Turtlosis...

A slow paced week. Didn't touch my camera much but I did miss a chance for an amazing picture, which is something I won't forgive myself for. Well, I might spend some nights on the roof just to catch it again if I can. More to come later about this.
For the time being, I'm trying to register my own logo and might as well start doing business cards for myself. The process which I've been told will take one day to do, is already taking 3 days because of some technical issues and because of me not knowing what kind of procedures I should follow. However, it didn't occur to me before to use the logo itself as a watermark over my images to be displayed on the internet. I might consider this too.

I. Process:

Since I didn't do much with my camera this week, I thought I should check out some of the pictures taken previously from Failaka. The panorama taken from inside Ikaros hotel was a curse. A demonic structure. After one month from my visit I still cannot regulate and stitch the panorama regularly even after reducing the amount of images involved. I'm so tired of it. Maybe I should move on.
On the other hand, I'm considering updating some programs but I might leave that till I upgrade the whole system? I'm not sure till now. There is a sudden rush of financial load that I can feel heavily laying on my back, for all the changes that I (need) to do, yet I can't right now. I hate cars. My car problems caused all of this chaos. Damn you cars...

Back to processing. One of the images that some people surprisingly said it is out of the ordinary expected from me, was the one I've posted before, Against The Wind...

Against The Wind

After the comments and the Likes that I've received for this image, I might as well consider it to be added to my website for printing. The thing about this image is that, it seems to me that the focus point is not correct! The stem that reclines to the right seems sharper than the main body of the blossom on the left. I think I would not know how good and effective this image is, until I print it out on canvas myself, and it is a good chance to look for and try out some varnishes types too (to make the canvas like a glossy print and also for protection). More to do, more to dig into.

Another image I'm considering for addition is a slide taken from a panorama, I did back in January from the beach area (which I've named Urban Romance I, II). The idea was to concentrate on the lunar side of the image, since in the panorama things (or should I say, details) tend to spread over and the eye would tend more to catch the general shape and geometry instead of a single frame or aspect.

Meditator

Of course, the image was edited (and not tone-mapped from HDR slide). Simple RAW editing to enhance the colors and the contrast, and also to cover up a little for the shadows cast on the water (caused by me and my tools). The image was noisy of course (ISO800, 25 seconds), and I had to do a heavy cleaning, and try not to eliminate the stars in the sky as well. However, after the latest expo I've been in and after looking at some prints, I think I need to change my view about the grains (or noise) and their effects and looks. What's on screen is not reflected as it is when printed on paper. This leaves me with the question of how to estimate or make sense of what the noise level and visibility would be when printed. The paper, is not a digital media, hence the perspective is different. All of this related now to the process of profiling my media, which is something out of my hand right now...

Out of fun, I've been experimenting with some images that I didn't have a specific aim for doing them, but merely for the fun of it!

Straßenkrieg
(Street War)

This image was tone-mapped from HDR slide, and it was taken from different angles, but I liked this view point better, since some angles showed harsh sun rays. In this image I tried to mimic a long focal length effect (not a Bokeh) so I merely blurred the background at some level. It was not an easy task and probably I didn't do it rightly enough. The halo on the car's top is disturbing as well. Surely not something to add to my website!
And yet another funny and aimless shot...

Road Runner

These aimless shots are somehow good for practicing freely. The image above was taken with ISO400, and I had to apply some adjustment layer to emphasize the contrast between the bird and its background, and not the conventional contrast addition (even though it was done by the RAW editor already).

My love for abstracts turned on again, when I passed through one image that I've forgotten about for some time. Even though I've studied some Geology in college, but still some geological features do amaze me in shapes (one of the reasons that I studied Geology is the love of nature itself).

Πόδια (Pódia)
Paws

Processed from a RAW file even though it was taken in a bracketed sequence. A little bit of color and contrast, and a little bit of cropping and here you go. Not totally satisfied myself though; I still find the image a bit dull. My original name for it was Bear's Claws. Taken from the beach behind the old resorts place on the island.
Another abstract-like shot I've dug out from the island as well, was something that I don't really know why did I take, but oh well, it was something nice to play with after all.

Patriotic Art

With some cropping on the left and right I've centralized the wall. Technically, it was shot from my car as I was having the last drive in the island before taking off. I wanted to crop more on the right top corner but that will consume the rightmost poster as well.

II. Failed Attempt:

I've said earlier that there is a chance that I've missed and I will never forgive myself for it. I was told by a brother to shoot the moon because it was bright and nice looking. I went to the roof and while settling my tools still, a clear airplane passed by the moon's disk but I couldn't snap the shot because I was occupied, and the plane was so fast...

Mund

I've taken several shots for the moon at that instance with various degrees of luminance, using my Tamron 70-300mm and my Vivitar x2 teleconverter, at full length. After shooting I've realized that I've forgot to change the WB (which was set to Flash) and thus the image was too yellow, but I've reduced the effect in the RAW editor to reflect the color of the moon as close as possible (and it was yellowish at that night).

This said now, I'm not sure what are my plans for the next few days. The only thing occupying my mind right now is to finish the logo registration completely. Maybe it's too early to talk about expanding the business little bit here and there or try to let wider range of people know about it for the time being. However, I need a lot of learning and education, and some experience from others. Beside the financial burden, education is a burden by itself. I think we need a big quake in the printing protocols in this place...

III. Links:

This week I've encountered mainly two websites that I deem useful for readers, if they like to check:
1. John Paul Caponigro's website: http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/
This website has enormous information about many aspects. I'm still discovering the website myself. John also has a Facebook page and other connecting media. I like his tips about dealing with noise and printing aspects.

2. Mike Pope's page for birds in Kuwait: http://10000birds.com/welcome-wednesday-birding-kuwait.htm, and he has a blog also: http://kuwaitbirding.blogspot.com/

I'm not a wildlife photographer but I think I can learn a lot from Mike's photos. It's too early to talk about having a good tele-lens for now!
I stumbled upon the websites as I was trying to look for an aid in identifying some bird I've photographed in Failaka just before I leave the island. Turned out that bird's name is Oenanthe Chrysopygia, and in locally it is known as Al-Mdaggy. Might post the photo next week if it turned out good!

Have a nice weekend for now, and Αντιο!

Ορίζων (Orízun)
Horizon

Rain Rain Rain...

Things are going frantic here. Thursday (today) is the election day for parliament members and we have also one day off (mainly for the occasion of the birth of prophet Mohammed, not the elections). The week was sluggish but nice one with some rains here and there (typing this as the rain is pouring outside). Rains here are a bless despite all the fuss and the mud you might have to step on, like in my work place!
Not much progress, in this week, with my various projects or photography, but only with one inventive perspective (well, not so inventive) done to some old panorama, and might enable me to manipulate older panoramas as well in the same manner:

Circulorum

The "perspective" in use here was Transverse Mercator; one of the rarely used perspectives (or projections). Supposedly, the Transverse term is a note that this projection is suitable for vertical panoramas or a panorama taken in landscape orientation I'd say. However, my panorama here is not vertical of course, but it yielded some result that I didn't think of before, and with the scattered rocks it helped me create a view similar to that of the classical magnetic field experiment with iron filings. I think such perspective is not suitable to just any scene, but only few like this one, which would be helped out by such projection style to add order to chaos.

For the time being I'm trying to figure out my options as I might join some expo with my sister. Not an easy decision, nor an easy work to be done. I despise the paperwork and this project is heavily loaded with it. I might as well create a logo and make it my official logo for future uses. There are many details that have been discussed, and I get a headache almost instantly.
On the other hand, I have 3 thick books waiting to be finished with. I'm reading 2 books and trying to divide the time equally between them but I think I failed so far, as the book concerned with flash photography is taking my interest the most.

Well, maybe it will be hard to take shots at night the few coming days, so I might as well just sit calmly and organize my camera backpack and my tools. There might be a travel waiting for me in June to Chicago, but I'm not optimistic about it. It is just a training course related to work, and most probably I won't be given the grant that's necessary for my training (by my work place). Not that I care much about it, but I think I do need some vacation somehow.

I'm going now, as the water seeped through my window with this heavy rain... wishing for a better week coming in advance...

Continuus...

Here we go, another week with tiresome days all the way. It has been a trend of somehow "busy life" in the past 3 weeks; struggling with my brother going through all the bureaucracy of hospitals, chores, work, and lately lectures for preparation before going to Hajj. As a consequence to this, I didn't have the time to work with my camera although I do have an idea in my mind to work with, and also I didn't record anything for the Ayvarith project, and I think this will be delayed until my return from Hajj in November. November will be also a busy month for me anyway. I can't wait until my vacation starts on October 19th. It is a vacation that will, after all, be busy as I would prepare my stuff for traveling to do the Hajj, but after all I won't have to wake up in the early morning... and also stay late as much as I want!

I didn't do much with my camera as I said earlier, so mainly, my work was to get busy with the Grand Mosque panoramas, and I made a QTVR in some good... compromise let's say; without the nadir point.
I've made another flat (spherical) panorama other than the one that was done last week which was done in a haste. The new one has some adjustments to the blinds and also a better saturation I'd say. Compare!

Mosque Magnam I

Mosque Magnam II

The stitching errors were enormous and hard to fix in the first version while it was relatively easier and lesser in the second. All that with just changing the Blend Priority. The second version was also the base of the QTVR that I've made later, adding a logo (sort of) of my own. Will show this later separately.
This new straight and enhanced spherical panorama, then, was the base of newer stitches in various projection styles. Believe it or not, I spent around 3 or 4 days stitching these panoramas, simply because I thought everything was OK, then it turned out that I've optimized the "Flare" along with the "Exposure" in PTGui. A mistake that wasted my time and made me do everything back again. The Flare option, in the Exposure Optimization section of PTGui,  is the one responsible for producing weird color spots in the panorama AFTER stitching. Everything would look normal on PTGui viewing screen, but the sting comes after stitching! After that I had to stitch it all over again turning off that option and everything was fine, almost.

One of the amazing aspects of such a place as The Grand Mosque is the emphasis on geometrical assemblies, not only in the architecture, but also on the ground; on carpet. The lines of the carpet helped me a lot in making some sort of a fantasia if I should say. Maybe two of the most beloved of these projections to me considering this location were the Little Planet, and the Wide-View...

Flos Lucis (Flower of Light)
Little Planet projection

Orbis Fidei (Rings/Orbits of Faith)
Wide-View projection

The straight lines in the carpet made it perfect for such an illusion, even though it was harder to clone out as it was in case of panoramic work from Ireland; where the ground was random and the VR-head can be cloned out easily. The removal of the VR-head in the wide-view version was relatively easier than other versions, while in the planet projection, I've decided not to waste my time and simply stamped a little logo that says "ألا بذكر الله تطمئن القلوب" (Verily in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest - Quran:13:28). I was lucky to find this phrase in a font called AGA Islamic Phrases, which can be checked with other stuff here. From this font I stamped the calligraphic phrase on a black background. The writing became blue after tone-mapping in Photomatix.
On the other hand though, removing the VR-head remnants was not an easy task in another interesting point. It was another Wide-View but as viewed from the side of the praying hall and not from the back as in Orbis Fidei.

Radii Fidei (Beams of Faith)

I can't claim that the cloning was that perfect, but probably it is less severe when viewed in such a size, but could prove a disaster when viewed on a large scale. The "tunneling" effect of this scene made a very interesting pattern that reminds me of the days when I was a physics student...

Fields of Faith (Argos Fidei)

It was done in the very beginning originally and hence the name was in English first, then I decided to move to Latin with the projections done later. Anyway, as you can see the yellow lines from the carpet make a magnetic field pattern (remember the experiment of the iron filaments and a magnet under the paper?). The broken lines from stitching errors were apparent here and fixing them was sort of easy but not perfect still. Also some weird black spots appeared on the edges after tone-mapping (apparent in the lower portions of the image). I don't know what caused these exactly but this is one of the aspects of the new Photomatix (v4.0); the tone-mapped view is not exactly what you will get at the end when you press the tone-mapping button. Sometimes the difference is so great that you won't even believe that you did it yourself.

QTVR

In the beginning I wasn't really up to it, but then I figured, with the second trial of doing the flat spherical panorama, that it's worthy of a QTVR after all. The eternal problem, of course, was for the bottom image, or the nadir. Here though, I've cut down the lower portion of the flat panorama (which has the VR-head remnants) and then, instead of doing a completely new slide with  logo of mine (the same as above), I've instead opened the "real" nadir shot and made the logo cover the proportion of the VR-head in that slide. I've prepared this slide with PTGui to bend it and then fixed it with blending mask in Photoshop.
In this mess, I've totally forgot that with what I did, I can actually put the logo BEFORE stitching completely. Because the logo would cover only the VR-head proportion, then the general features of the HDR slide would still, probably with some gambling, be saved and enables PTGui to blend it in the process of making the panorama. I've never thought of this before! I better try it as soon as possible.
Just a comparison for how it would look like when you have a flat logo in a flat panorama (and it's not easy to imagine the general shape and how it would look in a QTVR)...

Mosque Magnam II - Cropped

Mosque Magnam II - QTVR version

Of course there is no point in adding the nadir with all its hassle around the VR-head for a panorama that is supposed to be displayed like that. However, I should think ahead of doing the panoramas directly and cloning originally in the nadir slide before the stitch, might saves me big headaches. I can't believe I didn't think of this before! Damn head...






Now, I'm going to post this for the time being, and I'm going to get busy. Suddenly all the work pressure comes with me getting ready for Hajj. I've received my injections (3 of them I don't know for what!) and I feel like a mesh. I just hope I won't be suffering from fever as a reaction to this. Weekend is coming, yet I'm not sure I will be able to enjoy it...

Cuvaitum At Work...

My mood has been off lately. Trying to smile and laugh just to cover up for the bleed. Ah well, who cares anyway. At least I had the chance to play with my camera and catch a panorama in day time, away from the cops and security people. An experiment that I might be willing to do again, some time...
Previous weekend was specially weird. I did sleep so early. So early that I won't be sleeping like that for work itself! And wake up early too. I didn't want to miss the chance here so I went on to have breakfast on the beach and look for something to capture. I took my tools including my Manfrotto 303SPH VR-Head (was it a coincidence?) and drove along the beach. It was around 7 a.m. or a bit before that when I settled behind Kuwait Towers and started to do my job in a hurry fearing the usual. One panorama was enough to keep me busy for a while now. There are lot of things to do with one panorama, as different viewing angles do make a difference now and I won't let go, from now on, of a panorama until I exhaust my options with it. However, I didn't miss the chance to take some single clicks here and there. It's nice to add some icing to the cake isn't it?
Just before going on, I would like to talk about my previous "homework" in my photography class.

I. Homework #1:

It was our first homework in the Photography Class L1. The main point was to criticize the images in general. Along the years that I've been working with my camera and specially in the field of HDR techniques, I've faced many useless comments and criticism that just don't consider what I'm trying to say in the image. Anyway, I think my mind now has developed a sense of what is a "real" criticism and what is "trash". For this reason, I tried my best to do the shots in JPG only without RAW and without any adjustments at all. Since my teacher is the one who will criticize me, then I have no problem at all and I would learn here, instead of putting up with depressive non-sensical comments. Anyway, our homework was to take 4 shots, and I did take several shots for same scene and then picked the best as I think for this homework. Some people brought 5, 6 and even 10 shots. I wonder if they have problem with mathematics!?

Nail in a Wall

My first shot, nail in a wall. I don't know what happened to this nail, anyway I was surprised for its shape. The fact is I had only 2 hours probably to take the shots before my class starts, thus my mind went on thinking so fast about a solution. The idea was to have a long shadow of the nail but unfortunately, the sun was not in the proper angle in the afternoon. I tried to fix the proportions according to the law of thirds as much as possible, as shooting in this angle was hard. The nail is on a column and a bit high from the ground level, and also on the edge of a small stairway. I had to play around with my tripod until I made it stable and high up above the stair steps and the ground. My teacher said he likes the texture but because he didn't want to announce the names of the photographers when he viewed the pictures, I decided to keep silent and not explain my motive and the things that went wrong for me. The main concept of this image is loneliness, and if there was a shadow it would complete the meaning I had mind. Loneliness vs. Greatness.

Metallic Design

The second picture was taken for the rail of the stair way at home. After taking the image and uploading it to my PC I've noticed that the front portion (top left corner) is a bit blurry which is something I didn't want in fact. Anyway, my teacher liked the concept but, like I thought also, he said the door and the books on the left were a source of distractions. Unfortunately, I can't remove them, and if I was to take the shot in portrait I believe more distractions would be included. He liked the angle and the blur effect (shallow depth). I would crop the distractions but as I said, I wanted the images untouched as much as possible.

Floral Design

The third image, Floral Design, was also from the stairway rail. I had this idea long time ago (but thinking of a panorama for the stairs alone actually). The image was taken with my Tamron 70-300mm, and probably at 200mm or close to that. I was pointing to the rail from a distance of around 2 or 3 meters (~ 6-9 ft). The reason for this is simply, from a close distance I would be able to put my tripod calmly. Because I didn't use a timer here to take the shot, seems the image was shaken a bit, or it was blurred slightly because I used manual focus (always use it with my Tamron). My teacher noted that there is a little shake in the image when viewed in 100%. At this point, my teacher said that apparently this person (i.e. me) likes textures, which is true. I'm not so fond of portraiture.

Qul

I don't remember really what my teacher said about the fourth image, Qul, but the image you see here is actually the adjusted RAW and not the direct JPG that was viewed in the class. Anyway, it is simply a zoom into some Arabic calligraphy engraved on a wall clock in the main hall (living room). Tamron was also used here and I had to raise the tripod higher than my head. The play was in the WB to give more golden streak to the whole thing. I think it was Flash WB.

The clock in the hall (old picture with illusional adjustments)

My teacher is a school by himself, and I guess I'm lucky to be one of his students. Trying patiently to wait for the big bites of info that will make my brain jump a bit. So far, in Level 1 now, the info encountered are mostly well-known to me. Left to say, all of the images except of the first one were submitted to stock sites, but after RAW adjustments. No HDR this time.
My teacher has an impressive photostream on Flickr. Give it a try. He's a genius! As for me, I still hate Flickr for some reason I don't know. I just reject it mentally!

II. Cuvaitum:

One of the surprises that I've encountered this week is, when I wanted to name one of my pictures in Latin, I've discovered that Google Translation engine did include a translation for "Kuwait" in Latin. I didn't know there would be any translation for it really, as mostly the name, specially Kuwait's, is copied as it is in English into various languages. Kuwait was translated as Cuvaitum.
Last Friday morning, and because of the amazing adjustment in my sleeping time, I woke up in the very early morning (with ease), something that doesn't happen when I think of going to work! Anyway, I didn't want to miss the chance and picked my tools, and specially my VR-Head. I can say, I picked it up half-intentionally. I was hoping that I will do some panorama, but I didn't know just yet for what. After having breakfast I was staring around trying to find something, and even drove along the seaside trying to search for a potential. Finally, my eyes was set on a location that I deem, usually, a taboo. I did take pictures from there before but this location is always dangerous to me (me, being someone with past experience with cops). Kuwait Towers.
Now, Kuwait Towers are a pretty nice target for photography at night more than it is in day time (probably only in very early morning or at sunset when you get some special light qualities). I did take some shots long time ago for the towers when I was experimenting back then with my Canon 350D. Sweet old days.

Humid Towers

Kuwait Towers in A Windy Day

But this time the circumstances are different. Completely different. Day time, early morning, the sun is rising and, a panorama. Maybe one thing is common between the old and the new images: all are HDR, and all were manually tone-mapped.
Since I'm working with a panorama, I had to do it as fast as I can for fear of any "undesired" visitors in the early morning (a bit before 7 a.m.). I skipped working out with the nadir and took only direct shots that I didn't use later on. One panorama, many opportunities...

Towers of The Rising Sun

I know that Japan is the land of the rising sun, but are there towers for the rising sun? Oh well. The main difficulty here lies in cloning out the lower portion. I've cropped a bit from the lower part where the VR-Head shows, but this was not the difficult thing to do. It was my shadow with the tripod. Because the ground had a pattern in formation, it was so hard to make it unique, or maybe I'm out of patience to finish this and I couldn't bear in mind working slowly and copy brick by brick. It is possible to make it unique but it's not for me now. I don't have all the time in the world nor the power (cloning work is done in HDR mode, meaning more processing power). I approached the situation with many tricks, the last was to copy a portion of the right corner and paste it over the left portion where my shadow was (after cloning it already) and then do a layer Blend as in stack focus.
The tone-mapping was done manually, i.e. in Photoshop itself and playing around with the curve of the histogram myself. I've been a good boy here and didn't touch other slides like the Threshold and the Radius which caused me grief in the past, and will never learn how to do them adequately. But before tone-mapping, I had to reduce the luminance of the sun and that was done simply by adding Exposure adjustment layer, and with the White dropper I click on the disk of the sun. The image appeared darker in the beginning while the sun was like a dot in the sky (which is the thing I want actually). You have to bear in mind when you work in this way that this is HDR. The luminance data are there and not gone; maybe shifted, but not gone. With this simple correction in Exposure, I've moved to tone-mapping. All the later versions of this panorama, were tone-mapped in the same manner, but maybe the fixes for my shadow were different a bit.

Planeta Cuvaitum

The great advantage here in tone-mapping with Photoshop (which is something I rarely do right now) is that you have a control over certain areas, even though Photoshop's tone-mapping algorithm is considered Global, meaning it effects the whole pixels in the image in the same time. However, with the help of the curve and the histogram. This way, I was able to make the sun as a disk with a halo around it by doing a "U" curve at the end of the line. This "U" curve simply means "high-low-high"; now imagine this to the sun disk (out-middle-inner part) and you will be getting a bright circle, then darker circle, then bright spot in the middle. Are you following? Hope so! Such control is not possible in Photomatix and I did try indeed doing some effect but nothing worked to my taste.

Although I almost chose my location randomly in the area behind the towers (and hoping to keep me a bit hidden from the eyes wandering on the street in the front), I think now I was lucky to pick this location! This was apparent when I went on doing a TV (Tunnel-View) effect for this panorama...

Crescent Sun Towers

The shape of the crescent was indeed random. I didn't plan it. It just happened to be there when I twisted the panorama. Only one thing is annoying me here though; the patch in the sky. Cloning problems are apparent here as you see. Cropping further to hide my shadow or the bad cloning would cut out the fun from the rest of the images with nice patterns made by the pavement, so, I guess I have to bear it as it is.

Two projections though, didn't appeal much to me but I had to do them after all just to make things complete. The Vertical and the "Wide View" or WV. The WV is a term I've made out myself really, since I didn't find any proper names for it. It is a manipulation of the Little Planet projection by changing the angles of Pitch and Roll mainly and fixing the orientation with the Yew.

Nos Regulam Solis

Cropping the sides in this vertical panorama was a hard issue for me and I'm still not satisfied with the final product here. I felt cropping was screwing the balance of the image in general specially that the sun and the towers are not exactly on the same alignment. I had to do the cropping to the side to remove the highly stretched pixels (which is normal in such type of panoramas of course). I think what makes it so hard to decide with the crop is the diagonal lines in the image itself which, if straight, would make for a unidirectional look on the whole thing.

Dancing Towers

Not one of my favorites really. The Dancing Towers is supposed to be something with a comedy twist after all. The twists in the tower were made in HDR mode before tone-mapping by using the Wrap option in Photoshop. The tone-mapping (and adjusting curves later on) didn't help me to add some strong contrast but rather darkening the ground. The other problem was that the ground and the sky portions were too much compared to the main subject: the tower and the sun. I had to crop and cropping here wasn't easy either. The subjects of interest are nudged to the left rather than the center or one of the points of the law of thirds.

QTVR

I was drooling to do a QTVR out of this panorama but unfortunately, things were not easy. The fact that the panorama was tone-mapped manually in Photoshop made me lose one key option here, which is very important for making a QTVR: the seamless blend. In Photomatix, this is simply done by ticking one option while tone-mapping; the "360 panorama" option. I don't know yet how to blend the left and right side seamlessly still using Photoshop as my search on the net was in vain. I even tried to put the final panorama into Photomatix and stabilize the sliders as much as possible to keep the look (changing only the Gamma to fix the contrast) and turning on the 360 panorama option, but even that was in vain. Probably the only real benefit that I've gained so far from such search is to know how to add a label or a logo to my panorama instead of the nadir point in more comfortable way, using PTGui. You can find the tips here in the Support/FAQ webpage of PTGui (with many many other useful info that I didn't read before). The QTVR might need some time to load, plus, of course, the QuickTime plugin.

III. Land, Paper, Wall:

On land, it was the ruins of Hore Abbey, which moved to my camera's sensor to be printed later on. Mom desired something to fit in the living room to change the scenery and she was so fond of Ashford castle in fact, an awkward handheld panorama taken back in 2009 in Co. Mayo, Ireland.

Ashford Castle

Unfortunately, when viewed in 100% I've found that the middle portion of the image is out of focus. Probably I was working in AF mode (a big mistake in panorama venture). The greens also don't appear as they are when converted to CMYK system. I had to convert because of previous experience with this printing shop which seems RGB is not appreciated much (although an expert told me that it is a single print and they should be able to produce it properly in RGB). Anyway, the mistake with the focus was a killer enough to abandon the idea. So, mom picked another shot, the ruins of Hore. I have to say I'm really proud now that she picked my stuff!

Ruins of Hore hanging on the wall of the living room.

The print and the frame prices were fair I'd say, but while watching the process going on (in 2 days) I really wished to have my own tools. I fell in love really with the HP designjet 800ps in the printing shop, but unfortunately it is discontinued, and for sure it costs a fortune!

My signature. Still think it sucks!

However, one of the things that I was limited with is, the type of paper that I could pick. In fact, there was only one variety. I'm sure there are several papers out there that are better (and more expensive, I know), but there was only one type so I had to put it down with that. I wasn't ready to move around to other place to check.
The next thing was, after the print and checking the colors, I went to the framing shop. As I expected they were not that professional I would expect but they did a good job with the frame. I was a little upset about it because when I went back to the framing shop to give them a leaflet with my own signature, the print was rolled up and kept between other stuff. I was a bit angry inside because this is not the way to deal with a print. Also, the matting they provided was not thick enough and seems merely like a cardboard. The leaflet I brought was not stuck or anything but merely fixed, and I didn't get the chance to sign on the matting myself. Anyway, after all, mom is happy with it. I only wish if I have the money to get all these stuff together in one place and do my own prints. My printer supports A4 size maximum, but I wish to have one with A3 size capabilities. Would be awesome and in fact, more elegant to frame in that size I think.
I'm trying now to finish this lovely thin book which my friend got me for my birthday (but didn't get the chance to give it to me in time). It is a practical book and to the point, for beginners. I want to write something for now, but I don't know what. So much is gushing out, yet little words are coming in my mind. For one moment I just wish if I can sit down, one leg on the other, and my palms behind my head, and stare into the world... maybe thinking of No Other Worlds...