Dormantile

Well, this is my first ever post to be done with this new Blogspot platform changes. Everything is so white here and I don't know if I can change things later. However, I really don't have the mood to even think about doing changes to this. Why does everything I get used to change? How do people get the time to adapt to new changes every now and then? 

Anyway, never mind the grumpy mood and the whining here from the very beginning of this blog post. I've lost track of my posts and I didn't have much material to be posted here anyway. I was seriously thinking of stopping to blog for a while. My life with the camera and conlangs had been significantly dormant. I could hardly motivate myself to do any work or even think of any idea. If, by miracle, I do think of an idea, then I'd not the power (and mood) to work on it. 

Yarding

I guess I'm inventing new words into English. Hope you don't mind; English is not my first language and I'm trying to be innovative in the last bits of mind that are left intact still. Anyway, the term "yarding" is just a term I'd like to use for my activities in the yard, where I take my sunbath almost on a daily basis. Now that we have some nice and shiny plants, I've been trying for many times to get away with some shots, specially in ultraviolet. My attempts, though, failed miserably for most of the time. No denying that such failure did put me down even further, and made me lose the appetite to hold the camera often. A whirl of emotions that was, and still is, hard to get out from.

The yard as shot with my favorite Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens from my room's window; (top) normal, (bottom) Red/Blue channel swap. The rectangle at the center is the swimming pool.

One thing (to be positive a bit here) brings me joy though, is when I go out to check the yard and all the plants there that I've been watering myself (not every day) and some of them were planted by me personally. Anyway, I was thinking of some sort of a challenge with my own like I used to do back in the day when I would go to work every morning taking my camera with one lens only, as a challenge to squeeze creative juices out of this rotten brain of mine. Probably thinking too much about ultraviolet and infrared photography did ruin (in some sense) my appetite for just normal photography trends.

HDR version of the same shot.

 

Noticeably though that I've stopped thinking about doing bracketed shots (for HDR merging later), and this is good and bad in the same time. Probably I've stopped thinking of shooting in HDR as I usually do because of the long immersion with infrared and ultraviolet in the past few months (because I usually don't shoot bracketed for such type of photography). Anyway, this is a good and bad point as I've mentioned, because bracketed shots do have the initiatives for more artistic work and not necessarily just for HDR merging, specially as I've learned some new editing techniques that basically uses under-exposed images (or pulling back the exposure down for a properly/brightly exposed image). But did you really think I could stop shooting infrared or ultraviolet?

 

InfraPots

 And just to get myself ongoing with the camera work, I've decided to play around with my fisheye lens (Rokinon's 8mm of course) in the yard, fit on my modified 7D. Since I didn't do a panorama in AGES, I've decided to shoot a little one. I was stuck between the swimming pool and the scene I wanted, so this lens was the best for the job here. And just as if I do need more problems as it is with this very simple shoot, the weather was humid and I had to shoot the scene twice after noticing how humidity blurred the corners of some shots.

InfraPots (Red/Blue swap)

Since the work was with the Rokinon fisheye lens, I didn't really put any filter into the lens to shoot infrared with my modified camera. So, probably I shouldn't call InfraPots with such a name since the image is, technically speaking, a combination of visible and infrared spectra. Shooting without a filter, even under a harsh sun, does make it easier to shoot in brackets for HDR, which I did here even though I didn't go crazy with tone-mapping like I did with the yard shot above. Stitching the panorama, as expected, did bear a lot of stitching errors; I've fixed some and neglected some. I really didn't want to waste much time with something I'm doing merely for fun and to get me going with my camera and break the dormancy. What I like here is the lines on the wall; These are not visible in reality, but only when shot in infrared (or infrared+visible). As you can see, too, that my shadow is on the ground in this panorama, so it is absolutely not something I would be wasting my time on fixing it. Shooting a panorama here would require a lot of work, and with the pool installed at the middle of the yard, it would be hard to setup a tripod even.

Lustrous Green

With all that shooting during the daytime, I have to admit that it is probably by night that the plants (though simple compared to other professional gardens and other floral arts) do look fabulous; With all the LED lights in the yard that give a soft touch of light to the leaves. Finding a proper composition was not something to really work with specially in a (sort of) stacked yard like this but I tried. I've relied heavily though on the post-processing aspects, as in Lustrous Green and those that would come afterward. The main point though is to focus on shooting dark on purpose and processing the image with that intent in mind and not adjusting the exposure to get every detail possible from the shades of the image. With my 50mm at f/1.4 it was not a problem to shoot handheld in such a dark place with faint lights. The shutter speeds were just about enough at ISO100. Though later, I think, I've increased the ISO up to 200. No HDR shooting this time though. 

 

The Bright Side of Shade

Bougainvillea Stoccata
Click to enlarge

Something that night pulled toward minimalism and abstract work, but probably this is natural in such place and such limitation (of lens). The lens itself does not give me enough distance to include large bodies into the image (and it is the only f/1.4 lens I have), but nevertheless, I'm just happy to work with it that way. I don't mind abstract or minimalism after all, even though I know that around my circles, such forms of photos are not quite appreciated except in few instances for whatever reason that could be. The whole thing sounded like a "picture-hunting" challenge, like those I've used to do at work, but a nocturnal version of it. At some point, some of these images were actually dark; too dark. Apparently I have to adjust my LCD settings to make sure that I get a close representation for the lighting of the scene. Yes, I did a mistake here for not checking the histogram. Anyway, it was not a big deal as I went on with processing these dark or semi-dark images specially that I don't need a bright image anyway; I needed a representation for the night in these images after all. The image Bougainvillea Stoccata inspired me to start with something (along with a previous re-make of an older panorama) but I think I will leave that for another blog post.

Tranquil Solitude
Click to enlarge

So, I got somewhat encouraged to hunt again, and this time during the day (morning time). And Ta Da, it was humid. Probably you can tell already how much I miss winter already as it is. Anyway, this time, I was more dedicated to find some details, and in order to do that, I've connected my 12mm extension tube to the 50mm; This is just to get closer and not to shoot macro (the magnification factor here is way below 1x). One of the striking shots (to me that is, I don't mean to the outside world) is a somewhat macro shot for the bloom of Portulaca oleracea (or some related plant) which I've struggled to shoot before specially in extreme macro conditions (reversing my 20mm lens and using a rail just to get it right, and never did). Turned out that this simple sitting of 12mm extension tube and 50mm lens was just about enough to get some nice details of the little bloom (diameter might be a bit more than 1cm). The reason for fitting a 12mm extension tube is not to do any work for macro actually; As explained, the magnification ratio is way below 1x. But I had to use it to shoot at a close distance because of the pool in the middle of the yard which limits my distancing from the plants (the shortest focusing distance for Canon's 50mm is 45cm). Anyway, I've used apertures between f/1.4 to f/2.8 to shoot several images (and still under inspection as I'm typing these words now). When checking Tranquil Solitude the photo looked promising even though there was maybe a slight motion blur (caused by the breeze) which I tried to compensate for by selectively sharpening (using NIK) the bloom. The image had undergone massive crops which probably enhanced the "proximity" of the bloom giving, maybe, the allusion that it is a macro shot at 1x. The cropping was due to some undesired elements and distractions in fact and also to re-locate the bloom at one of the cardinal points in the law of thirds (golden ratio in fact). Still, it looks not bad and I might considering uploading Tranquil Solitude to the stocks at some point.

Green Delight

Now, since I didn't process or check closely all the images I've shot in that morning, but Green Delight was one of the images that got my attention from the first round of check-up. The light green hues grabbed my attention already without editing even. In editing, I've increased the brightness on various levels as much as possible and then stretched the blacks or shadows almost to the end. Finally, the image was sharpened selectively at some specific zones of the images. Another thing I like about this one is the fact that the maize leaves acted as a background (to most of the image). The image was also cropped according to the triangular method which fitted the two (left and right) branches perfectly.

(Golden) Triangle crop marks labeled on Green Delight

I have to note though this is usually not the proper way to use this method of composition or cropping, because the trend is to use the spaces (the triangles) to put the elements within, and not the lines to set the boundaries in the image. However, it is a work of art and I guess we need to experiment from time to time. The whole thing is an experiment after all.

Finale

First of all, I have to say that this new design for Blogspot is really giving me a hard time typing the post and organizing the photos. So, you might have already noticed (if you reached this point in reading that is) that there gaps and texts stuck to the photos. I've also stopped checking the statistics of the blogs here because of the bulky design and navigating through the options and too many clicks just to check a graph or see origins of hits. Why do they do this? Why do developers like to complicate other people's lives? Specifically, my life; As if I don't have headaches of my own.

I wanted to talk a bit further about other things and ideas that have crossed my mind lately and I'm trying to work on them currently, but I'll keep these ideas for later posts, hopefully. One of these ideas involve re-working panoramas, and another one involves breaking the conventional photo display. The latter one is still under inspection and I'm trying to find the ins and outs and form some ideas about the... idea (if that makes sense). Anyway, we'll see if I can post in 2 weeks time. 

I think I've been grumpy enough at the beginning of this post, so I guess I don't need to pour more into it here in the closing of this post. Everyone is waiting for 2020 to finish as if things will be better by 2021. I really don't know how they got this idea as if circumstances and epidemics do count the years and are limited by some time limits. To me, I don't find much difference anymore in the passing of time. All I want is a garden, or a sea, and some birds; And if possible, to die there as well…

Anocht…

It sounds like a slow-paced week here. Probably because it comes after the holidays. Ah well. It's not the first time. People here, most of them in fact, live from one holiday to another, and from weekend to another, and nothing to be called "living" in between. This is the case with me too, but I try my best to keep myself busy with my own projects as much as possible (despite the physical fatigue). I'm still learning the art of "time management".

Anocht

I've finally managed to go out at night and do some shooting! Seriously, it does feel like a miracle happened of some sort. Anyway, the trick is not to sleep afternoons, but later, to wake up a bit late! Oh, and to pack your tools and stuff earlier so you won't have to do them on time before going out - this thing can be a real hassle and put you down (specially if you are as moody as I am).
The chosen location is somewhere on the seaside (as usual); a pier. This pier specifically was closed for a long time as far as I remember and only been open some months ago. I paid a visit the week before to see what was the situation there and get myself familiar with it. Unlike the pier in Sharg area (Soug Sharg that is), in which I've worked before, this pier seems busy at night somewhat and doesn't get quiet a single minute!

The new location (red arrow) compared to the Sharg pier (blue arrow).

The first experiment there wasn't of much interest in fact. I got out with 3 shots, and to my standards, they are regulars. The architecture of the pier is not fanciful like the one at Sharg, but I'd say it has a potential. I don't think a panorama is possible there with the busy fishermen out there but it seems quite a place for some long exposures.

Canon EF 50mm, f/16, 20m, ISO100.

The first wasn't good, mainly because of nudging aside to allow people to pass. The pier's passage was narrow so I was forced to move a bit to the left to give some space. However, my aim was to get some "depth" despite the very simply structure. Anyway, can't complain. But probably I should have used a fisheye lens here rather than 50mm lens. I tried to fix the perspective in this image but it didn't work out well, and the trails (probably for planets more than stars) were not abundant (probably because I was facing east at this point). Processing was a compromise between contrasts of various regions. You can see in the horizon some blue flashes made by LED lights that fishermen use in their work, but anyway they were not a problem for the exposure after all. The blue spots on the passage are probably caused by fishermen passing by back and forth (as far as I remember it was dry to reflect anything). Probably this image can serve as a minimalistic one, but definitely not for printing with this amount of noise; which when cleared, will reduce the trails even further.

Midnight Showers
Canon EF 15mm fisheye, f/9, 9m, ISO100.

The second shot was, again, another trial. I had hard time framing Midnight Showers, specially with the dark atmosphere on the pier. I didn't have the time to use the white balance disk so I just fixed the WB value to Fluorescent WB, and all should be fixed later in RAW editing. I had to crop it a lot and because of the curvature of the horizon I couldn't really balance the image (fixing one line tilts the others). Even though I could have processed it in a proper way to make everything smooth and crisp but that would put down the few star trails in the sky. Thus, I've decided to abandon the idea of a "good" print and just processed the image in a way to show as much trails as possible, and cleaned the noise as much as possible. The nice thing about this image (though good in small size but not in a large one) is that star trails did really appear while city was surrounding the place. Probably if I used a wider aperture a bit the lines would be more prominent (but the exposure would be shorter of course). And like many do successive 30 seconds exposures for star trails and merge them later, probably successive long exposures would be possible too! I did that already in fact but in a sense of HDR merging (by reducing the exposure time to half between one shot and another).

Luminance
Canon EF 15mm fisheye, f/9, 65s, ISO100.

The last shot was toward this city this time. The main interest for me was the reflections on the water surface, which seemed like colorful columns. It sounds bad already for not having a book with me to read a bit while long exposures are done but anyway it was a good thing to meditate around and notice such colorful columns of light. In Luminance, the long exposure here is not only essential to achieve the required exposure for a good image, but also essential to smooth out the water surface. The water surface was relatively calm (seen a raging sea around here before) but the small ripples surely can benefit from a little longer exposure like one minute to be smoothed out as seen in Luminance. When thinking about it, in fact in a raging situation or higher tides and quite active ripples, one would need a shorter exposure relatively; at least this is what my experience foretold so far!
With these simple 3 shots, I'm hoping to get active in the last few days of winter before the weather becomes unbearable here. Going out this time was in the spur of the moment; no planning or anything, unlike in the old times when I had to observe the times for high and low tides. Coming to think about it, it is probably time to get back to the old locations along the beach of Salmiyah where I used to take shots in the old times, and this time try to go deeper in a low tide to have some proper long exposures. However, I might as well benefit from having boots!

Twitching

In the meantime, I've began already working on converting what have been previously done and processed of images from Ireland last year into B&W. Not all seem to fit of course so I'm trying to pick specific ones. Most of the time this conversion to B&W comes with a tint.

Uaigneach agus ag Fanacht
(lonely and waiting)

Na Riasca Gorma
(the blue marshes)

In most of these conversions, my starting point would be by using the Infrared preset in Black and White adjustment layer in Photoshop. Thanks to its unusual toning, this preset provides a somewhat inspirational kick for the coming steps later on. Some images were tinted with a monotone, like Uaigneach agus ag Fanacht many others, and some were tinted with a duotone like Na Riasca Gorma. However, in general, I wouldn't go with a duotone much right now for the large portion of possibilities and it's quite hard to settle with a combination (beside the different ways available to apply the effect). Images like Na Riasca Gorma was quite familiar in some websites and instagram and was favored by many for the combination of colors (blue and gold), which were complimentary. There were also some panoramas involved in this process but I'll keep them for later probably. My 9^th album of images from Ireland 2014 will be completely made out from B&W images of various types (landscape, macro, panorama, ...etc).
Along this trend, there is another line of thought (and it is giving me a headache already!) which is going back to old panoramas and trying to achieve something new under the light of the new projection styles that I've discovered, or let's say noticed. Panoramas from my visit to Staten Island, NYC, are of particular interest in this but I'm going back also to my 2010 visit to Cashel, Co. Tipperary in Ireland.

Hell to Heaven

In particular, the panorama taken from the Grotto are of special interest to me for the particular atmosphere attached to it. Unfortunately here, and for some reason I didn't realize yet, Hell to Heaven was stitched with patches of colors and some smudges (caused mainly by out-of-range HDR slides). I don't remember this thing happened in this panorama particularly specially when I printed it first time and sent it to my friend in Staten Island. Anyway, because of my intentions I didn't really care much about the matter since the overall and the final image is supposed to be small as you see above. Those smudges are hard to notice in smaller sizes and with increasing the sharpness in the image these are reduced. Of course, it was done with the help of Mercator projection and some change in the viewing angle. At the end of the process, a glamor effect was added to enhance the "dreamy" look about it.

Doppelbrennpunkte
(double foci)

However, not only these panoramas from Ireland and NYC were of interest, but even older ones like those taken here, and specifically the gazebo-like structure in Salmiyah, Kuwait. This panorama specifically was involved in many activities, but particularly two activities made it a "top": Mawahb fair, and the luxurious coffee table book printed by Trierenberg circle (sponsors of Austria's International Photography contest). However, in these 2 activities, the same panorama had different projection styles. Now, I decide to go further and try what I've noticed lately with Mercator projection and made out Doppelbrennpunkte. It was hard to decide on what kind of angular view I want to achieve here, but the biggest problem was that this panorama was not perfectly centralized (apparently for the problems in location itself). I settled down with what I call "Extreme Mercator" and centralized the fountain and the the dome (but reversed it so that the dome is at bottom for added surreal effect). The problem here is apparent, with the left side being thicker than the right side with columns stretching out. A friend pointed out the following when he saw Doppenbrennpunkte: Is it possible to make the foci (or centers) of the image in the corners instead of making the panorama twirl around a central point? His question is quite reasonable, and I'm to try that in the coming few days. However, one must bear in mind that the architecture of the place is the one that decides what would be or can be done about the features in it.

Palinopsia

Back to Staten Island with another panorama. particularly one done in the porch of the Victorian (B&B). This panorama in particular was "dormant," meaning not much could have been done about it because of the design of the place itself and the scattering furniture. Anyway, I decided to try the "Extreme Mercator" approach and somehow found some satisfaction when I made Palinopsia. The image looks split in half because of the matched left and right horizontal line meeting at the center (through the roof of course). Anyway, this is not the point I'm putting this here.
The real point about it is, I was tone-mapping (working out the original HDR) this panorama and it did take me particularly long time to achieve the desired look. However, it needed further work in Photoshop to enhance contrast further more and eliminate some colors problems. My first goal was to achieve a status of "fear," "uncertainty," and/or "melancholy" (Palinopsia: visual hallucinations). For this reason I worked in a low-saturation environment and I've increased the portion of black and its shades in the image to give a dark impulse to the scene. This is somewhat a challenge to do because I was trying to achieve a "dark" atmosphere using a relatively happy scene (filled with bright colors in furniture and plants).
Now, to the core of the story. To my surprise, my sister commented on this image saying "the colors are happy" (i.e. the colors emit or radiate a good mood)! I'm not sure how did that come up, and whether it is her only or other people do share this opinion. Increasing blacks and reducing saturation is usually a fingerprint for a psychosomatic atmosphere. Did she concentrate on a specific color in particular and that affected all her feelings about the image? Was it the curves that did (unconsciously) affect her enjoyment about the image without noticing the general atmosphere I'm trying to achieve? Or, is it me that didn't notice the happy aspect of the image? It's quite a puzzle to me. I did tell her that I was trying to make the image "melancholic"; however, no response from her so far, and we didn't talk about it in real. I think some interesting information can be learned in this little experiment!

Finale

At the end, I'm here trying to take life on my own pace. Trying to calm down a bit, and kicking negativity out as much as possible (but it's even a harder job to do when you live in the core of it).
Meanwhile, I'm reading articles and lessons on the web for learning Irish, but of course they are not completely sufficient until they are put into practice but it is a beginning after all. I have to say that reading and teaching myself some Irish did in fact open up gates of knowledge and insight into languages in general, and my own dialect in particular, as we usually speak without thinking why do we say things the way they are but it does sound just right for us that way! Nothing like that happened with me since the creation of Ayvarith. One of the ways I'm using now to force myself into digging deeper into the language and learn more, is translating quotes from Arabic mainly into Irish; this procedure would normally force me to dig the dictionaries and read more to try to achieve the best translation possible.

I'm sure there are a number of mistakes there of course, so I'm just hoping someone would correct me whenever possible. Beside learning the languages I'm keeping myself busy with the images at home and books at work. This workplace must be changed at a certain point of my life for sure.
On the other hand, I've finally extracted something out of my mind to call it a "poem." I can't be a critique for my own works but at least I was able to write something in the whim of the moment, and I called it The Wind of Daisies. Maybe I should specify some special time for such mental processes and write something down. I need to get back to poetry a bit because it is a good vent, and I remember that pretty well from my early 20s. Meanwhile, there had been an interesting offer sent to me to spread some of my images for some commercial benefits. I'm going through it step by step and hopefully it can be a good starting point to the outer world. And I'm hoping this is better than submitting my photos to stock websites. One step at a time. Probably there will be a number of images that I would need to delete from stock websites soon. Hopefully by keeping myself busy, I'll forget a lot of my failures...

Panoday...

It is a rainy day, and what you do in a rainy day? Of course! You go out and do a panorama! Not only that, but doing an infrared panorama too! Anyway before I move to the panorama part, let's see what I did last night.

It was slippery and apparently my brother's "non-sensical" advice to travel with boots suddenly sounded very, very, very reasonable. My shoes keep leaking water so, you can imagine the rest! I had to spend the rest of the night with cold and dump feet. The result were "kind of" promising though.

Oíche sa Uachtar Ard

The thing is, I've been doing long exposure at ISO 800. Yes, ISO 800, and done in bracketing form, like taking several shots ranging from around 20 minutes and down to 8 seconds. The shots were mainly taken with 8mm fisheye but then I changed to my 15mm fisheye lens just to test things. The shot above, Oíche sa Uachtar Ard, was taken with highest ISO available (12800), which was kind of a trial to measure the exposure needed at low ISO, but I've found it quite interesting! The only problem here is, it is at high ISO. It is good as long as you keep it small to avoid making the noise pop out in your eyes! Now as I'm typing this, I'm waiting for the darkness to settle in and maybe go out again and try tonight for some exposures from some different location if possible. It is windy today and rainy, so let's hope no bad surprises pop out!

As for the panoramas done today, well, my PTGUI is not working properly on this laptop thus I don't have the proper tool to sketch even for a test to see how it is going. Photoshop is not a proper tool for panoramas for its lack of options (the process is completely automated), and also, this laptop is not good enough for the memory it is using to stitch. I was hoping to post a test of the infrared panorama done today but seems it's not possible for now. It all has to wait till I get back to Kuwait.
Locations included in the "roll" today were: the front, the parking lot, the lounge, the corridor and the dining (breakfast) room. Probably tomorrow, if I have enough power to carry those stuff, the Aughnanure castle would be my next target.

Secret Spot...

QTVR ahead. Give some time to load and be sure you install QuickTime to view it

My vacation is over, and I'm already dying to start a new one. The summer is hovering over making it harder to breath even at some point. Fasting is putting my down a bit; it's the month of Rajab and like the previous 3 years, I usually start fasting in this month, and if I can, I would add the next month, Sha`ban, to it. Then comes Ramadhan. However tiresome I might get, Ramadhan will always get me down further even though the working hours are shortened.
Anyway, today I'm going to talk a bit about a special place that I planned to shoot in for a year or more even but never had the chance till few weeks back.

Secret Spot

This is not completely a secret spot, but I like to call it so because it is somehow deep and isolate. It is a piece of land from the beach isolated from the rest of the urban features around it with an artificial cliff of rocks. In high tide time, the water level gets really high that it is almost impossible to stand there and work for a long time (even though I did that already in fact!).

Das Licht Der Dunkelheims
The secret spot is not far from this location fair straight and down.

As stated in the image caption, that location isn't far from there. First of all, I paid a visit to the place with my regular intentions to study the location and see what I can do with it. This simple visit paid well with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens!

Washing Shore
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, HDR, ISO100.

My single shot there back that night, Washing Shore, seemed to get the attention of the viewers. I planned it in such a way to make a curvy line leading the viewer from the bottom right corner to the top portion of the image in a curve. Two bad parts here though:

• The building on the left, which seems to weaken the image for me.
• The noise and processing later on.

 Because of the temperature, the noise was unavoidable with this HDR image done completely with long exposures (ranging from 8 minutes down to 30 seconds). The final result was some complicated smoothed and sharpened details all over the place, with some banding in the sky (after using Hue/Saturation adjustment layers and Selective Color adjustment layers). I'm still not sure how suitable this would be for printing but I won't be sacrificing money for the time being just for experimentation! 

The most terrifying aspect here was, not surprisingly though, the white balance. I admit; it was my mistake to not use the white balance disk to fix the white balance properly before shooting. I had to relay on many layer masks to adjust the colors in one place rather the others and so on which made it a lengthy work and process.

Seeing how things turned around for this single shot, I've decided to head the week after with somewhat an adventure mood. It's not easy for me to be in that mood, I tell ya! But first things first; I had to check the low tide timing and I was lucky to get it accordingly for the weekend after midnight. The hardest step though was to get down through this rocky slope, which might be an easy task for a sportsman, but not for me, specially in the darkness. Retinitis Pigmentosa hits severely in the darkness.

Mare Lunare

The work began when my feet hit the ground. It wasn't easy as I didn't carry my LED lights and only my bulky flashlight. Also, setting up the tripod and the bulky VR-head on such soft sand was troublesome and did consume a considerable time. I've found out also that the VR-head needed some tightening in some positions as some screws were getting lose! Pretty dangerous working conditions if you ask me - imagine losing one of those small screws in such soft sand!

The Hanging Cliff
(Hour Glass)

The work was done completely using the Bulb mode, and took around two hours. Yes, and all of that was done without having a book to read during these long exposures; which ranged from 2 to 4 minutes. Believe me if I say, going around the tripod in such soft sand is not an easy task, and needless to say that walking around must be done carefully so that the level of the tripod doesn't change while shooting the panorama.

Things went smoothly, but very lengthy (and at some point, pretty boring I have to say!). The rewards were as you can see in Mare Lunare and The Hanging Cliff (Hour Glass), and more to come in few. In somewhat a strange turn of events, the Nadir point wasn't that easy to merge into the panorama but that was fixed in a hurry with some cloning. In fact I had to do some cloning in each panorama projection I've made so far.

Processing-wise, there was a lot to do; really a lot to do. This is because every single RAW file (total 41) in this panorama was checked for the histogram to ensure it's alright histogram-wise at least and no cut in highlights or shadows. All the files were converted to TIFF and the stitching process started from there. The final result in each projection needed also lot of work in Photoshop because the colors needed to be emphasized; the pure output was simply dull with not much strong contrast. Probably you've already noticed the green water surface in the panoramas. To do this, I had to use some layer masks and plenty of delicate work in selecting the water surface only. This is because without any change in the color of the water, one would deem it all as one with the sky. The water itself looked faintly green and hardly noticeable, thus the color cast was increased using Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Skyscope

Probably my favorite projection of all, is the tunnel view projection; Skyscope. The texture of the sand acted naturally as a guideline somewhat to the center of the image. Here, specifically, I didn't change the water color cast to make it merge with the sky a bit and form semi-circle. I think adding a third color to this combination of yellow and blue (and bit of magenta is already in the clouds) would make things diverse in a bad way.I've tried, as well, to create a slight twirl in the outside rim of the image to make a feeling of something sucking into the depth of the image (and to do this you have to work in 8bit format rather than 16bit), but the process got complicated and I decided not to waste more time with this.

Planeta Litus

The planet projection of this panorama wasn't much dynamic like its cousin Skyscope, except for some faint clouds lines which somehow acted as field lines around some planet. In case you were wondering about the long white line in all of the panoramas above, this is just a light trail and flare from the lamp posts as it seems. 

Schwimmend am Höll

The last projection in the series is a wide-view projection, Schwimmend am Höll, which appeared to me as a floating island in a surreal view with a sky that seemed like burning in flames. Originally, I've stitched this panorama in a large format (11,000 pixels wide) in order to be cropped later into a suitable size. However, after looking at it for few minutes, it did appear to me as if the sides were essential despite the featureless space there. I think without such space, the look won't be that of a floating island balancing itself on a tip of a hill... am I exaggerating here? Ah well.

Ironically, all of these panoramas were refused from some stock website for "too much processing" - probably these people never heard of something called panoramas ever, and processing is the core of panoramas. Anyway, at the end of my work, the sun was starting to cut out through the horizon and the atmosphere began splashing with violet hues, and I didn't want to miss that chance...

Good Morning Kuwait (VIII)
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), HDR, ISO100.

The exposures ranged from 2 minutes and down for one stop each time till 1 second. This was somehow essential because of the city lights and balancing the atmosphere with these lights is somehow impossible with a single exposure. The final image had strong artifacts caused by chromatic aberrations (one thing that I really hate about Rokinon 8mm in such situations) - but after a tedious work in Photoshop I did somehow reduce the effect of these colored lines at the edges of the buildings.

QTVR

With this hard work that lasted for two hours, it would be a shame not to do a QTVR for this place, specially that the nadir point was relatively easy to fix.

If you look to the top above (zenith point), you will notice some strange mark in the sky, and the truth I'm not sure what is this either. However, as I didn't really use a zenith slide in the panorama (even though I did take it), probably this mark is the result of cloning the gap in the original flat spherical panorama, which is Mare Lunare. The gap was so small to even think of adding the zenith slide to the whole panorama (and cause a mess to the whole set!).

Delays

I keep telling myself that I will be facing my projects soon but I'm not sure how much soon is soon in my own timing. There is Geltani, and IPA check up for Arabic (which is pretty important for me). In the meantime, the nearest thing I could think of right now is at least to try and translate UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights), which is usually used with most languages on Omniglot (both constructed and natural). With that, I would probably do a voice recording to see and examine closely how the (new) conlang of Geltani does sound; needless to say, it is a real test for the transliteration system (or codification so to say) that is to be used or transcribing this conlang as well. Time management is one major leak in my personal life, which is full of leaks already...

On the other hand I've been testing some sounds of Arabic and trying to figure out precisely where my tongue resides in some of them and how the air articulates in and out of my mouth. Well, been acting (more) as a maniac while doing this while driving or being alone in the office. Still I didn't catch the whole concept completely in fact. The major difficulty resides in two letters: [ض] and [ظ], which, sometimes, are both transliterated as "Z" from the fact that many "dialects" of Arabic today do so. The IPA version provided in Omniglot seems to be on the same trend and hence, it's not convincing for me as an Arabic speaker - Yes, I don't speak the standard Arabic in my everyday life, but it is the supposedly lingua franca between all Arabs, and yet, it is the formal and the prestigious form of Arabic for letters, communications, and the media. My other blog is in standard Arabic as well and I cannot ever imagine myself writing something to the public in one dialect of Arabic, and say this is Arabic.

Finale

One book is off my list now. The Extraordinary Everyday Photography by Brenda Tharp and Jed Manwaring is somehow just another version of another book I had before; The Contemplative Photography. It is in fact a mix between contemplative aspects and technical aspects about the camera and some tips and tricks to do some shots. Never the less, I did like reading it, and specially the last few chapters which are related to dusk and dawn, and night photography.

Source: Amazon

Source: Amazon

Source: Amazon

The book on the queue line is Optics and Optical Instruments, which looks from the few pages I've read so far - looks that it is a students' book; and this is good! Exactly what I was looking for. My previous reading about lenses and their design made me somehow in a status of stalemate; I couldn't comprehend much of what was there, specially the mathematics involved. It is an engineering book of the advanced type which requires some background. However, Optics and Optical Instruments might look old from the shape of the graphics in it (obviously handwritten) but so far so good with the body of text. But that doesn't mean consuming the context is going to be an easy task, specially without someone forcing me to "study" so to say.

Away from books, I've been carrying a load; a load of emotions and responsibilities. Probably more of the former than the latter. I'm taking it seriously in my mind now to spend a vacation, a real one, abroad. Ireland for a third time is in my mind as well. Not sure when exactly but the usual timing would be between September and October if I can. I have to settle things down first, and inform everyone about my plans so they would prepare to take care of Mom. My mind is fluctuating between a new location or visiting the first location I've been to back in 2009. I think the latter is my choice for now, because I have better equipments now, and I don't want to miss the beauty of Lough Corrib (Loch Coirib).

I'm starting to feel numb to almost everyone now. Asking myself, why should I care...

Nacht der Langzeitbelichtungen...

Well, now we are back to the rhythm after two posts about my trip to Failaka; despite the fact that I'm still processing some of the images taken there. But probably the bulk of the images that I really enjoyed taking were already done... till I discover something new though. The B&W processing and tone-splitting sound promising but I do need more time with my images. In the meantime, I'm trying to settle down with time ripples as I'm torn in between two blogs, both of which would require an early preparation to be posted in time. Probably my future posts in this blog would be short (be happy!).

Nacht der Langzeitbelichtungen

I hope dear reader won't consider the title offensive^*. It's just a title that reflects what I've been doing since I got back from Failaka island two weeks ago. I'm trying to do the best I can before the weather gets warmer (than this already); long exposures at night time.

Sky and Earth
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), 3.5m, ISO100.

My beginnings were shaky. Despite the fact that the low tide timing was perfect for me, because I wanted to go deeper into the sea shelf (the area which is covered in high tide time), yet, the tide was not low enough. To add to my problems, the beach area was not "silent" at 3:30 a.m.!
My first exposure, Sky and Earth, which was for around 4 minutes, came out blank. Not literally blank but out of features. I was hoping to go deeper into the sea shelf specifically to capture more rocks in the foreground, but it wasn't the case here.

Luminatus
Rokinon 8mm fisheye,
f/8(?), HDR, ISO100.

As you can see, because of the time that lapsed when these images, Sky and Earth and Luminatus, were taken, I've completely forgot what was the aperture used back then in this manual lens; but I doubt I've gone further than f/8 (hence "f/8(?)" in the caption). Luminatus, in particular, was shot about 180 degrees to the other side on the shore, away from the first shot Sky and Earth. Now, I have to admit I don't like both shots, but I did shoot after all. I didn't want to go back with empty hands after struggling to the beach at 3 a.m. that day! Some people commented that they like the transition in the horizon line in Sky and Earth, and I might like it a bit because of its minimalistic approach to the seascape, yet, it's not much more than a play of colors; in fact this is all what I depended on here to make this image work a bit. Otherwise, it is one big fail. Luminatus on the other hand was a fail still but with some liking from my side because of the spot-like effect that surrounds the buildings. This is mainly caused by the lights of the buildings themselves which caused a halo effect somehow. The HDR technique (gathered from long exposures) helped a lot here in controlling the range of the halo, but then some work in Photoshop was required. My night was over then and I had to go back to my car on the soft sands, carrying the load!

Extraterrestrial
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), 8m, ISO100.

The night after was a bit more promising but I have to admit here as well, I didn't expect the results. One of the major differences between an amateur and a professional photographer is the expectation of the final outcome before the work is done. The timing isn't really what I was hoping for because it was close to dawn, and the exposure time, when calculated in the regular way as I usually do, must be shortened than the real calculations; This is because the sun is on rising even though slowly, but it does affect the outcome significantly (in some trials before, the exposure time would be one minute short than calculated to get a proper exposure, or at least a proper histogram distribution).
In theory, when doing long exposure for moving clouds, a cloudy day in fact is not good - this is because the movement would not be so obvious in the sky. The movement won't be noticeable unless there is some spacing in between the clouds. In the meantime, I was thinking: Is it possible to record the movement of a hole in the clouds when a cloudy day? I think I got the answer in Extraterrestrial. I'm not a meteorologist, but it seemed that this place in the sky specifically was like a barrier for the clouds passing through it and hence the lines formed around this specific vacancy. The bright spot in the sky was probably the sun disk which, on location, was completely invisible to the naked eye. Probably this is one of the beauties of doing long exposures: to see the unseen!

Blauentraum
Rokinon 8mm fisheye,
f/8(?), HDR, ISO100.

Just before leaving the place, after observing how much light is shining on the land, I decided to do one last trial, this time for HDR bracketing (and if I remember correctly it was also a series of long exposures). As you may have noticed  in Blauentraum and Extraterrestrial already, I've been using the Fluorescent WB excessively for such time of the day (along with dusk time too). In processing the HDR, I didn't try to do any magic here, but simply eliminate as much as possible the ground of the beach while darkening the sky a bit. The guide line here is not strong, and the only thing I would rely on in this image is the hues and blend of colors. Otherwise, I wouldn't submit this to be judged in a contest!
The coming weeks after that did (and will) witness more long exposure trials but I'll keep these images for later...

* In case the reader is not aware what it means; the title means "night of long exposures"; parallel to the Night of Long Knives (Nacht der Langen Messer), which was a name given to a  series of political murders in the beginnings of the Nazi regime.

Finale

Source: Amazon

 New books now arrived, and I've already started reading it. The new book is a contemplative book somewhat (just like another book I had before) but in a different style somewhat. I do have some list of books that I'm reading already for bedtime (an Agatha Christie novel in Arabic in fact) and at work I'm somewhat busy doing work related to this blog and the other blog, thus reading this book is a challenge for me now. The best I could do for now is to read in between when taking breaks, or when I wait for my fingerprint time before leaving work. The other books are related to Archaeology and principles of optics which I'm also dying to read. The latter specifically looks an old edition; I really didn't check it out! But it doesn't matter as long it gives some basics.

Source: Amazon

On the other hand, I've ordered another flash cable instead of my Vello cord which got broken after some accident. This one (from Pixel) though is cheaper than Vello's. I'm not sure why though, but it works fine and tested it for High-Speed mode on my 580EXII. If it is about the make, then I have to say the Vello is higher in price and yet couldn't stand the fall of a tripod; hence, it wouldn't make a difference for me I guess if I get a cheaper one. After all, I'm not using it excessively for the time being - but that doesn't mean it's not necessary!

This is it for now I guess. I'm not sure I want to talk about work here, because I'm trying to keep myself busy as much as possible just to forget the insults that I see daily in that place. The summer is coming, and the hell is starting to cook my body already. My only condolence is to see students finish off their semester as soon as possible to release some of the jam in this place.
Meanwhile, I do feel guilty though for not doing much work with my Geltani conlang. Two weeks of vacation and yet, I didn't touch it at all and concentrated all my time for photography; it's unfair I guess. Too many things to do, and one body to do them all...

Ikaros 2014 II

QTVRs ahead, please give some time to load. This post won't be viewed properly on iPhone or Android systems. A proper QuickTime plug-in must be installed to Quick Time Virtual Reality (QTVR) scenes. QuickTime plug-in for your browser shall be installed automatically when you install the free QuickTime player. 

Now, this post is supposedly the second part for last week's post with the rest or some of what's left so far from my photo shoot on Failaka island, and specifically on the second day of my stay there, and just before leaving the island.

First things first they say, but I will discuss what I've done secondly on that day, since the first thing done back then is the complicated and the lengthy part of this post! But as a hint, it includes a panorama.

Στην Κορυφή
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/?, HDR, ISO100.

In the past two weeks and during my vacation the clouds were persisting only in the morning time, thus I didn't want to miss the chance of shooting some dramatic views that morning from the island, as I once did almost 5 or 6 years ago! The problem was, I didn't have a clear vision of what I really wanted to shoot that morning (after finishing the panorama first in the court of Ikaros hotel). I just started the engine and drove a little; everything was quiet, such a beautiful breeze and weather that literally made me hate the idea of going back to the mainland (except for the fact that there is no wireless service at all in that place unless you have your own!). Anyway, I've just noticed the first place I wanted to shoot here, which is the same spot that I've been doing long exposure the night before, but this time, getting even closer since I'm using my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens to include as much scenery from the sky as possible. I've changed my position several times and got many shots, and not until sorting out the images back home I've decided that the angle of Στην Κορυφή is the best for my intentions.

Processing-wise, there had been many hassles with Στην Κορυφή. Generally speaking, the issues were related to noise, color cast, sharpness and softness of some details, saturation and vibrancy; but the most persistent problem I had to cope up with, surprisingly, was the crop. Cropping had to be done elegantly and carefully – because as I was trying to keep the perspective of the image (3:2), I had to remove some undesired details or parts that may get attached to the corners or the edge of the frame. The problem rose when I couldn't match the two requirements, thus I had to do one on the expense of the other, hence you can see a small green bush or grass on the lower edge. As for the noise cleaning, there was no way I would do it without losing a great amount of details thus I had to get to the layer masks, not only for cleaning the noise, but also to sharpen some details in the image. Generally speaking, the noise filtration was done to the skies (and sea), while sharpening was done to the landscape features, including the wall of course.

Φοβία (Phobia)

I have to say that my later strolling on the island was somehow in vain trying to look for inspiration, but as I've stated before, my strolling was more like exploring. One of the spots that I really wanted to catch (again) was a spot where I did shoot some images before, of some calcified rocks in low tide time; like Φοβία (Phobia). Unfortunately, I didn't find that specific spot, besides the fact that the tide was high apparently. Anyway, I kept on shooting but this time, I had an idea of trying some scenes for 3D anaglyphs (and lot of that will come when we talk about panoramas in a while).

3D Ruins

3D Trash

Usually, it would be one of the hardest tasks to do a 3D anaglyph with images taken with fisheye lenses, mainly because of the great distortion. There were, however, some successful attempts in the past. This time, I got the idea that we as humans do see the difference in displacements in closer distances to our eyes, and as the distance gets further away from our eyes, the lines would converge to some point in the horizon; technically this is what they call the vanishing point, and it is one of the basics for artists. Thus, in some of these shots taken with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, like 3D Ruins, I've decided to align the further away features (the desk). To my eyes, the effect is handsome and truly 3D - though I regret now that I didn't do a panorama in that small space (don't trust a fisheye in judging the space!). On the other hand, 3D Trash which is taken just few meters away from the first location, has most of the features almost in the same image plane, for this, I kind of had the freedom to align any feature in this anaglyph, which in here, was the heap at the center almost. 

10
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
640^-1, ISO100

After going back to the hotel and sorting the images out (and packing some stuff) I just noticed the simplicity of my room's door - and I just couldn't neglect it. Despite the shot being bracketed, I've chose only one shot and worked it out in RAW editor (ACR). There were some branches of some plant beside the door, but they were relatively easy to close out. The main obstacle in 10 was to show that the board with the number "10" is not part of the white wall! This is a mistake from my side with the exposure (and I didn't want to open another image of this door and do the whole adjustments again). A good exposure is a must, and a photographer should not rely on Photoshop to fix his images. Bad exposure, is equal to a wasted shot.

For the time being, I would stop at this - there are other shots that are still under investigation (from this day and the night before even), but I'll stop here to move to the major even that day - a panorama in Ikaros Hotel.

Panorama Ikaros

I have to admit that when I asked the receptionist about taking photos inside the lobby, he said that I do need a permission. Anyway, the panorama here was done in the court (which probably required a permission too!) but since I'm not doing any commercial benefits from this, I think it would be OK. It might be even a free advertisement through my blog! 
Anyway, to organize this matter now, I think I will start with the regular stuff: regular panorama(s).

Regular

That morning, and since the place was relatively quiet, I decided to work out a double panorama (so later I would try, again, doing a panaglyph). Here in the regular part, most of the panoramas that you will see ahead are the right portion, because this was the first panorama to be taken anyway. 

Ikaros Hotel (flat)

The right panorama, or the first one to be taken is special because of the light quality. Both panoramas, anyway, were taken with fluorescent WB; but I guess the magical atmosphere is more apparent in the right panorama rather than the left (second) panorama simply because of the light level and the position of the sun (which was still rising then). To tell the truth, the flat version of the panorama was NOT the first panorama I did stitch, but quite the opposite - it was one of the last ones done. Yet, it is just the "protocol" I guess. The first one to be stitched was in fact a tunnel projection panorama...

Ikaros Loop (tunnel)

The reason that made me jump directly to this projection is, the checkered ground; besides the fact that the nadir (as usual) was something hard to eliminate here. Where there are crossed lines (squares and the like), a flat perspective is not artistic enough!
I was reluctant to work on other projection of this panorama because of the nadir point and the hardships that I already knew will happen to eliminate the parts of the tripod showing in the panorama (something normal in panoramas really). However, I had nothing to lose in fact (except of time on expense of other images), thus I decided to work out a wide view panorama this time (planet projection looked boring!).

Doors and Windows (wide view)

The beauty in Doors and Windows here lies in the vanishing point tendency and the repetitive patterns on left and right; well, the helix stairway disturbed the symmetry a bit but the extension of lines going to the horizon straight are a stronghold. Probably the colors, specially the blue tones, are the magic in this image after all. If the sky was to be obvious in this scene with details in the clouds, I would have probably thought of doing a black and white version of this scene - yet it is something to be tried still!
The hassle in removing in the tripod parts by patching parts of the flooring was, to some extent, successful, despite the apparent disturbance in the ground if you have noticed that already. To patch this part, I had to lasso-select (selecting using Lasso tool in Photoshop) the tripod parts (which formed a semi-trapezoid) and then stretch this selection to make it larger with the same ratio of dimensions. After that, the selection was moved to the area under that space and the tiles were copied from that space and then dropped and minimized according to what's needed. The lines didn't match up exactly (and probably more work was needed with distortion tools at this point) but after all, I have to say this result is far better than previously done. It is always easier to take panoramas on a seamless ground which has patterns that can be cloned out easily prior to the stitch even, but such grounds rarely do make an interesting artistic look! Well, unless, of course, the roof is the one we're talking about.

Panaglyphs

Typically, the issue with panaglyphs, or panorama anaglyphs were not an easy task with this type of panorama, specially that it's not only a 360^o panorama, but a full spherical panorama. This means the arousal of one specific issue: vertical misalignment.

Ikaros Hotel Panaglyph (I)

Notice here in Ikaros Hotel Panglyph (I) how the blue shades (which are supposedly viewed by the right eye with red-cyan glasses) go below the main object; and of course this displacement increase as the distance from the main center of interest (the focal point of the panaglyph) increases. In the beginning I lost hope and thought it can't be done. However, it simply ticked in my mind that the alignment is actually centered around the focal point (at the center of the image) - the plant pot here. This means, I can divide the image into two halves: left and right, and work on solving this problem. After all, it's only a problem of displacement or shifting of perspective; and the Skew transformation was the right tool for this task.

Skewing method around the center of the image.

Ikaros Hotel (Corrected)

The corrected version of the panorama proved somewhat promising with reduced ghosting effect and more reasonable depth just by pulling the "wings" of the panorama up a bit to match their corresponding features. This, however, won't be perfect for all the features in the scene and I do believe that this is natural, even in regular anaglyphs. The important point after all is, to reduce the vertical misalignment as much as possible; and it happened!

Ikaros Loop Panaglyph

The situation was repeated then for the tunnel view panorama, and the same correction was applied even though the situation is a bit tricky here since it is a polar panorama and not a flat, spherical one. Thus, technically, I can't really state that the misalignment was on the vertical axis, but nevertheless, the method worked just fine, to some extent. However, the wide-view projection (Doors and Windows) was the most persistent and despite applying the same method, yet the ghosting effect was not enhanced further as in the ones mentioned here. Probably another type of distortion was due; more investigations are due.

QTVR

At this occasion I had several trials of QTVRs done, since we are talking about panorama, and panaglyph. As you may know probably, QTVRs are done only with flat panoramas, thus there is no more talk about other projections - but there is a further talk about anaglyph QTVR. 



This QTVR was done smoothly with not much hassle, and the nadir of course (if you can see it) is an added simple logo to the panorama.
At this point, and after doing the first panaglyph (without correction), I got encouraged somehow to do another QTVR and see what will come out. I was sure though that it won't be aesthetic!



As you can see if you rotate for 180^o from the starting point (towards the door behind the pillars, opposite the plant pot), you will see that the cut is obvious, as this is the two ends of the original panorama, and the shift between the Red and Cyan made it worse. No surprise here. But then I've worked out around the shifting problem as I've mentioned above (by skewing the panorama) and tried to do the QTVR. I'll put it here for comparison as well...



I'd say the seam line is almost hard to notice with normal view, but it gets obvious when viewed with 3D glasses (red-cyan) - and yet, this is the best it could get I believe. Much better than the previous version at least. 
You might have noticed how the original QTVR is dark a bit with vibrant colors while the other two are light in color. This is normal since the second panorama (for the left eye that is) was taken with a change in light level from the first one, and the court yard was getting much brighter during the second take.
I don't know what to consider an anaglyph QTVR; is it really a 3D environment? or would I call it a 4D environment (supposedly that a QTVR is originally a semi-3D representation of space)? Anyhow, the name is not that important right now nor the philosophy behind it - the experiment just adds a new dimension to my experience...

Finale

Click to Enlarge

This week we got the news that our group, BPF, won one of the gold medals in Austria's international photo contest, or the so called Trierenberg Circuit. We have to wait now for July to come to receive our copies of the catalogs, and a ceremony is supposedly to come in October. I'm not sure how the awards are distributed but it's like there are many subcategories and fine details for which gold medals are rewarded. I'm proud to say as well that a number of Kuwaitis (other groups and individuals) did win various gold medals as well in other categories. The full list can be checked out in here. 
In the meantime, as I'm typing this, my shipment is ready for pick-up; I've ordered some books and items that I might post about here but it's just not the time for this. I do have a plenty of photos that I do need to work out and talk about in the future. I've been pretty busy writing this blog (which I'm trying to finish as early as possible) and my other Arabic Blog which is dedicated to beginners. Despite the fact it's in Arabic, the word flow is not a match for my flow in English when typing this blog post! Anyway, the fact is I'm trying to "arabize" as much as possible to enable those who see foreign languages hard to read (because of many reasons) would be able, as much as possible, to learn. I do have higher level topics like HDR in my mind, but the time for this isn't up yet. Been days now I'm taking 2 laptops (old and new) with me to work just to work on the text for both blogs. Don't know how long this will take, but it is surely better than sitting bored and sick of the maltreatment in this work place...