here is a glimpse:

Some of these images shown here were subjected to further processing before submitting so they are not exactly what they appear here. I hope Flickr's embed works properly with the boundaries of this blog!  Many of those images were actually some "additions" just to complete the theme as I don't feel easy at uploading one image only into the theme or category. Too bad for me, I've also forgot to upload one of the images I've done for Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month (which was one of the images in the sorting meeting and passed the initial sorting process but not the final one); Namely, the Road of Hurdles.

The B&W version of this image, though, was preferred more over the colored version and I'm thinking that both of them were canceled out (since I didn't attend that meeting, I don't know anything about the details of this sorting). But oh well, I might as well keep it for another occasion; An expo, or some minor contest.

Finale

L-Irdum

Feeling overwhelmed with many things to do, and nothing to do in the same time. It's a strange feeling. There are daily chores that I planned and set myself to do every day but in the same time I really want to break away from these chores and do something. Something to my delayed projects, or at least for my delayed long-waited holiday. Meanwhile, I must keep being busy as my nephew gave a new set of products to photograph and I'm trying to do them in some new method, some new way that I didn't do before. For this reason, I've spent like one week thinking and yet I didn't conclude anything for sure, but I'm preparing the set one by one and hopefully to be working with them ASAP. I feel it like a heavy a load over my back and I must get rid of it, though he didn't say he's in a hurry and told me to take my time. It is just how my brain works in organizing priorities. A complete mess.

Discovery Galore…

Here we are again! I've been busy the past 2 weeks or so in writing Arabic articles for my Arabic blog but here I am again into this blog doing, amazingly, nothing. Yes, Nothing. Everything is on hold and I'm not doing much with my camera, BUT, I'm doing lot of thinking and I'm seriously planning to place my next online order soon. Hopefully I won't go bankrupt after this…

Kenko's DR655

One of the major things that I really need to get now is Kenko's DR655 filter, which blocks infrared (i..e it is a hot mirror filter). Despite having Tiffen's hot mirror already but after reading and investigating further, I've realized that Tiffen's filter is technically an open gate!!! It barely blocks any infrared, and thus working with this filter with my leaky B+W 403 Ultraviolet filter is not a good choice at all. I've discovered this as I was reading articles and posts in a page dedicated to Ultraviolet photography with some links to practical tests to various filters (IR, UV, HM), and there I've discovered the hideous truth: Tiffen's announcement about the effectiveness of their hot mirror filter do not coincide with the practical technical testing. The transmission chart even was such a horrible nightmare to me!

Tiffen's hot mirror transmission chart acquired practically and posted in the link above.

Thus, I can say with a degree of confidence: People, do not get that filter even if you want to use it on a regular camera to enhance the colors of your shot. The filter is not even effective at 750nm as I thought. Just for comparison, here is the transmission chart for the filter mentioned above, DR655.

DR655 Transmission chart

Well, we don't need to understand Japanese to really realize how perfect this filter is for my needs. As you can see, DR655 has a steep slope down at around 650nm and indeed blocks at around 700nm, while still allowing ultraviolet range (~ 300nm-400nm). Why I didn't figure this out years ago? Of course, there is the option of having a proper ultraviolet filter other than the one I have already (B+W's) but that alone would cost more than the combined price of a hot mirror and B+W filter. Besides, would shall I do with the B+W 403 filter then? Sell it? I don't think people here do realize this kind of art nor would be interesting in it, not to say what would they do if they discovered it is leaking IR. Yeah, getting a new hot mirror is my best bet for now, and I need to do it fast!
There are other items I would be ordering beside that, not related to photography, but I'll talk about it in some other time maybe.

Ath-Fháil Amach

Most of my activities in the past weeks were focusing on re-discovering some of the old images from Ireland and Malta. I was specifically looking for some chances to make out some more Anaglyphs. Along the way, I was able to identify some images with some potential after neglecting them before, mainly with some focus on enhancing the colors (using LAB technique generally). Well, the potential I mean here is not a potential of being classified as "Top," but I mean an image that can be enhanced and, well, be viewable; Instead of being neglected and deemed useless.

Yellow Caps

Shots like Yellow Caps made me, though, re-consider my approach with editing in LAB. In this image (and few others) I often had trouble with the saturation, so much that I did need to do some extra work to fix the problem. This is beside the "curves amendment technique" which is practically re-assigning the values for the Blacks, Whites and Gamma in the image to enhance the contrast and at some point fix the white balance. In Yellow Caps, it can be noticed how the background contains a large red spot, which is there originally but it got exaggerated in saturation with LAB technique, but then I had to do extra work to reduce the saturation, and yet it might feel a bit popping out still. I've reduced the visual impact further by using Lens Blur on the image (despite having a shallow depth of field already); My main goal with Lens Blur though was to pop out the front element further (with the help of sharpening).

Around Ashford

On the other hand, despite all the extra work that editing with LAB would issue, there are images like Aroound Ashford where the lengthy work paid handsomely with somewhat a mystical look in this ordinary shot with pale green hues (originally). The major thing about this image which made me neglect it is, actually, the spots of highlights between the trees. This is a problem in many of the shots along the years and right now I'm trying to fix some of these images by overlapping (not cloning) with other areas of the same image (sometimes from another image). Most of the time, it gets all natural-looking, and if not, there is the cloning tool to fix some minor issues about that.

Islamic Display Room

One of the things that I work on re-discovering them is the punch of panoramas done back in 2015 for the Al-Uthman Museum, which was a comissioned work. Since I've done these panoramas, I was asked to keep them "in hiding" and not show them, and it was not till 2017 when I started showing my panoramas on Instagram, apparently with no objection from anyone related to the matter. Anyway, right now I'm starting to re-discover other projections for these panoramas and specifically the planet and tunnel projection styles (technically they are the same but with a change in viewing point), and boy, what did I see!

Magnetum Marinum

Some of these panoramas were, well, nice looking. Some of them were, well, SUPER-looking. Examples here, the Islamic Display Room and Magnetum Marinum were both done in tunnel projection instead of planet intentionally. As for Islamic Display Room, I had to switch to tunnel because of some bar in the ceiling which broke the symmetry awfully, while for the other one, Magnetum Marinum, obviously it was the flooring boards which astonished me. I've been always a fan of lines; Harmonic lines specifically and those that just make up swift and smooth geometrical shapes. This is why I fell in love with this panorama in such projection so much that I didn't even dare to put a watermark on it so I won't disturb its harmony, even though that this would put the image in danger after all. I'm still processing these panoramas and still checking and I think there is some good potential. The problem is, though, whether I have the right to submit those for contests and stocks, away from the social media thing. We'll see…

Finale

Bloomless Bloom (3D)

There had been one or two experiments with some other infrared shootings but I'll keep that for later maybe, as they were minor experiments captured after a glimpse of idea, and yet I'm not sure if this idea will grow further. Meanwhile, I do need to get to my other projects that I've listed here already before, but I'm not sure where and how to begin. My mind is still stuck at completing my Scopa project which arrived to a stalemate with no model to shoot (and I'm not going to pay for a model of course). 
Life seems to be getting weirder as I go on now. I'm trying hard to understand myself in the first place and that makes me a bit more isolate than before at some level. It is weird how I get attached easily with people out of my reach and yet find it hard to get along with people close to me. The question of my mental capabilities and whether or not I'm right or wrong about my relations with people around is a continuous hurdle to my mind. It's just amazing how one can find someone similar to a great extent, even in simple things like handedness, and feel attach to, yet they are just out of reach not only by distance, but also by core beliefs; And despite that, things get along. At least from a distance. Meanwhile, everything close seems to collapse with no glimpse of hope about a bright future. I really need to get back to my camera and work non-stop if I can, and a vacation… ASAP…

Stalemate…

Sounds it's been ages since I've typed anything here. Actually I was busy with my other Arabic blog putting up an article discussing the "Native ISO" as a concept, and how to find it out practically for the camera under question. It seems anyway that most, if not all, Canon cameras do have a native ISO of 160. I used to mix up the concept of the lowest ISO and the Native ISO, but it turned out this is not correct. After testing, I find it indeed as it was mentioned in many websites and discussion threads, the Native ISO of 160 for Canon has less noise than ISO 100 (the lowest)! Not only that, but even one full stops from ISO 160 (e.g. 320, 640) do show lesser level of noise from those less and those more in one third stop for each value. This is one major step of knowledge in fact, as gaining 2/3 of a stop without sacrificing the quality to the noise can do wonders, specially when working with speedlites and high-speed photography. Thus, from now on, I'm going to set my ISO on 160 by default!

Scopone

It feels like being in a head-lock with this Scopa project. Been days now, or rather weeks, without doing anything about it. This is mainly for the lack of people (models) who are willing to take the step with me, as I've finished all the regular cards, and now it is time to shoot the court cards which must contain a person. 

Fante di Denari

My first trial was to shoot the Fante di Denari with my nephew; A shot that needs to be re-done apparently. The shot was taken with my Voigtländer 20mm lens which apparently proved to be a bad choice here, not because of the distortion (barely visible here), but because of the extra spaces that I needed to deal with and which resulted in some space above the head, and that, should not there. Adding to that, my nephew's devilish looks were not, well, devilish enough! After this shot, I've decided to shoot next with my 50mm, which is in fact the correct choice for portraiture photography on cropped sensors like my camera's, because it approximate the perspective of 80mm lens on full-frame camera. So I moved next to do the Fante di Spade, and this time the victim is the usual brother of mine. One day I think he would be killing me but I can't find any better replacements! 

Fante di Spade

Beside changing the lens to 50mm when doing the Fante di Spade, I've also changed the position of the speedlites. Instead of striking from below on the side as in Fante di Denari, I've placed them right in front of my brother in Fante di Spade. Because of the lack of space inside the frame, I've changed here to a dagger instead, as placing a sword in such narrow space would eventually cause it to protrude outside the frame. Can't say I'm satisfied about his hand placement with the dagger but I need to satisfy myself with it for the time being, after directing his pose myself (ahem). He had some hard time wearing all these stuff already! With him, a devilish face was achieved, and I pretty much liked it that I've made his head shot into a separate image by cropping from the original before converting the whole image to B&W.

Il Fante

It's a good thing that I've been doing all this project's shots in infrared, as it opens such a wide gate for creativity instead of sticking to the original colors, and not to mention the fact that our eyes turn bluish in such images making them a bit more interesting!

Exactly how my chess horse looks like.

Now to add to my obstacles and problems, we have the issue of the Cavallo, the Horseman or Horse card. Of course I will not be shooting a real horse, but it was time to think further of some substitute. Initially, my idea was to find a horse head costume, but seeing how it was hard to get a crown for my Re (king) shooting later on (and I'm not sure if they will fit properly even), so I had to think of something else. It seems inevitable to do some photo editing and montage and the idea was there for me: Superimposing an image of a horse over the original shot. Thought of downloading the image from some photo stock website, but then I thought why not shoot it myself. My first target was my chess pawns, but that thing did look like a Scottish terrier more than a horse!!!

Re-Discover

Since my Scopa project is undergoing a stalemate, I've decided for a big part to dig up and check old photos and apply some techniques that I've not used in a long time, namely the  LAB Editing technique, in which colors are enhanced or modified by converting the image to LAB from RGB (and back to RGB later). Meanwhile, I did indeed discover some stuff, and also I did process some pretty old images that I've totally neglected because of various reasons (mainly being of bad exposure or shaky) - so old were they that some of them actually date back to 2009 with my first visit to Ireland with my old Canon 350D and 2 kit lenses! Moreover, there were some "artistic" editing to some images, doing effects and all these stuff... you know.

Tranquility by The Pond

It started well with some neglected shots from The Chinese Scholars Garden on Staten Island; shot back in 2012. I've neglected some of these shots mainly for not being "interesting" enough or simply because I was not able to think outside the box of HDR rendering. Thinking about HDR, sometimes, made me neglect those images with one shaky exposure. Moreover, some overexposures were and could have been fixed in certain techniques, and I failed to see through it back then. That's why I always hold the believe to always keep the "apparently" not so good images. You wouldn't know when it will be good, at least for the social media!

By The Pond

For many of these shots, the LAB Editing technique comes to the rescue even though the angle can be somewhat "boring." Indeed, I didn't even imagine that people would express their liking for Tranquility by The Pond or By The Pond at all. Worth noting here as well that reflections off the surface of the water were enhanced further by doing such technique and enhancing the colors in general (I didn't have a polarizer back then and I doubt I would be using it if I had it back then even). Probably it would have been even better with a polarizer for sure but at least something is saved and shown! Important thing though is: Editing the RAW file to enhance the shadows and show some details there, specially if it is the darkest exposure of some HDR bracketing trial.

Tríd an Triantán
(through the triangle)

When it comes to overexposure for some areas, and to be specific to the sky, where there are no details, like it was the case with Tríd an Triantán, a simple masking and adding a background would do the trick. I could have added some background from another source, but I always preferred to add from the same image, mostly by duplicating the layer and adding a layer mask to it, then moving it (while detaching the layer mask from the main layer). Some cloning work might be due though, just to add few touches or fix something. In Tríd an Triantán, which was shot in 2009 in the periphery of Ashford Castle (with 18-55mm kit lens), I tried to apply another effect to mimic the shallow depth of field; Say, just to keep it interesting. I've applied this effect before to another image from Staten Island, The Moon Gate, but probably it fits Tríd an Triantán more because of the angle of view (it goes straight, while it is somewhat upward in The Moon Gate).

The Moon Gate

To apply this effect, I had to use Lens Blur instead of the usual Gaussian Blur, and it had to be applied on 3 layers with 3 different levels of blurring. This is essential as in reality the shallow depth of field starts light and ends up heavy in the horizon (or at infinity). Moreover, such an effect is better off with Lens Blur because the algorithm used in this effect mimics the shallow depth of field for the lenses, while Gaussian Blur effect does not (and more systematic). Thus, to keep things real: Please use Lens Blur!
However, with all that work to revive some old forgotten shots, I'm doubtful about their "Printability" - Yes, that's word I've made up just now. Many of these shots look good in small sizes making them good for social media posting and all, but the original ones are unlikely to be printed in large sizes, say like A3 or A2 for any expo to come. This is mainly because of the noise level which, if cleaned, might take off more details than it should. But I wouldn't know for sure till I try, so we'll see!

Panoramic Endeavor

This is something I've been trying for a while since I'm not doing anymore panoramas; So just to create something new out of my previous work. This thing is mainly creating animations out of panoramas, and specially those planet or circular panoramas. Sometimes though, instead of animations, some tessellation-like patterns are made (and uploaded to the stocks!). The main target was Instagram in fact, but with those large files of tessellations or patterns, it did sound feasible to be uploaded (after reducing their dimensions) to the stocks.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 14, 2018 at 10:23pm PST

As for the animations, the main problem was the reduction in resolution with the ongoing rotation with each frame (rotating each frame 5°). To minimize this effect, I had to work on larger file sizes and in 16-bit TIFF if possible. However, later on and after reading some threads online, it seems that such a reduction is caused mainly by Photoshop itself for some algorithm-related problem it seems. Meanwhile, rotating an image to the main cardinal points (90°, 180° and 270°) does not reduce the quality of the image. Then it occurred to me, to do four specific layers of the image with each oriented to one of these cardinal directions and rotate each for 5° (making up for 17 frames per copy). This way, the quality loss will be lesser. Adding to that, I still do work with a large file and reducing it to a small size (with a crop) and then rendering the video for Instagram at even a smaller size. All that work is done with JPEGs images and not TIFF anymore, so sparing me the memory crisis! With the addition of Actions, the work now is even a piece of cake; All I have to do is click a button several times and now I have 17 frames rotating with 5° each.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 23, 2018 at 11:03pm PST

For the time being, the favorite size to render these animations to is 600X600 pixels. However, it seems that I have to uplift the limit a bit and try 800X800 pixels, as it might look a bit stretched on some devices. And speaking of animations, there is another useful usage for them for regular horizontal panoramas, where I used to cut these into 3 slides (most of the time) and post them in a Swipe or Album manner on Instagram. Posting them like that did make up for some awkward alignment and that's why I would need to add a 4^th slide to put things in a proper perspective. Now though, doing animations, this is not necessary anymore. I can simply move the panorama horizontally and it is played back as a video in the same window and no need to swipe!

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 15, 2018 at 10:21pm PST

There is a tiny problem with these horizontal animations though, which is how to divide the horizontal movement on equal number of pixels that matches the width of the panorama. Thus, unlike with polar/circular images, with displacement measured by degrees, the movement on the horizontal plane is measured by pixels. Hence, it does look sometimes as if the animation has jumps and not going smoothly. The loss in quality during these displacements though seems close to null apparently, which is good!

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 6, 2018 at 10:29pm PST

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 13, 2018 at 10:17pm PST

Vertical twisted panoramas as well appeal more to me for making textures like those above and I'm planning to do more of them soon. Those can make up for really huge files, but unfortunately, no stocks would be accepting them (maximum as far as I know, is around 30MB). It would be a great addition to have such files uploaded online at sizes of 100-300MB! To end this matter for now, here is a funny story:

As I was digging my old files looking for old panoramas and old neglected shots to do some art with them or animations, I've noticed that I didn't make a planet panorama from inside the Chinese Scholars Garden; specifically around the pond. I've made only a flat version of that place. Probably I've neglected this option because of some of the hardships and errors, I don't know! But looking at it now, it does sound good enough to be displayed.

Planeta Fenestra

To add some spices to "my discovery," I've edited the image with LAB technique again and tried to enhance some colors as well as reduce the overexposure (which is probably why I've neglected this panorama for long). And with this, we have a happy ending for this story and who knows, I might discover another neglected panorama!

Finale

Selfie Seal

With this long post, it does seem like I'm having a lot of activities in my life, while the truth is the opposite in fact, as I didn't touch my camera much and most of my work is about re-working old photos and trying to create something out of old things (even out of my selfie on the left). My mind is busy, and so is my schedule and body unfortunately. I do have a number of ideas I need to do, specially with February approaching; the Retinitis Pigmentosa Month. Just so to see, let's list these ideas down for the moment:

• Doing something for RP month as mentioned above.
• An old idea inspired by Sabah Fakhri, and still cannot do because I do need special arrangement and a narrow space.
• Infrared panorama indoors which would involve a hand (of a human or mannequin, whatever).
• Photo shoot for some selfies to be combined later on with Photoshop, reflecting schizophrenia or multi-personalities disorders.
• Photo series with chairs reflecting on corruption and old mentalities at work.
• Shooting through the microscope (again).
• Doing a photo shoot reflecting my personality as I deducted lately from some personality tests, where I got the classification of INFP-T (The Mediator type). 

All of these are just some ideas for now and all on hold, with my Scopa project on stalemate as well. Probably I'm dreaming too much? I guess. My life do look like being on a roller-coaster and I can't stop it. Everything around me is changing, and I don't see it to the good side. I pray that I will be able to travel for some time, away from this place, just to get things out of my mind for real. I feel like my mind and body are overflowing with those things they call "bad vibes." For some reason, I really don't feel like following onto that path of "positivity talk;" Deep inside, I feel it as seeing the world with pink-colored glasses and losing touch with reality, and the end result is a hard slam. If I'm thought of as a pessimist, then I guess I am with no shame in that. Probably my camera has done its job to its fulfillment, and the need to travel for some time is long due. When? I don't know…

Force x Force

Exhaustive week. Not a single day passes without having to go out of work and back to my work again, and sometimes doing this twice or thrice, beside the work-related work, like preparing the samples and changing the samples for measurements. I've even napped in the office by the end of one day which made me leave late that day! There is a time crisis.

Source: B&H

However, I've finally got my shipment from B&H and still trying out my new 5" LCD portable monitor, and yet I have to try out the polarizing gel. The monitor alone was a problem and I think it will get somehow a bad review from my side, as the plastic is shaky and the cable was hard to get (and I lost 10 K.D for getting the wrong cable), while the hotshoe mount can be attached to the monitor, but not to the hotshoe!

All week I was trying to force myself to record more vocalization for Alexander's story. I'm close to the end, yet I do feel so down and so tired that I've skipped some days without recording anything. Anyway, there had been a large gap since the last time: from 2016 to 2736. With this now, I think only 10 verses are left. With a pace of 6 verses a day, this should be finished in two days!!!

By Force:

An interesting article by one of my favorite photographers, George Barr, did describe a lot of the mental process that I (and maybe most of the photographers) indulge in when I go out trying to shoot something. By coincidence on that very day as well, I was out in such a bad dusty weather trying to catch something... anything. I was just pushing to do anything with my camera, and it was indeed like some sort of a puzzle or a hunt - and processing the image itself was a puzzle itself too.

Dusty Zen
Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro. 1/5000, ISO500.

Pardon the high ISO, as it shouldn't be there in fact. I've simply forgotten that from my last session (which I've totally forgotten what was it!). The above shot was a test shot in the beginning, but then I've realized it is the one to be adjusted. The conditions were sort of harsh on the beach when the image was taken: staggering wind, dust in the air, and my intestines didn't stop giving me hard time.
The puzzle in the process is yet to come, when we try to turn a "boring" image in terms of color, into something interesting, beside some interesting framing. Just for a comparison, you can check the following before-after image:

The framing (cropping) after all was a problem since I didn't know how to give nice edges to the cropped image. However, when I shot this image my concentration was on the sand on the top of the rock (which settled down despite the harsh wind on the beach!). The major adjustments were done by means of a "trick" that I call the LAB method. It is an old method that I've used before, but not so often, specifically for a picture from Failaka island when, suddenly, the dust occupied the island despite the good weather in the morning as we set sail on the ferry from the main land.

It was a great time and great waves striking the rocks back then! However, what is the LAB trick?

• First the image would be in RGB mode (regardless of the color space or the depth).
• The image is then converted into LAB mode.
• In the channels of the LAB, channel A is picked and the EYE icon is turned on for the main (first) channel to see the effects of our adjustments.
• While channel A is picked, increase the contrast and/or the brightest to whatever level needed (and it can be done in various ways).
• Same procedure is done to channel B.
• Channel L can be adjusted in same way, and it can be used to sharpen the image, or reduce the noise as well.
• When all is finished, convert back again into RGB mode.

Now, some people argue that this conversion from and into RGB will cause some loss in data (and I believe this is natural anyway in any conversion or any transfer of data) but I'm not sure how this loss occurs or what does it affect. Yet, the results can be promising for reviving an image!

After shooting this image, I've changed the lens (yes, in that weather, and it's dangerous) and tried to set and pose in some way to shoot another image of the rocks, however, the situation then proved to be a disaster. The shoot ran for HDR, but at home, even the HDR technique did not rescue the image and the blown highlights coming from the sun beams.

Ansin (there)

After the many problems in this image (tilted horizon, blown highlights, framing...etc) I've decided to crop with no respect to the original aspect ratio. The result is a small image after all, and not applicable for submission.
Because the lens was my 18-55mm, with minimum f/4, the desired shallow depth was not perfect for me. For this reason, I've resorted to the Lens Blur effect and blending down with a layer mask. Sharpening was done by NIK, and again with Noise Ninja. Some cloning was a must, when I've discovered some trash in between the rocks!

Books:

I have now some list of books to finish; a fresh delivery from Amazon.  I'm not sure how long it will take me to finish them but I hope all is over by August already. I do have plans to run after by September but I'm keeping it all to myself right now. I've started out with the Exposure book for now, as I think it is an important topic even though I do have a not-so-bad idea about all the exposure measurements, and so far, the book looks interesting indeed (with lot of fancy images too). Another book awaits about using Speedlites, and another which I try to read before going to bed concerning some psychology topics. I think I do need that a lot for now.

So much is going on in my mind. More than what's happening in my own life right now but nevertheless, it is a headache on all levels. I can't wait to have a vacation. Just slowly, my mind is retaining some of its ability to collect words and phrases, and I ended up writing Teal Eyes. Why or what made me write this piece, this is something I'd like to keep to myself for the time being. But it was a real hard work to squeeze my brain. Something went wrong inside this mind; maybe it is the too much business of thoughts that made it dull. I do miss writing poetry... it feels like being left out...

 

Alexander 6, V70.

 A busy, and dizzy, day all at once. Although I've decided to stop fasting now, yet in the early morning I didn't feel like eating anything. I think my body is used to it now.
I've started working on the dictionary again and the progress is so slow. I have to change frequent changes in the previous entries regarding the spelling system and the changes I've made while working on the transliteration of Alexander 6. So far, I've reached the letter "P" and work is going on...

I couldn't help it but I had to fall asleep in the office for like 45 minutes and still until the moment of writing this, I feel my head spinning!

I'm comparing prices now for flights to Dublin, and seems the Turkish Airlines are my best choice, instead of Etihad. The times offered by Etihad are not that suitable for my schedules and timings, beside, I don't think I can take a fly for more than 6 hours continuously.

I spent my day listening to Shaggy here and there and finally, listening to his song "Hope". Gives a reviving feeling indeed...



Meanwhile, and at home, I have to get back to work with that lab panorama that I'm completely disappointed with. Despite my hate for it by now, but it is a work left undone. I take breaks from working with this by doing some processing to some pictures from Ireland, taken last year...

There was a fuss while doing some photos because of the color system change (in between the sRGB space and the ProPhoto space), but now, I think I will try to make all my work in ProPhoto format, even my uploads on the net.
I will listen to "Hope" again one more time now, before leaving this office...

__________
1657. then before leaving Alexander asked Biryári
1658. "how to know that I reached the right place?"
1659. and Biryári answered: you will not be missing at all,
1660. the valley and its mountains are just after the forest,
1661. and the valley is full of trees that bear thorny fruit,
1662. and by night, you see the moons settle on the mounts
1663. thus Alexander prepared himself for this long journey
1664. and thanked Biryári for his hospitality and information
1665. then both of them hugged and shook hands firmly
1666. after that Alexander left to the yard and took his Cadid
1667. and the Cadid was willing to go with Alexander easily
1668. which made Alexander feel some comfort about it
1669. the two went on walking in the long forest road
1670. you could see Alexander pulling his Cadid behind him
1671. and in the road, beside the food that Alexander has
1672. he used to hunt for exotic birds that he saw on trees
1673. the Cadid with his blackish body and face sounded happy
1674. as if he liked his new master, who has the same face of his
1675. but his fangs and claws were absolutely different from his master
1676. ten days passed through the thick forest until green no more
1677. and Alexander saw how beautiful the land was after the forest
1678. there he tied the Cadid to a tree near him
1679. and sat down to pray down for such an amazing beauty
1680. and asking his Master to bestow more power upon him

Alexander 6, V21.

A sort of a busy day. Working in the lab a bit and opening the labs myself since the janitors are in strike as I heard. To tell the truth, I'm happy for that. One day without looking at the janitor! Woho!
In order to help my friend, I went on roaming the place first thing I came here, before even connecting my laptop to the net as usual or anything. I got my camera bag and connected the camera already before going into the building and carried the bag just if it was a normal student's bag or case. I went over the ground floor, then up to the first floor into some classes to take pics. Well, despite the fact that I didn't take the tripod with me, but I couldn't resist the urge to take panoramas standing up with a shaky hands, and hence, the aperture size was to be maximum (f-number is low). I think it was f4.5. Not only this will give me a faster shutter speed and compensate for my hand shake, but also it would be better for a faster job on location. Without any doubt, the shoot was run for HDR. If HDR compositing was not feasable because of some shake, at least I would be able to pick up a suitable one from the different 3 exposures. When HDR is made up, that would be extremely fine, since I can control the contrast and the light level in various areas, or even just hit the Photomatix and give out some magic.
I made out some experiments with the pictures taken yesterday from here, and I was just AMAZED for the level of noise and spots on the images when I started to tone-map! The cleaning kit and the whole shipment in the DHL arrived, but is not released yet as per writing this. I hope it wouldn't reach my Judgement Day to see the shipment released!

I've suggested to my director that we might print out something as a gift for the German ambassador. Although I feel a bit awkward and not in mood for any public show off or any formal meetings, but I felt the urge to do this. Don't ask me why, but it is something kicking from the inside and tells me to do something. The choice fell maybe between 2 images; our building, or a picture of our biggest lab...

Printing out these should be done the right way now. Converting to CMYK, correcting the color shifts and then print. It's not going to be an easy task to compensate for the loss of some colors I would say. I heard that correcting the colors under CMYK is a hard task indeed. I shall experiment with that soon as I go back home, and this time I have to do it on my own expense as well, and no time for any excuses or delays. The visit is scheduled for next Wednesday, and it is Monday here already. I would wish if I would think of days coming so fast like this when it comes to my weekend plans!

__________
481. Alexander asked the huge man in a hurry
482. "Ayvar! you know them? where they are?"
483. the man smiled slowly and calmly then said
484. "O good king, we are verily said to be their children,
485. but I do not know anything about their places,
486. and I do not know if they existed even,
487. but for long time, other tribes used to call us like that,
488. children of the Ayvar, and who speaks almost like us,
489. are called the ayvaric children of the deserts,
490. I apology if my knowledge is not what you are seeking!"
491. then Alexander remembered why he came here in the beginning
492. and said to the huge man: I came here to see a man of wisdom
493. and the huge man answered: this is verily not me I suppose!
494. we are the children of the desert take care of days when they come
495. but we worry not about the upcoming future!
496. then Alexander said: the man I am seeking is named Ázilis
497. do you happen to know him O good man?
498. the huge man was surprised and said in a slow speech
499. "Yes O good king, he is our wise man and our guide,
500. but it might be hard to speak to him at the moment,
501. or you might not be able to talk to him so soon"
502. Alexander asked in a questioning tone thereafter
503. "Why is it so O good man?"
504. and the huge man replied: because he is dying

Alexander 6, V4.

TGIW. Thank God It's Wednesday! A phrase I missed typing or saying for a long time after changing the weekend system in Kuwait, making the weekend on Friday and Saturday instead; which sucks! We got a holiday here extending until next Monday. Woho! No work on a MONDAY!
I'm planning to go out earlier today, and that's why I'm writing my blog earlier than usual. After finishing 2 verses of transliteration from Alexander VI, I took sometime on writing a short little poem. Something to the memory of Oughterard and Ireland. I named it "The Path of Oughterard."

The images I took the day before yesterday were not so special or anything, without any sparkle or life in them, and also not sharp enough and somewhat blurry. Thus, I decided not to work on the tone-mapping for them and instead, I kept on working stitching some old panorama I made for my work place.


The stitching process takes almost half a day. I made this parnoama before and it is not a quite spherical panorama, because I didn't take pictures for the ceiling in complete sequences, but it was a 360 degrees one made on 2 rows. This is the second time I make a trial with this panorama, as I made it normal the last time. Here, I've made my mind to make it as a "little planet" projection (also called Stereo). The first stitching process stopped after it reached the end almost with some error regarding the creation of the JPEG file (I remember it was related to the damn RAMs), and I thank God that it was a sequence of JPG images only and not HDR! Anyway, choosing the final creation to be saved as a JPG was a mistake as well because I wanted to keep the transperancy as well. Thus, I had to stitch again and this time, the end-product is saved as a PSD (more than 500MB in size but only one layer!). I manipulated the image later on (this morning and in a hurry), making it more sharp and minimized it from its original size (close to 20,000 pixels height and width). For web purposes I decided to save the image in a GIF format to save the transperancy, but unfortunately the picture was sluggish and spotted for the low quality. Thus, I decided to put it up as a PNG, but of course the file size would be a bit larger than the GIF version. The JPG format of course, won't save me the transperancy in the image.
This is said and done, I might try to construct my own softbox in the coming days, as something to do for fun at home and also it would be useful in the future. I have in my mind many sizes to construct currently, and to begin with, I would do a flash-mounted little softbox, to reduce the glare of the flash on objects (since I suffered this sooooo much with my trials on my censer). Also, I intend to make out a light tent, or a light box, in which lights are projected from the outside and the object is in the middle of the box with a white background. I wanted to do some trials with my camera yesterday, but with the stitching process that took almost half a day and took over most of the memory in my PC, I neglected such idea completely!


__________
73. and Alexander was shaken by the speech
74. and could not imagine the age of the man
75. what is going around him and what is the logic
76. nothing seems to bear meaning to him now
77. then he gathered the power to ask the old man
78. "and how shall I get to the lands of Ayvars?"
79. so the old man answered: you shall answer my dear!
80. and with a strange look, Alexander gazed upon his face
81. and then he said: you are the grandson,
82. you don't know how to visit your ancestors?
83. then Náwi answered with sadness apparent in his eyes
84. "my dear friend, your question revives memories,
85. of long lost tribes and nations, wisdom and faith,
86. my ancestors went away with their secrets,
87. and here I am left alone with my sons away from them,
88. and it is mentioned in ancient books that we had,
89. about a the poor and rich man, whose name is Vuqurnún
90. who has light in his face and a spot on his forehead
91. and his red hair go down on his shoulders
92. and his teeth are white with bluish color
93. carrying his sword of the three points
94. and his golden shield of the sun's image
95. he shall know the road to the ancients
96. and by his hands the secret is revealed"

Alexander 6, V3.

Unfortunately, no pictures for today, although I made one experiment with my censer again. I can't say all the results were fine but I didn't try much to tone-map any. I made 2 versions (as far as I remember) and all saved in EXR, but I didn't go on further to tone-map and other stuff. The bad thing here is that I missed the sparkling effect of the flame, and the censer image was somehow... normal. Anyway, I might add them for tomorrow, as for the time being I'm a bit busy in re-making one of the panoramas for one of our labs, and also busy with... playing some games... YES!
__________
49. his heart was relieved and the smile got back
50. and then he asked the old man about his identity
51. who are they and why they asked him to come
52. the old man began his speech slowly
53. and said: I am the mortal son of immortals
53. I am the ancestor of the tribes
54. I am Náwi bir Nowayi Ayvárí
55. a son and grandson of the Ayvars
56. brought to Earth from the unknown
57. and I grew up with the nomads
58. until the Light brightened my soul and heart
59. then I married from the tribes of Earth
60. thus I am from and into the tribes
61. I am a branch of Eruvians and Huberians
62. and the Capallese and the Qalaqach
63. I am the father of Kharkhaz and Urev
64. and the grandfather of the Dulukh and Noahim
65. I am the son of Ayvars who lost his fathers
66. I lost the count of time and age
67. thus count my age as much as you like
68. and these are the chosen of my sons
69. and the chosen of their grandsons
70. and their chosen of their great grandsons
71. we are the root and the branch
72. from the seed that disappeared long time ago