Loud and Silent...

It was a week highlighted with anger and relief in the same time. Something weird, but well, not so weird when I look back at all my problems with the future engineers I've met in my college days. But anyway, after being shown on TV twice in a week almost, maybe some awkward people that I've dealt with this week would reconsider when they deal with me personally, or with the group in general.

Earlier this week, and during the Cultural Festival in Kuwait University, the group received some phone calls about a request to prepare for an expo. In the beginning I didn't realize what is it about or where. Later though, I've realized it would be in the faculty of engineering (i.e. college of engineering). It is a place, allow me to say, I despise.
I can make out a novel about this event and all the bad surprises I've met, but I'm going to follow up with some points to make writing this a bit easier:

• Failing to describe the location of the expo perfectly. In the beginning, it was a corridor, then suddenly they told me it's a hall, and then back to reality; it was a corridor. A corridor outdoors is a bad location and I would have said NO, but we were entwined that we had to do it anyway.
• The group's organizer invited one of those so-called organizers for this event to check our gallery in the cultural festival in Kuwait University for a whole three days of the festival and he didn't come to check if the photos are appropriate. He didn't bother himself to come and check. Amazingly he had the guts to lie even and to tell me that he made a contact with our organizer before 2 weeks!
• We were surprised to discover that the event would be just 4 hours and for one day only! Information about the time span was not exposed to the group's organizer as it seems, because he was surprised as I was!
• For such a small event in such small time span, I was so much bugged with phone calls and rush from their side (typical attitude for engineering students).
• Preparation time was changing from afternoon to night and back to afternoon time, and then finally I got a flood of phone calls to come and prepare (and urged to fulfill a promise and agreement as if my word for it was not enough).
• On preparation at night, a friend and I headed to the location and worked (with a bad tape) to fix the images, but before that the so-called organizer swept through the images on the ground as cheap prints. 
• He was begging for pictures of cityscape. Seems he thought that making such photos and printing them is as simple as building a house out of LEGOs. What surprises me is the childish tone used to beg. As we say in Kuwait: A beggar, and putting on conditions!
• I was aware that tapes used to hang the photos are not good enough, thus next morning I came as early as possible with a staple gun to work out on the photos and fix them on the stand by stapling the corner without puncturing the mat board itself. Also, I brought 2 of my framed panoramas with small stands, just to show good will and that we are still want to achieve something good in this event (since he was begging for urban imagery). Anyway, later in the day I had to look for someone to move the stands outside and when this was to be done, they almost crushed my Grand Mosque framed panorama and the stapled photos fell down like leaves in autumn.
• Despite my warnings the night before about the power of the wind in such a passage, yet the future-engineers claimed there is nothing to be afraid of since there are buildings and trees to lessen the power of the wind. The result? Prints flying over my head and on the ground while stands falling down with the slightest blow of wind. One them almost fell down on my head even!

The mess inside the show room after fixing the prints in the morning before moving them out.

 After all of this mess and even more, I got mad and I phoned our leader and he gave me the green card to withdraw and leave them without a photography section. When I left the place (heading home to keep the prints there away from the sun), I felt some RELIEF to end it that way after all the humiliation and the lousy work and arrangements.

After such events, I've started already to plan for some kind of a show in my own work place, the faculty of science - the faculty of engineering's neighbor. The primary negotiations seem promising and I went into the public relations office with one idea and I went out with two ideas or more. A new challenge now arose after the little meeting: creating art from environmental topics and concepts in a form of photography. Hopefully, we will be discussing the matter with the group and see what can be done.

Silent Night:

It was such a quiet (and long) night. Woke up around 10:30 p.m. on Thursday's night, and it was such a long sleep (from 4 p.m.) which I thought it would be simply, a nap. Apparently, my body was so exhausted. As it stroke 3:00 a.m. Friday, the blood was pumping urging to go out in such a night. Tranquil as it may seem, and filled with eerie atmosphere as well.

Himmelsweg
Rokinon 8mm, f/22,
121 sec, ISO 100.

My target that night was the usual gazebo on the seaside - around 10 minutes driving (with traffic lights) from home. This is when the road is quiet of course.
One thing that was absent from my own chain of thought back then: the light pillars. I was heading there in hope of doing long exposures because this is something I was planning to do for a long time now, but the pillars screwed my plans for real! What to do now?
My only solution to this situation was to use the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, as it allows me to approach the subject up real close. So, I've simply went to the gazebo and stood between it and the light pillars. The problem? I can't use any filters. Thus, I had to work out my exposure depending on the readings taken from the gazebo and from there I would decided on the total exposure time (with very small apertures). Another problem that proved to be prevalent later is the distortion which was hard to fix with a suitable outlook to the whole scene - at the end I had to leave images like Himmelsweg and the others without much distortion fixation.

Geistersnacht
Rokinon 8mm, f/22(?), ISO 100
HDR

Working in the almost complete darkness (while stray cats were chewing on my backpack!), I settled and started to do many exposures with different settings and positions. To my surprise at home though, I've realized that I've created almost an HDR out of long exposures! First, however, I had to work with one exposure which resulted in Himmelsweg.  While working on Himmelsweg and trying to fix the exposure and the WB, I've noticed that with Tungsten WB the body of the gazebo would turn green (because it was slightly yellow from the light pillars). Furthermore, when I've merged 5 exposures (90, 120, 130, 663 seconds) to make the HDR image, and then tone-mapped it, the greenish glow of the gazebo was really pronounced. The funny thing is, I'm not sure that all exposures were done at f/22! I remember changing from f/16 to f/22, but... when? This lens is completely manual and nothing is recorded in the EXIF!
Tone-mapping Geistersnacht was followed with some Photoshop work to add a glow or haze and to add contrast and dodge and burn. The original HDR file, however, was saved before tone-mapping to correct for the yellow tint of the gazebo and to try to retain its gray look.

Träumesnacht
Rokinon 8mm, f/22 (?), ISO 100
HDR

There is one old trick to counteract the effect of a color cast by using a Photo Filter adjustment layer. However, you can also use the Color Balance adjustment layer to fix color casts but this might not be so flexible and not so direct, besides that it won't work in HDR (32bit) mode! I was trying to fix the greenish-yellow cast of the gazebo and yield more naturally gray. However, there is another problem waiting for me when using Photo Filter adjustment layer.
The method of using Photo Filter to balance some cast depends majorly on reversing the sign of the a and b in the Lab panel; meaning: if a is minus we change to plus and vice versa, and the same for channel b (and channel L is untouched). However, in 32bit mode, i.e. when working in HDR environment in Photoshop, the Lab is not present, but only the RGB panels (with floating numbers) and HSL panels.
At this moment, I was stuck a bit but some idea about the color of circles made my life easier and I was able to counteract the effect of yellow.

Circle of Colors

As you can see, from the circle of colors, there is an opposite color for each side (or each color). This circle of colors is the concept for the Hue command in today's programs and image editing software base, and that means supposedly that I can cancel each two colors together and neutralize them by adding them together. This is exactly what I used here: click with the eyedropper on the gazebo (under Photo Filter), and change the Hue by adding +180 or subtracting -180; this way you are moving to the opposite side of the circle! It was as I expected, and the result was as in Träumesnacht, where the gazebo was neutralized and the sky was tinted blue because of the neutralization process (and we have a layer mask to control the areas of the effect, but I didn't use it here).

The Hue Fix

This is a fast guide, which inspired me in fact to write a new tutorial as soon as possible for the group to enhance their photo-processing. I will try to explain here with few screen shots, and of course you can click each image to view the full resolution.

The original section from the HDR slide with green overcast.

With Photo Filter adjustment layer, we can choose a type of filter from the menu, or we can click the other option for optional color. We click the second option and a palette is open and now with the eyedropper I click somewhere on the green portion of the image (or any other areas I want to balance). Notice the Hue value is 106^o. Make sure before using the eyedropper that the Layer Mask of the adjustment layer is NOT selected.

We add 180 to the Hue value: 106+180 = 286. We simply put this value down in the Hue space. The result is a magenta color. Simply click OK then. The effect is still not so obvious.

Back to the original Photo Filter dialog box after clicking OK. Here, we increase the Density to 100% to prevail the effect more. Notice how the steps turned balanced and almost with no tint. Remember all this work is done under HDR mode without tone-mapping.

 After the last exposure, I've decided to move in a hurry and get back to my car as the rain started to drop down slowly. Once I've reached the car it started to hammer down faster and faster! Silent night, and a rainy one. Perfect, but with only one thing missing; someone...

Silent Morning:

After finishing with the Silent Night above, I was already excited to have another go the night after, that is Friday/Saturday night. Unfortunately for me, my afternoon nap didn't go well and I've ended up sleeping on and off at late night.

Über die Steinen
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @18mm,
f/14, 60sec, ISO 100.

However, I pulled myself together by early morning time and tried to reach my favorite spot on the beach (near McDonald's) before the sunrise, but the traffic lights delayed me enough to brighten the sky. Well, I'm there already and didn't want to miss a thing. There were some heavy clouds above my head, and some are scattered in the horizon and I thought it is a good chance to start with some long exposure using NDs. The problem here is, to include more details and foreground, I have to use the 18-55mm EF-S which I hate the most - the sharpness of such lens is not reliable and needless to talk about the shaky situation when using a polarizer or NDs on this lens of the shaky focusing-ring.
After some trials and fixing 7 stops of ND on the lens, and after some planning and framing steps, I think I've came to the proper image (which is not on Explored section of Flickr!), Über die Steinen. Originally the image was a full 3:2 frame, and uploaded to some websites that way, but then decided to make it a square to remove an excessive unused space on the right. Of course, at such morning time my favorite WB setting would be the Fluorescent WB, but it didn't make up much difference since the image was harshly tinted with magenta because of the excessive use of ND filters (3+3+1). Even though I've used the White Balance Shift control in the camera itself to bias the White Balance to the green side (opposing the magenta) but It made out a little experimentation in the RAW editor to fix the white balance and retain the colors back. Apparently, controlling the bias has no effect on the NDs tint. GUYS, ALWAYS SHOOT IN RAW!

Ciudad en Rojo
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @35mm, f/8, 3.2sec, ISO 100.

As the time proceeded, the sun kept going on above the horizon, and I thought "why not try some IR?" After all, I'm trying to increase the exposure time to record the movement of the clouds and the IR filter is a good light stopper, but of a special kind!
After some time fluctuating between landscape and portrait orientations, I've settled with a landscape orientation. The IR and the polarizer were fixed on top of each other, a move that I've done before to add more stops (but gives me hard time unscrewing the filters apart later on). I was surprised though; the exposure took only 3.2 seconds at ISO 100! Then I've realized that I'm shooting a bit facing the sun, and the shutter speed would be have been as fast as 8000^-1sec probably if the filters were not used!
On the technical side now, when I started to process Ciudad en Rojo I was going with the typical IR workflow that I've developed for myself. However, since I've realized that Canon's DPP is far better than Photoshop for fixing the white balance of such images, it was natural to start the workflow with this software. The results were not so convincing, so, I switched back to Photoshop and started to edit the RAW file from there. After a glance into the image, and cropping little bit, I did really like the redness of the atmosphere (with a somehow annoying sun). Thus, all what was done is merely a reduction in the Red saturation, and the rest was a regular work of enhancements: dodge and burn, contrast and noise cleaning with the addition of sharpness.
What I really liked about Ciudad de Rojo is the reflections on the sea surface that I didn't notice clearly on location! I'm not sure if it got clearer because of the polarizer and/or the IR filter (a polarizer is more of a candidate of course), but it was a shot of luck indeed (and would have been better with a longer exposure to soften the water surface). While processing the image I had to burn a bit to emphasize the reflections and to my surprise as well, the reflections showed a longer extension downward more than I thought!

Sonne nach Dunkelheit
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @21mm,
f/8, ISO 100, HDR.

Then there was a trial just before leaving (because the rain started to drop down) and it was still with IR filter. This time, the work was bracketed initially to see which exposure RAW would be best to work with (I'm still not used to judging the exposure of IR images on LCD or even histogram). Lately, however, I've realized that I could do with some HDR after fixing the white balance in DPP and convert the files to 16bit TIFF files. Mixing the original RAWs with such hard red tint is not really a good idea for tone-mapping later. However, after fixing the WB in DPP, there were some blue tints within a majorly black and white image (or slightly sepia tinted black and white) and all the resulting TIFFs were merged into one HDR file which was tone-mapped.
The first thing to do then in the processing sequence was to swap the Red and Blue channels (and hence all the blue streaks were turned reddish or yellowish).

 As for now, my queue of books is a bit hovering and my reading pace is slowed down. Getting busy with the group does leave me exhausted most of the time at night time and I can hardly open my eyes and continue reading anything. On the other hand, I have to keep being busy a bit even at home to get further news about contests (international ones specifically). Being busy seems to be an amendment for some issues in my life; as Thomas Edison once said "as a cure for worries, work is better than beer"...
Now, it is time to look for those damn TV tapes!

Bumble Bee...

Well! It is finally here! A great burden is taken off my back! The vocalization process for Alexander's story is complete and the whole 6 chapters are now represented in text, and voice. The whole story can be found here, while the Ayvarith and the vocalization can be found here.
With this project off my back now, it is time to re-schedule many things and fill the gap with many other things I need to do; reading, learning new things, or pushing myself to go outside take photos - and of course pushing my marketing trend a little bit. I'm thinking of editing my website as well and add a new tab for my services as an architectural photographer. Also, I'm thinking seriously of having online classes in ASL.
On the other hand there had been some events taking places, like the workshop that I've attended with my photography group, which proved to be a real challenge. Anyway, the talk will come to this later.
It feels that there are so much to do in such a short time before I have my vacation. If my visa request was accepted that is. If all goes OK, I'd probably be traveling to the US for the first time, for around 3 weeks. In hope of having some nice catches of photos. Yet, I still have this eagerness for the countryside and the Irish soil.
In the meantime, I do think seriously of doing a medical check up for my eyes and my back, and my heart if possible. I know I have been suffering from back pains for a really long time now, but as for my eyes, I'm not sure yet if I'm subject to the hereditary Retinitis Pigmentosa, which runs in the family. So many things to do, and it is summer, and Ramadhan is on the way in few days from now. My visa interview is coming by 31st of July, after the beginning of Ramadhan that is, and by early morning (8 a.m.). So much to do and even a bee would fall dead I believe just thinking about all these chores. Maybe, just maybe, all of this can block my heart away for some time.

Sadeem:

By Saturday, the photography group scheduled a workshop in a marble factory called Sadeem (and just a note, Sadeem means "nebula"). The factory is situated far from the city and urban areas, and around 30 minutes needed to reach the place. However, the heat was not any better away from the city in that industrial area.
After getting into the factory and after a little lecture from our teacher and the leader of the group, Mr Bahaa Al-Qazwini, we went out into the core of the factory where the marble is cut and prepared.

Hoffnung (hope)
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, 1/250 sec., ISO 200. Edited in DxO Optics.

Beside the heat that made my movement a struggle in between the corners of the place, I've forgot my vest and my VR-head. However, I don't think the place would be a good place for a full panorama, but merely the ceiling would make an interesting pattern. Because I didn't wear a vest, I had to put my lenses in my pants' pockets which made my movement awkward. My ISO was set directly to 200 since the place was not sunny and almost completely in open shade. Yet, the hot breeze of air and the dust blowing in the corners made it a struggle after all.

Mechanical Stare
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/3.5,
1/200 sec., ISO 200.

One of the main challenges in that place is the fact that my mind works in an abstractive way. Maybe the bulk of the photographers went on trying to use their flashes with portraiture and trying to capture facial expressions of the workers, but that was not in my interest. Personally, if I was to shoot people with true facial expressions, I would use telephoto and fix my standing point to a certain location. People usually can't keep the same expression for real when they face a camera and they have to make it up.
On the other hand, the factory was not a devastated place to add an element of destruction to my abstract shooting, not it was very well organized to help my vision on working out geometrical shapes. I tried anyway, and I've taken lot of shots that mostly didn't appeal to me.
Shots like Hoffnung were one of the earliest things to note. I'm not sure if there is another photographer who aimed at this internal side of the pipe, but anyway I've found it a good target for my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. Another trial with my Rokinon took place around the crane that is used to lift marble pieces around the factory, as in the Mechanical Stare.

3D Crane

The crane was a target for several shots while moving my body. My main purpose for such a movement with my body while shooting was to catch as many angles as I can and sort the angles back home to find one interesting point of view. However, I've realized then that I can try out some 3D merging and make an anaglyph from any 2 shots. Finally, I've the 3D shot opposite, which made me realize an important formula when creating 3D images with fisheye lenses. Something I needed to know for a long time!
There were many times when my 3D trials with fisheye lenses did fail because of the big distortion. However, now I can see that the closer to the subject I would be, the better it is to make a nicer 3D effect when shooting with a fisheye lens. The distance between the crane and myself was around or lesser than 50cm (lesser than 2ft).

Dilemma
Canon 18-55mm @18mm, f/3.5, 1/125 sec., ISO 200.

Opposition
Canon 18-55mm @24mm, f/3.5,
1/200 sec., ISO 200.

It was not that bad after all anyway. There was still some abstract shots that I can add a touch of mystery to a bit. But surely they needed a sharp eye to notice. Dilemma and Opposition were taken for footprints off the ground. I don't know how they ended up here, but as if they were waiting for me! After the shoot outside, we went back inside and our teacher prepared a studio to make some portrait session for photographers in the group who are interested in this kind of work. I kept watching trying to analyze the movements and actions.
In that very same day, and after the tiresome session in the factory, we had a little gathering party for the group. My teacher announced some goals, aiming at some contests and rewards, which made me think (and still thinking in fact) about my part in all of this. Do I really want to go into contests? Do I want to win? Or maybe I can use this as an advertising tool? Frankly, I'm not sure about my feelings about this matter, as I'm still flipping its sides and trying to arrive at some decision, when the time comes of course.

Morning Glory:

In a trial to relax within such summer (and for those from Europe and US who wait for summer all year long, summer here is some sort of a taboo. It is simply a hell!), I've settled down in one corner on the beach just before sunrise up to one hour after sunrise. My initial idea was to do a long exposure, but as I reached the place I've changed my idea and decided to take several shots like I do for a time-lapse. My idea changed from doing a long exposure to record the waves' movement, into applying an art concept to record the sun and the moon, or maybe mix the changing hues of the sky into a blend like I did once before from the roof of my home.

Cold Summer Day
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/11

Settling down with my tripod in a low level and fixing the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens in portrait position, I've programmed my intervalometer to take a shot every 3 minutes. The final result was 33 shots recording the movement of the sun and the moon across the horizon. I had to study the angle of the sunrise carefully from websites like Wunderground; this angle is also called Azimuth (from Arabic: السمت). Because of the depth (or should I say the distortion) that the lens exhibits, the shape of the moon and the sun was recorded merely as moving dots. Safer for the sensor, probably?
Memory issues made me a headache as usual. Blending 33 images was a goal never achieved, and the image you see on the left is a blend of 11 images only and made out of JPGs instead of TIFFs. Even blending the images was done gradually and not all at once. However, for some reason, I have a belief that some of these errors I got while blending is not related to memory issues, but some algorithm issues and some slides could not be merged because of the movement of water and rocks (and trash) in between the slides.

Transition

Another trial to blend, but manually this time. It was an exhaustive work indeed with a lot of Layer Masks. The idea is simple but achieving it needs time. Well, some people might argue this is not photography at all, and simply "photoshopping", but as you can see... I did indeed take these shots! It is just the vision and the idea that plays the role in all of this, even in photography. The only thing I'm regretting about Transition is the fact that the moon is not visible in this blend. However, when I checked the single slides I've taken, I got encouraged for a longer exposure at that same level during a high tide time to record the advancing waves. What lens and what time it would be, this is something I need to check out and study for a while.

Long Exposures:

As I'm a member of a group right now, and as I'm trying to contribute to this community of photographers, I've decided to write down an article about my experience with long exposures. My experience is nothing compared to others I believe, but anyway, I hope it is a guide for the new comers in this community.
The thing is, I'm more fluent in explaining things in English and not Arabic, so I just hope they find this article useful (specially with the mathematics involved). I'm posting the article in parts in the group's forum, but you find it here. Pardon for the lousy format; writing documents is not my thing at all!





Remember this is all about my experience. Not a professional advice I would say, but I hope they are beneficial for other readers.


Now, with this heavy head, I'm not sure where I'm heading with my life, but maybe I should start thinking of getting busy is far better than getting wrapped up in my own emotions. Now with my chores in my work place being over with gradually, I do have more and more time at hand and maybe even reading books won't do to fill the gap in time right now. What to do, I just don't know...

Darkness, Mornings...

Maybe not one of these weeks that I would call "brilliant" but I had the chance, at least, to work out with my camera. It's weird when some times you feel the whole world against you and still, you survive.
On with the latest updates now, my car needs around 600KD at least (~$US 2100). This, alone, will make me delay a lot of plans I had in my mind. I will pay for this by credit card so I can make installments myself. I'm so sick of cars and so sick of driving this piece of junk specifically. It seems my luck with cars has never been friendly.
Lot of things now will get delayed as I said. A vacation plan, new orders of books and tools, but maybe the worst of all is that I won't be able to take the chance right now with such purchases, since the dollar is low against the dinar for the time being and it would be nice to order something right now. I don't think this status will last long.

I. Good Mornings:
Been trying to push myself to work a bit with my camera, specially with such an idle and boring weekend. My sleeping time was a bit disturbed and I used that to my benefit. It helped me out to rise up in the morning (well, stay awake until morning is more accurate) and rush to do some work by the seaside. This time though, I decided to go a relatively far away place from my home. My usual spot was around Burger King restaurant on the seaside, this time I picked McDonald's site. This site specifically was a point I remember very well when I took a shot with my very old Sony Cybershot W-30 (I hope the model number is correct though!!) which was 6MP only back then. Boy, wasn't I so happy when I first got it for around 89KD (~319 US$ in today's rate). It was a big deal of money back then. Now, I do wish if I can find a good deal for this amount of money!
The first trial on first day of weekend was lucky for me because of the clouds scattering in the sky, but one thing unfortunately was forgotten; a long exposure trial.

Good Morning Kuwait I

Good Morning Kuwait II

Good Morning Kuwait III

Good Morning Kuwait IV

Good Morning Kuwait V

Good Morning Kuwait VI

Patefacio Gazebo

I was working in a fast pace and changing my lenses as fast as I can because, as well-known by now, the sun would rise so fast above the horizon. Mainly I've used the 18-55mm lens @18mm with the first 4 shots, while the 5th and 6th were done using my relatively-new 8mm Rokinon fisheye lens. I think the 5th and 6th shots are nice in terms of depth (typical for such a fisheye lens) but I think I've screwed it up with my framing skills. Feels like the edges are not right.

The final shot, Patefacio Gazebo, was taken using Tamron 70-300mm @300mm plus vivitar's x2 extension, which makes it @600mm. If you look carefully at the previous shots, you will see that this gazebo-like structure was on the other side or shore, on the line of the horizon.

The main problem in all of that is the chromatic aberrations, specially using the 8mm Rokinon (even at f/8 or so) and using the Tamron. The images are, of course, HDR processed, and this helped me naturally in pronouncing the colors more and controlling the light of the scene, but however, the HDR pronounces these aberrations more severely that it is hard to remove them. Patefacio Gazebo was the hardest to deal with and yet in the original image you can still see cyan infringing lines around the edges. I tried to hide the cyan and magenta lines around the edges by using Hue/Saturation adjustment layers, which reduced the effect, but did not solve the problem.

On the next day, I ran with the same schedule. Been to the same location around the same time or a bit earlier even but I got struck with two major problems:

1. The azimuth (the place from which the sun rises, measured from the north direction) seems to have changed significantly the next day.
2. The sky was heavily loaded with clouds like one big mass instead of the scattering that was there the day before.

The reason I got back was in fact to try to take a long exposure (something more than 30 seconds in general) and with such a mass of clouds maybe the effect won't be pronounced very well. Not to say that I was planning (and did use) my 8mm Rokinon fisheye lens, and to work with the stops here you have to provide it by changing the aperture size and/or the ISO (for example). However, I made some trials by placing my Cokin filters held by hand in front of the lens and I got funny shots really.

Aurora Cuvaitum

Despite the heavy mass of clouds, I decided to go on with my trial for a long exposure. I did many 60 seconds (and one or two of 80 seconds) but the one above seemed more appealing than the others. The long exposure was somehow enough to record some movement and blur some parts of the sky because of the clouds' drag across the sky. It would be far more better with a scattered cloudscape but this one seemed fine It gave out an aurora-like formation (hence the name), and also of course, some chromatic aberrations. When dealing with long exposure it is after all one RAW file (or JPG, but not advised to work with JPGs) and no HDR technique can be used, theoretically. I can take maybe 3 images with 3 different exposures manually, but that would be impractical and time consuming (imagine taking 30, 60, 90 seconds). However, it is an interesting experiment to do one day specially with moving objects like the clouds.

II. Darkness Gush:

For the time being, I'm also enjoying doing some "darkness" work. Vampires, creatures or whatever you may call them. My brother had been helping me with these stuff too and in fact, he gave me a lot of advices concerning some features. I can tell though not many people like what I do here, as I received a lot of dislikes (and some were horrified indeed, but that kind of makes me happy!).

Der Höllesstreunender
The Hell Stray

Why I chose German to name this image is something beyond my own understanding even. I simply felt it fits there. I've received a comment about the hand; some people like it that way. My brother, however, made some comments about the looks in general, specially the fangs. I have to keep those in mind for any further work in this venture. I'm still trying to work on some of those images from that session. Too bad it got rejected from some stock websites (for technical reasons). The work was a heavy load of Liquify usage in Photoshop, beside some stretching and scaling process, and that of course caused some pixels to be "abnormal" and/or blurred.

After this week I'm sort of happy for getting into the winter mood and being able to catch something, even though sleeping is the price to be paid. I'm looking forward for more, and also some panoramas to be done, when feasible.
I'm still thinking about the project that I had to abandon. I'm somehow attached to it but... how to go on... this is another question, and definitely requires a periphery of different people other than those surrounding me right now...

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...

Stimulus

Quiet weekend. Not going out or anything but sitting here facing my photoshop and mangling with my photos. I woke up at almost 9 p.m. last night and stayed awake until the morning of today. Diarrhea was attacking me now and then. I think it is a consequence of the change in weather or the wave of dust we had lately here. However, by the morning time and just before the sunrise begins, I started the engine and went over to the beach beside some restaurants there to try to catch a glance of the Kuwait Towers and convert the images into an HDR. Boy, was I sick of the situation! Kids and families were sitting there before the break of dawn and playing soccer as well! The most amazing interaction was, when I was pointing my camera in some direction and then suddenly and icecream guy looked at me and just stood there and not budging. I know what's the definition of being rude but this guy can be set as an example!

However, I left the beach in a hurry as I couldn't catch much and the sun started to rise already. I think HDR are best when you have a dark atmosphere somehow and not to catch photos under plain lights. This is my impression at least. I might post some photos for the Kuwait towers later on though.
After leaving the beach I was heading to some market to buy some stuff for my own breakfast but unforutnately on the way I felt such a severe pain that made me get a U-turn and head back. On the way back though, and despite the pain, I decided to stop a moment after I glanced some view that captured my attention, and so I decided to snap it. Of course, after snapping, the work at home starts:

The picture above was taken from several angles but I think this is the best angle it was taken with. At home, the picture was composed into HDR and then several processes took place to enhance colors and give some other effects to the image. This scene reflects the old and the new Kuwait and whether we are building or knocking down our heritage to be a nation without a history. The old muddy house below dates back somehow to the 1950s at least, judging from the way it was structured.

Last night as well, and since I was not going out anywhere, I spent most of the time playing around at some of the photos I took of the dome, that I snapped on the 12th. I had a problem since the best image I had and composed into an HDR was in fact not centered and the right side of the image was cut. After many, many, many trials and hours of working on it, I think I got a fine result by now, although I can't say it is as pretty as the one I did before and posted in the last entry. This image was composed of sticking and gluing parts of other images together and doing a short panoramic merge for 2 images and then taking parts from other images to fix the lost area. After all, I took the complete half (left side) of the image and tried to complete the right side with it. When all failed because of the light and shadow in the image itself, I got some success, when I converted the image into a rectangular coordinates then back to polar (guys who deal with photoshop know this from the distort menu). This move filled in some empty spaces in the image which made me crop it later on with some equality on the sides.

Just few hours ago, I was also working on the panoramic view, taken from the same hall of dome, and despite the colors, it had in fact lot of noise and remove them I had to sacrifice somehow with the sharpness of the image, which makes me reluctant a bit to submit it to stock photos sites. They are hard to accept such "normal" photos even! The real size of the image is supposed to be 240cm tall and around 110cm wide, and sorry can't convert this to feet right now!

Notice that the "pipe" looking thing at the top of the image, is in fact the pillar that was just behind the camera. The photo shoot was running from the ground level (at 0 degrees) and I was pushing the camera upward for few degrees between every shoot. At the end, when the camera was at the final position (90 degrees) you can see the result is a pillar going on the top of the image!
i have to make some cleaning for the images taken in the past 3 days. I have 3 folders so far and the PSD (photoshop format) files are mixed with JPGs. The size of the 3 folders reached almost 2GB!!! I have to remove stuff, and store it the usual way in its own folder to be packed later on on a DVD, but that does not mean my work with the dome is over yet. I'm still planning to look more into it so I might get a new idea and new construction that can be made with what I have so far.
An idea just occured to me, I might make a shoot of my own work place from the outside. But such a building is a sensitive place to be posted in stock photos!

It had been some days now and I didn't do any work with my Alexander's story, which made this blog more like an artistic place for photography and not the conlang of Ayvarith. The translation is almost stopped. I have to think of some way to stimulate me on writing more of the translation! Now, with my partner's coming back from vacation, I think I might have some time for myself and try to write down both, the Alexander's translation and the Blackened Image story. The month of fasting, Ramadhan, is on the doors by next week or so, thus I don't know how am I going to do, specially that I need some stimulants (coffee, redbull, ...etc). I pray my mood would be in a better situation by the coming days. Mood is very important in writing, and for this I didn't write any poems lately, and my pace with other activities is downed. All what I'm waiting for, for now, is my vacation...