Sporadichiskiy…

I was reluctant to make this blog post. Honestly, I didn't feel like it. But here I am, trying hard to force myself. For nothing but to think of myself as being occupied.
You might be wondering about the title, well, I was going to put it as Sporadic but then I thought it would be so boring, so then I checked the translation in Russian and it was Спорадичиский, which is exactly what the title says but I didn't wish to put it in Cyrillic; Maybe in some other time, just for fun really.
The reason for this title for this post is that I'm going to talk a bit about various shots taken on different dates and not necessarily in chronological order but it's like a collection of quick-minded ideas that were done in a hurry without much preparations. 

Before I head on with the body of this post, I'd like to announce that I've uploaded some loads of images already (from 2021 and 2022 so far) and they are available on Canstockphoto, Dreamstime, and 123RF; However, one image might be in one place and not in the other because of the different criteria that each stock website uses to judge the images. Just in case one wishes to visit the profiles, they can click on the links above.

Pinhole

In my past post I've talked about creating some abstract art by intentional camera movement while having an infrared filter on the lens and shooting indoors. This activity somehow triggered me to think more of long exposures which I didn't do for a while. Naturally, using the pinhole was one of my first ideas. In the beginning, I wanted to keep it simple.

夜間孤獨
(nocturnal solitude)

To keep things simple, I headed out in the yard and decided to shoot the little palm tree we had (I've posted some shots from the same palm tree before on this blog) and my plan was to shoot a long exposure and convert the image into B&W. I've done this at night specifically to have a significant long exposure with the pinhole without the need to use any ND filters on a regular lens. However, I think I'll be defining the idea of bad luck, as my hopes for some motion in the image were just shuttered by the fact that (suddenly) not much breeze did accumulate or shake significant part of the palm leaves during the 13-minute exposure! However, I have to give due credits, as I didn't expect some colorful flare to appear (caused by the lights on the wall above the palm tree). For this reason, I've kept it in color and made another version in B&W (and posted both on YouPic).

Nocturnal Solitude (BW)

The B&W version is still interesting though, despite the fact that the flare doesn't appear colorful. The hardest part though was to gauge and control the tones in B&W (and because of the tiny details in the leaves, I disliked the idea of using layer masks). The final result, Nocturnal Solitude (BW), looked like some infrared shot done in daytime! Other work was needed though to keep the bottom of the image from being too dark and add a bit of details; Of course all of that was done in Photoshop (I don't convert to B&W in ACR often as I need more control). One particular thing that I've noticed or maybe I think I've noticed and my eyes are just playing tricks on me: The image, despite being taken with a pinhole, looks sharper than other pinhole images taken before (which were mostly in daytime). It's still blurry a bit (not because of the motion though) but I do notice that it is sharper in general, just a tiny bit. I did for sure apply some sharpening but this is now what I meant here of course. I meant the original shot. Not sure what to make out of it but maybe because the surrounding lighting was closer to the blue color? Or is it because a really long exposure? But the most strange thing of all… why did the breeze stop when I needed it to be there already?!!!

وَحيدْ
(lonely)

Another pinhole experiment (with a hope of some motion) was done 2 or 3 days later but this time it was indoors (after midnight) and including me personally. The idea of Lonely is not just having a selfie (away with the dramatic title already) but I was hoping to capture those tiny reflexes and breathing movement in a form of a "ghostly appearance" somewhat. The exposure took around 7 minutes and I remember doing it twice, and picking the best of the two. Probably the difference was in the pose itself. Anyway, the intention, again, was to convert it to B&W already and this also helped in covering up for the colorful and checkered blanket! Added some tone and vignette for some "vintage" feel to it. It was a nice shoot though; Somewhat a chance to relax and meditate while asleep! However, I'm not done with long exposures yet…

الأَغْبَرْ
(the dusty one)

I was still interesting in doing long exposure combining myself (because I have no model of course) to record the body movement. I've done one experiment in the yard using my 10-stop ND filter (which I used only once in Malta back in 2015!). The experiment in the yard somewhat failed and didn't like the overall looks. So, I moved indoors. This time I've set a challenge to myself, to stare into the camera for more than 8 minutes. I know this is not possible already (specially for a coffee-addict like me) but this is the goal of the whole thing after all.
In the processing phase, I tried to add some drama to the ghostly-shaped face somehow and made use of some dodge and burn. Well, wouldn't say I like it much but nevertheless I consider it as an achievement to stare into the camera for full 8 minutes! However, on the other hand, the linear version of this image came out really interesting!

Plastered Man

Now, I don't know how it occurred in that way but the whole thing seems to be formed by layers of skin on top of each other with holes for the eyes sockets! I really like the "linear" version more than the original. It looks like a surreal painting in some way (not sure what genre it would roll under though). Scary a bit though, isn't it?

So, at this point, I think the first part of the sporadic shooting ends (even though it's not all about pinhole). But still another part remains which I think I should include here as well. 

Frowning

I think I've mentioned somewhere in my previous post that I've done some experiments with high-speed shooting involving water and shells (walnut shells to be specific). The fact, actually, is that I've been collecting a lot of walnut shells. I've been buying those lately as Mom likes them and me too (and some times I put some of it in my coffee!). For some reason that I can't really explain or understand myself, I've got fascinated by the shells and started collecting them in hope that I would do some photography projects later on with them (which I did to some extent). My collection of them is getting quite large though and I need to find proper storage!
Anyway, I will keep the talk about that high-speed experiment for another post, but now I'm going to talk about a simple (and might be strange) quick selfie experiment which I've done with these shells. I've called the series: The Frowning.

عَبوسْ
(frowning)

The aim here wasn't really just to do something with the shells (which I'm fascinated with by the way!) but also to work and go crazy a bit with HDR tone-mapping; It has been a really long time since I worked with HDR images. I'm talking here about a span of years. But as it will be shown, normal processing wasn't bad as well (and somewhat preferable too). In fact, from the series of shots I've done with these shells, I ended up with only one or two shots that were the base of all the versions that I'm about to show now. The only difference here is the processing.

عَبوسْ 2
(frowning 2)

The shooting was done using my lovely 50mm, and at f/1.8. Even though I could've gone lower to f/1.4 but I wanted to add a slight depth to the front. I've headed out under the sun to shoot it just to ensure a quick shutter speed, as I didn't want to complicate things with such a "crazy" quick shoot and use speedlites. From the series that had been shot, as mentioned above, only 1 or 2 that were somewhat proper (with some cropping) as they had a good depth as I want it. Shooting selfies with such a shallow depth of field on your own is surely a mission for superman! 

عَبوسْ 3
(frowning 3)

All through the Frowning versions, I think each one of them has a specific visual impact and personally I couldn't really say which one is better than the other. Frowning for example, which was tone-mapped from HDR, has this look as if some nuclear explosion just happened in front of me! Moreover, I like it for the grungy look and the details in the hair (upper right) which don't appear quite much in other versions. Nevertheless, Frowning 2, which was processed from RAW (with additions from Photoshop itself of course), does have this dramatic (dark) look that probably adds more emotions to the overall look. Meanwhile, Frowning 3 (which is based off Frowning 2) has even a darker mood I guess. Worth noting that when converted to B&W, I've added a slight "titanium" tone (Hex: #B6AFA9); Honestly, I think I like this tone pretty much and will be using a lot when converting to B&W (or monochrome that is).

The Frownies

Frowning (linear)

Afterward, and just for fun and comparison, I've worked on manually blending the three versions of this shot and put them all in one image; The Frownies. Probably I can say it serves as an optical illusion, just a bit! I think it needs a bit more brushing though. Moreover, probably you could tell by now that this "linear" technique is becoming a trend for me already and I've been trying it on many images, old and new, and Frowning was no exception.
The base for working out the "linear" version is the RAW version of the shot. I still call it "linear" technique because of the basic look but maybe I should change the name at some point because for images like Frowning it doesn't quite look like linear because of the heavy texture of the skin and other things here. The technique is based on merging various layers blended with Difference blending mode, so I might as well call it the "difference technique". I think I've talked about it in this blog before, as well as in my Arabic blog. All in all, I do like the "linear" version as well for its strange dramatic look; Actually, I can imagine it being printed on a t-shirt or something like that (my mind is working on some ideas now).

Finale

So, this is some of the sporadic stuff that I've been doing in the past 2 or 3 months, and actually I'm still going on with it. There are many other stuff actually but I wouldn't put them here since they are re-makes or so of old photos, specially with that "linear" technique I've talked about already.
I do have some plans at the back of my head and I'm not sure if I can even try those or not. Meanwhile, I've just remembered some old projects that I've simply forgotten about, and I might as well try to revive those or something. All I have here is to wish myself good luck.

Recently, I've gone back to my obsession with Solitaire (the classical card game) on my phone. I didn't play it for a long time but now I'm just back at it and I could wipe half of the phone charge just playing it. It feels soothing for some reason, but I'm not sure what exactly. Is it a sign of hidden desires to gamble (I don't)? Or is it the order and structure in the game (which I lack in real life)? Whatever the reason is, I just feel it leaks away my stress. I play it the Vegas style (only one round of the deck is allowed). On the same line, I've realized that I didn't play any PC games in such a long time (even before my official retirement in October 2021). Maybe if I can find time back for this activity my stress (and depression) would be lowered down? 

They say no Man is an island, but apparently I became an island myself with my social circle. I had bursts of urge to chat, to talk, to say something, to anyone, but there is no one to talk to. Not even on the so-called "social media", which made me think why do they call this stupid thing "social" in the first place; All there is to see is trolls, ads, and people who made it their job just to correct you. Even those in fact, there was none for me in the past few days to just say anything with. I've been sleeping a lot, skipping meals a lot, and I'm just not sure where I'm heading with this, nor what's the meaning of it. All that I know is that my body is alive, but my mind is…

Stroll VII, VIII…

Well, back again with my struggles with the fatigue and guess what? I think my strolling days are over already. Since the last time I've posted here where I thought I would be doing more strolls, the weather here continued to be nothing but miserable. From dust storms and waves and increasing heat (and turbulent sleep); all that just left me no choice at the moment. It seems to be a time for my usual roll back to the oldies and re-editing some photos. And as it seems it's not only the strolls that I'm breaking off with, but with my promises to myself to post at least one Arabic post in my other blog!

You might be wondering about the title and why I'm merging 2 strolls into a single post here. The reason is that the 7ᵗʰ stroll was quite a short one and quite not interesting that I thought it wouldn't fit for a single post on its own. It was a stroll done using my pinhole lens and actually the images taken are not that interesting that I didn't process any of them till weeks have passed already! So, just to keep the track, I thought maybe I should include the few shots in the blog here.

Stroll VII

So, as I said, this stroll was done using my regular Canon 7D camera and the pinhole cap which I didn't use in such a long time on April 8ᵗʰ. Using calculations, I've discovered that there are many problems with this pinhole since a long time ago, and in fact I've considered getting one of these new Thingify pinhole lenses which have some flexibility but I've neglected the idea. Nonetheless, shooting with such a weird apparatus or tool (and an ancient one) is somewhat fun at times. However, my stroll here was a quick one for some factors, and of course done without a tripod and hence I had to use a high ISO to shoot handheld. The images in general are not impressive and I had to end the stroll quickly because of the flies!

Hills and Dunes of Decemania

It is a general belief from my side that pinhole images do look better in B&W. It is not the first time I do shoot with this pinhole lens but it is the first time I do it handheld. Thus, I was expecting much here. Remarkably though, the images might look better when seen from a distance (or at a smaller size) and some details start to appear better to the naked eye rather than at close up where everything is blurry (unless of course the blur is a motion blur, which I prefer in such images).
Still though the story is not ended here and the rest is left to the post-processing to "enhance" the image a bit and extract some textures and details out of it despite the fuzzy view. The issue was somewhat even more sensitive in Hills and Dunes of Decemania because there is a large area of black (originally black even in the colored version) with all these heaps of sand and tar or asphalt. 

Дом и Дверь
(a house and a door)

As I said already, I didn't quite take interesting images in this short stroll and in fact I still check the images now and then in hope that I get inspired by something. One of the ideas I have already (but didn't work on yet) is combining several pinhole images or maybe a pinhole image and a regular one in some way. Anyway, A House and A Door is a later comer to the collection here and I remember that I liked this house and its green door (ironically, forgot where it was located exactly) and I kind of shot it at hip level at this point. Anyway, as with all pinhole images that I take, I had to convert the image into B&W and discard the green (which I like). 

There are few images (maybe 2 more) that I've processed already from this stroll but I don't think they are worth posting still. Composition and contrast are probably the two most important factors (if not the only) when it comes to pinhole photography; This is my own opinion though and I'm not stating this as a fact. But this is how it feels to me. I'm thinking even further of enhancing this pinhole lens in some way, after doing some calculations and realizing that the "stated" pinhole diameter is quite small. So, maybe if I just make it bigger a tiny bit, I would be able to enhance the sharpness in some way. I'm thinking of passing a needle into the aperture to see if I can enlarge it a bit as I think, but let's hope it doesn't get ruined!

Stroll VIII

Days passed since that pinhole stroll on April 8th, and I was literally out of ideas, up until I remember the old trick that I was fascinated by in early 2010s when I worked largely with my then-new lens, Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. Since the lens is completely manual, I was mainly fascinated with the idea to let it work with various filters, firstly ND filters, then at a later time, infrared gel filter. Thus, I've decided to revive this old fascination and go out in a stroll (two in fact) and fix an infrared gel filter at the back of the lens, on April 23ʳᵈ.

Turmoil

This stroll, with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens and a Kodak gel filter (of threshold of about 820nm) was dedicated to the Eastern zone from home (and honestly, I see more chances of me taking shots there rather than in the Western side). Anyway, a western stroll was done later. As a starter, and as usual (in some way of a ritual form by now) I took test shots just outside home pointing to the sky. Such test shots are somewhat important to get my camera into the initial settings (which I try hard not to change them as I go on). For my surprise, the test shot was also a "nice" shot where the clouds in infrared showed up (but not to the naked eyes).

Белый
(white)

From the point of leaving the house and up to the neighborhoods of the Eastern zone (the next block to me), I've been taking some shots here and there and some of them are not processed yet at the time of typing this. However, I'm not going to post them all but I'm going to jump right to the ones that I think are "keys", like White.
I did like the original scene because of some details in the sky and the branches but I've found myself drawn more to crop it anyway to add focus at some point in the image (which I didn't plan really, it was a shot in the dark!). This won't be the only one to be cropped. Anyway, even though it might be such a waste of pixels to take such an extremely wide angle shot and then crop it, but the main target here is the field curvature that such lenses provide and the distortion in the perspective as well; So, it's not all to waste!
I've spent quite some time with White trying to darken the image to a reasonable amount to hide unwanted details (specially in the wall at the background) and focusing more on the flower (and in fact it was just a bunch of leaves and not a flower!). In a nutshell, I was trying to create something out of nothing, sort of. Worth noting here that I've shot many images for this scene at slightly different angles and at some angle there showed some nice flare but unfortunately none of the pots did show as well so I had to neglect this shot (but I still keep it just in case!).

Рост
(growth)

Not far from White I've then encountered a lonely growing plant against the wall of some house. Knowing that in infrared such green leaves would turn white, I thought that this is a good contrast to be documented! So, I've approached the plant and shot it as various distances and even almost got myself lying on the ground. Still though, in the final image, I had to crop a big portion of the image to remove the edges of the house and the sky; Actually, I wouldn't mind the sky if not for the edges of the wall which disturbed the harmony. I think I wished that I would shoot this at 50mm at that moment, but oh well, it's like an adventure after all and one has to manage and "improvise".
Composition-wise, I was trying to fit the plant on the left side of the image but because of the structure of the wall I was forced to let it be on the right side. It's probably not much of a critical factor but probably for people who are used to read from left to right, the position might look a bit "awkward" but for people (like me) who read from right to left, the image might look going well to the eye direction. Anyway, in the process and after converting to B&W, some strange white spots or "zones" in the image appeared and I can't quite tell what are those. Maybe some marks on the wall that appear on infrared only? Because I'm positive that there was nothing on the wall when I was there. There is a faint plant on the left of the main subject but I'm talking here about the general halo-like look, and that I don't understand yet!

تَـنْـويـرْ
(enlightenment)

Circling around and in between the houses after shooting Growth, I've came about to the main space or "square" where one can go to various directions at this point (and where I shot some images months ago, like The Army using H-alpha filter). Actually, the image Enlightenment is a late comer and it wasn't processed till a day or two before typing this blog post and not right after it was shot. I shot several images at this location and I was wondering if I can make anything interesting out of them. The most interesting thing here was the flare in some images (I think 2 of them), so decided to merge them and had some crop to remove the bright spot of the sun. It seems fares are just pretty fun and easy to create with this lens! The subject of Enlightenment though is not quite popping I guess, and the main body of the image seems to be the flare itself and in some way the flare do act as a guiding line here leading to the mosque. I have to add here that that mosque is also a favorite destination right now!

Down Under

Now, the bougainvillea branch dangling out of the fence of that mosque has been an attraction to me and I've shot many images here (that I'm still visiting till now and still processing some of them). I've also created some 3D anaglyphs but anyway I guess I will keep it short and post only those important or impressive shots (to me at least). 

Tilt

However, one of the fun images I've worked with lately with this series of shots from the fence, is Tilt (which is saved as a PNG to keep the transparency of the background). As can be seen, the image was indeed tilted to straighten the column, and instead of cropping the image here as I would usually do under normal conditions, I've just tilted the image and kept the transparent background.
There was actually a time when I was interested in creating such images with unconventional dimensions to break down the monotony of the rectangular limitation, and typically such images have to be saved as PNGs to keep the transparent background. However, not many websites would welcome such transparency and would fill the space with black or white upon upload.

Playing With Shadows

Leaving the vicinity of the mosque, after loads of images taken there at various angles, I've started to gaze around as I walked back home, trying to find something worthwhile for shooting. I didn't find much though (or I think I did but didn't like the idea of taking pictures of private premises). So as a result, I've found myself playing with my shadow as can be seen in Playing With Shadows. It would have been better though if someone else did take the picture so that I can pose as I want to but anyway it's nothing serious after all. A little bit of fun wouldn't harm I guess!

بَـقـايـا
(remains)

And not far off from that shadow shot, I've reached a pass between two houses made by bushes from both gardens (sometimes one just wishes to live in such homes but alas). Worth noting, again, that the sky here was completely plain to the naked eyes, and all the clouds details in it appeared only when shooting in infrared. I shot this image in portrait and landscape but seeing that the nature of the elements kind of point upward (and using a fisheye lens which would include unneeded objects from the sides), I went on to process the portrait version. It wasn't until the processing phase when I noticed the remains of leaves or branches on the asphalt (I didn't see them when I shot this). I've literally placed the camera on the ground (padded with my hand) and I just didn't see these in front of the camera! However, it was a pleasant addition and surprise; Not complaining here! One thing in Remains that I'm still struggling with somehow is the tilt. I'm sure that I've straightened the image but yet it looks somewhat tilted. Anyway, I don't think I will be focusing more on this image after all. Unless for some heavenly reason it has to be displayed maybe!

يَـقْـدُمْ
(it comes)

The last shot in the series (not really the last but I consider it so) was shot in a narrow corridor (probably less than 2 meters wide, and 2 meters long). At the end of the corridor, there was a car parked there, and gracefully since it was Ramadhan and it's just after 7 in the morning, it was quiet and I thought not many would notice what I'm doing. The car here was blocking the corridor a bit and I had to squeeze myself to get past and return to my block; Not a pleasant feeling!
Anyway, thanks to the fisheye lens, the shot looks spacious and wide. One thing though I don't like is the nonparallel wall lines which broke the symmetry in some unpleasant way really. In processing this shot, I've used tone-splitting techniques which I seldom use with infrared images. But I thought, since infrared filters with such high threshold do yield essentially a monochromatic image after all, maybe I should consider using tone-splitting to add some life to the image. I guess this is a decision that I did NOT regret at all! Many people liked it actually. My typical tones to be used by now are yellow and blue (with mostly emphasized blue). I surely look forward to use tone-splitting with such infrared images in the future (and I did already with few images by now at the time of typing this).

ِAt this point, the stroll was over and I reached home. I did take some shots inside the house just for fun but I don't think they are interesting much. I have to say that the images taken in this stroll are still being scrutinized to get the most of them, specially to see for possibilities to make 3D anaglyph images.

Finale

At this point, and under such weather, it seems that strolling days are behind me now. This post is the first part of using the fisheye lens with Kodak's infrared filter. There is another one, hopefully coming in 2 weeks time from now, where I picked the same combination of lens and filter and strolled westward from home. Probably not much of a scenery as these I've shot in the eastern side.
At the time of typing this, we've been already under dust for 3 days (or even 4). I was thinking of picking one of my lenses and my ND1000 filter (10 stops) to do some long exposures somewhere, but the conditions are changing quite fast and I didn't and couldn't come up with any new ideas to use such a combination (in addition, I would definitely need a tripod and a shutter remote). Looking back, I think I've used this filter only once, back in 2015 in Malta! I need to experiment more with it.
Meanwhile, I will be trying to prepare an article (post) for my Arabic blog, talking about pinhole photography. I do have a bit a problem there with the lack of material but anyway I'll try to circumvent that in some way. I just hope it will be ready for next week though. I'm having a new keyboard here and I think I'm still having issues typing with it and it gives me a considerable headache sometime!

On the other hand, I think things calmed down a bit with my mood swings lately. I just need to figure out a way to overcome the almost continuous fatigue which renders me "almost" useless. I have a plan to try out a number of herbs if possible and see if they are better than coffee in giving me the "zing". Lately, I've been feeling quite sleepy after having a mug of coffee. My daily dose of coffee had been 2 mugs a day, on average, with having one extra sometimes on occasions. Herbs on my list include cinnamon (which I do drink occasionally), lemon balm, and few others with some weird names which I need to re-check and try to find! I just hope one or some of these would help out with my fatigue problem. 

Άγνωστος
(unknown)

Pinholism…

Summer is here, so if you are a person who likes summer, please don't let me encounter you on any platform! It's just the 2^nd week of June and temperatures already getting to, if not exceeding, 50^oC! I had some pleasant short vacation away from work but going back now, after such a holiday, with such heat (and AC problems from time to time) is just so exhausting. Meanwhile, I'm sort of idle with my camera but I'm busy with other things. Might talk about them later. But as promised in my last post, I will talk about another photo which I've created some weeks ago and I didn't want to jam my previous blog post here about it, so I kept it for this week.

Pray

المُقْرِئْ
The Reciter

Some time ago, months ago in fact, I've made a shot with my pinhole cap (or pinhole lens as some like to call it)  picturing myself reading or reciting Quran, opposite to a shiny window. The image is much of a conceptual fine art work instead of the typical expressive sharp image that we, mostly, would expect. This shot was done in a time when I was really working on enhancing the pinhole imagery and trying my best to get it to be as sharp as possible. However, with time, I realized that this is kind of impossible to be done (scientifically) and it would be rather better to work on using this specific look which is created by the pinhole to express a specific mood, and culture. Since the make of The Reciter (it is also one of the rare occasions in which I do name my photos in Arabic actually, because of its nature), I've thought of doing another shot depicting the praying practice (as a Muslim of course) but for one reason or another I really didn't get the time to do it until Ramadhan (and being off with my little vacation) this year. The main problem, though, was to find a suitable location for the shooting; I needed a place with glass that allows so much light to come in, and must be in some good angle in relation to the sun. I guess I've found that good spot in the guest room at home.

المُصَلّي
The Praying

In this room, I had to shoot in the early morning. I did check the room several times but I thought first about some obstacles (some gypsum board wall ) that might block the view if I want to perform the shot in front of the main entrance door to this room. However, all went well in the end (with some tiny bits of cropping and fixing perspective in post-process). Then, we have the problem of the perspective, which was easily solved with my new L-Bracket, which I've attached to the camera body and it allowed me to place the camera considerably stable in portrait position on the ground. The main issue though was the nature of the shoot itself. Metering and taking test shots revealed that I need about 64 seconds. Doing some math and dividing these seconds over the various parts of the typical movements which one do during the prayer, it was about 12 seconds for each. Anyway, I was counting on my own without a timer or anything and the thing didn't really work as some movements were not recorded clearly on the sensor apparently. Thus, and again, I've found myself forced to use the power of blending to merge all the movements - I did several shots with various movements and gestures, and each in 64 seconds. Blending these shots was not an easy task as well and my typical method of blending using Lighten or Darken did not work here. I simply had to change the opacity for various shots and even canceling some shots as well to get the final look as you see it in The Praying. Another critical post-processing point here is trying to make a difference in tones between the prostrating pose and the kneeling-on-the-ground pose, but keeping both gestures or images reasonably "black". It might be noticeable better when the image is enlarged though.
Now, after finishing this image, I'm thinking, again, of a third images for this series even though in the beginning I was thinking that this would be a two-image sequence only and no more; But my mind is still playing tricks and still thinking what I could add to this series (and it must be related to the Islamic practices of course) - Didn't get an answer myself but we'll see. I've been idle with my camera now (specially after some failures) so it would be a good push to get active again.

Finale

Well, I can't emphasize enough how much I'm sick of summer already and it is still June. Sometimes I'm really hating myself for being born in August. I'm already doing project indoors as it is, and now summer is here, then just the thought of going out to shoot anything, day or night, is a No-No.
Meanwhile, despite stopping the astrophotography trend in my brain, there are some good signs, like finding a relatively-cheap equatorial mount or tracker that I can work with but I'm not ordering this now. This would allow me to take longer spans of exposures and get some proper light to the sensor in order to process them properly and show features of the deep sky objects; As all my trials before were nothing more than some constellations and dots in the sky! On the other hand, working with these images was beneficial despite the failures. I've learned new techniques on "stretching" the data out of my images which I might use any time with other types of images and not necessarily with Astro-shots.
Hanging by the ideas, I'm still looking for inspirations among the Andalusian folk songs and I do indeed have some ideas, but when thinking practically, I just get back to "normal" and abandon the whole thing and start thinking again for and about something new. This is is beside thinking about using the pinhole again for a third image to the sequence of Islamic nature, which includes the two images above.
On the other hand, with all the mental struggle here, there is a struggle inside of me trying to push myself and force myself to travel for real despite the hustle and overthinking. It might be a tiresome thing to do but it is essential to get a break before the engine of my mood and my brain breaks down in this place I'm living in. My fuse is getting shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get myself busier by adding on to my to-do-list, like learning more languages beside Irish on Duolingo. I've added Turkish, German and Russian - and who knows, I might add a 5^th one too! I really wish I can learn many languages with ease; They fascinated me since I was a kid, and now there is some good chances.
Anyway, as I won't be posting in this blog by next week, I'll be busy actually typing a post for my Arabic blog instead about "extracting" gradients from photos and apply them to other photos, and if it is interesting enough I might as well talk about it here. I hear a lot about people selling and others buying such gradients to ease their workflow and such, yet I'm not sure if this is worthy of my time but I'm experimenting and having some artistic fun as well!

An tSiúlóid…

As I'm typing this, there were some trials (and errors of course) on some little project which really consumed my time at home recently. Anyway, I'm still working on this and let's hope that I get something useful out of it! Frankly, I'm not sure what I'm doing or have done already, but we'll see. I'll explain things later when it is time to talk about this little idea in future posts, hopefully. Meanwhile, I'm actually living from one weekend to another and now waiting for the New Year's holiday here (which will be only one day). Not just to sleep more as much as I can, but to ease my mind a bit (specially about driving the damn car to and from work). Anyway, who's not sick of driving cars right now in this place with traffic jams taking up the roads for more than 12 hours a day?

Budgie

Since I was not doing much with my camera and as I was trying to kick myself a bit to move and do something, I've found some new target for me here: Our parakeet (a.k.a Budgie). We had this bird for a while and I truly hate to see birds in cages but, well, as usual, I don't have a say in this in this home of mine. I have to say though, he kind of have a weird character. I can feel it.

Nostralia

So, what I did, I just placed the cage on a table (as usual) and placed a speedlite beside it on another table and started to shoot a bit randomly; Why randomly? Well, it is an animal and I can't control its pulses, specially being inside a cage! Thus, my mind was set to do a lot of cropping work later on when examine the shots. To overcome the bars or the cage, I've used my 100mm macro lens (at f/8) in hope that the bars would not be too obvious; However, they helped me at some point as we will see! And for some reason, I've used my converted Canon EOS 7D here without any filters (no IR, nor Hot Mirror), and guess what? I was able to retain the original colors back with the adjustment of the white balance while processing the photos quite easily. Just as a remark: The main source of lighting here is the speedlite and not the ambient light, which means there is an abundant amount of infrared issued through, but without using any filtration system, I was good to go and I got the colors back (well, to be honest, I was hoping I would get something vivid or strange in terms of colors).

3D-Keet

Parastrakt

Taking many pictures on burst (successive) mode did help me as well to inspect the shots for some chances to make anaglyphs. They were not many in fact and apparently f/8 was not enough with this macro endeavor (the shallow depth changed as the bird moved and I was trying to follow him up!). Anyway, my main aim was to create abstracts actually and not anaglyphs, and this is why I was thinking of the crops from the very beginning of this random shooting, as you might have seen already up with Nostralia. I didn't name the pictures even prior to this post; I'm just putting the names now for easy reading and pointing!
Looking at some of these images, I've remembered some of the photos I've seen from some photographers here where they did use telephoto lenses with close objects like birds and horses and that really gives me an idea that I might try one day with my Sigma 70-300mm lens one day with this bird, as apparently this macro lens didn't block out much spaces, as can be seen in Parastrakt in the lower right corner (this image was flipped and rotated to be in that form by the way). The irony is, the first image I've shot in this series, was the latest to be processed and yet, probably so far, the most beloved to me! Behind Bars.

Behind Bars

Behind Bars was one of the first shots I've made in this series but for some reason, I didn't check it out till later after processing few images. I loved the lines formed by the ribs of the cage, with some of them being in focus and some blurred. Originally, I tried to work in color but then I realized that this image is more dramatic and more eye-catching in B&W and probably the emotions do show better in that way. I can see fear in his face (what about you?) probably because of what was happening around him with flash pulses striking his face. What I really like about this image, too, is the way that blurred lines of the ribs blend on the head of the bird like bands of inverse colors; This is definitely a trick I need to think of using in some of my future shots if possible. So far, there had been few images I need to check, and some I need to re-check in this series to see if there is any potential left in them.

The Stroll

With the "somewhat" lack of activities, and after watching some photography videos on Youtube, I got some passionate kindle going on inside of me to do some shooting outside (specially with the winter season right now). I do miss going out at night but anyway this is not the case here. I'm starting simple: A stroll around my workplace.
The thing was like a challenge and I used to do some challenges of that sort often and specifically around my workplace, where I would pick my camera with one lens only and go around my workplace trying to shoot something and come out with something unique. This time, though, I packed a camera with a lens (50mm), plus few items (2 mini-tripods which I didn't use anyway and intervalometer, beside a pinhole cap). As I started to work, an idea sparked inside of me to do some Anaglyph-dedicated shooting, which I did (despite the annoying flies!).

The strolling kit packed in a little camcorder bag.

In order to quicken my work a bit and also to get as much as possible out of the scene in order to be merged as an anaglyph later on, I put the camera on burst mode. It was partially cloudy day, but nevertheless, I could work in the range of 1/1000s of a second for the shutter's speed, and that made my work easier as all I had to do is just press the button and move gently to get a set of images with slightly different perspective. Working with 50mm lens here did not give me the choice to get closer (I didn't bring with me any extension tubes for macro jobs), and there were some instances where I wished I did bring those with me. However, the killing mistake was to use a very shallow depth of field (f/1.4, the lowest f-number for this lens). This aperture proved to be so sensitive to the movement that two successive shots can be so different in terms of the depth of field (and the location of the depth or the sharpness of the image). Anyway, I did escape with some useful images after all and some of them were good to be merged anyway!
 Some shots, I think, are better off to be in B&W as well because of the drastic and quite eye-attraction they cause away from their normal colored looks. I've discovered this by chance as I was trying to remove the color distraction from some images before converting them into anaglyphs. Sometimes, and for some images, the original colors can be quite an obstacle for a proper 3D Anaglyph viewing.

The Negative Bloom
Despite being like a negative or invert in colors, it is a direction conversion into B&W with a play in the tones.
One of my favorites.

But anyway, back to the main purpose of the stroll, which is regular shots, with some abstracts if possible. Escaping from the flies outside, I came back in into my office and started figuring out a way to use the pinhole cap this time (0.22mm) and shoot something towards the window. Actually, the idea for this shot was the reason I thought of bringing my camera to my work, because when the lights are switched off, the window becomes the main source of light; A majestic scene in winter time and the cold weather! Maybe because of the warmth that it provides? Seriously, I'm in this job for about 13 years now and I don't feel this, with such sun rays coming through the window, but only in winter alone. Well, it might have to do with the direction of the sun as well and how the rays enter the room, who knows?! In anyway, it was something to think of for a shoot!

My Dreams Window

The challenge, though, was how to I'm going to shoot this without a tripod? Even though the sun rays were strong enough to shorten the exposure, yet the exposure was in terms of seconds (ranged from 4 to 30 seconds depending on the angle). I almost gave up on that actually, but then I thought while use this relatively-long exposure to my advantage and create the abstract by moving the camera vertically in a line (as much as possible). Which I did, but then I did also add some motion blur when editing the photo later on. I wonder if such images are welcome in stock websites!

Doppel

Even though I was aiming to do a long exposure originally with this pinhole cap and through the window for the people who would usually walk outside, but the circumstances were unlike it. Not many people out there, and no tripod. Thus, I had to satisfy myself with this for now. However, I thought of one last exposure to make with the help of the whiteboard which is hanging in my office. So, I just stuck the camera by hand onto the whiteboard (pressing not too hard for stabilization) and took the exposure like that pointing to the same window, and hence we can see the reflection of the window in Doppel. To tell the truth, I was really thinking that I shot the two windows in my office for a moment! But then I remembered that the second window is covered in curtains still. Dementia at its best.
This was the end of the stroll and in fact up till this moment of typing this, I'm still checking and processing of these images. There is a plan to do it again and that time would be with my Voigtländer 20mm lens. This would be challenging somewhat because it is a wide angle and so many elements might be involved. The good part about this lens is that closest focusing distance is about 20cm which allows for some intimate moments with objects! This said, I'm already planning to upload some of these photos into my accounts on stocks websites and writing the info and keywording is surely a time-consuming task that must be done anyway, and pretty soon.

Finale

Well, because of the scrambled mind here I was not so fortunate to write down a new poem. I really wished to post one here to be my last poem for this year, but alas, my core couldn't stand it with imagination. I'm, though, mainly focusing on pinning down my thoughts about life and recording them for future reflections on my thoughts. It is all recorded in this open document, which I might produce another similar version of it for the year 2019 specifically.
I've been feeling some rage inside of me lately. It's not weird to be enraged, but this time it is a bit weird in a way I can't explain. I mean, a rage to the limit of despising the very thing about the human nature or let's say of those around me. Arrogance? I don't quite think so. Probably just tired. So tired. I'm missing the time when I would just sleep any time I want without worrying about anything. Anyway, let me hit this post button for now and go ahead and work with those images… in hope that I get something ready for the next post in 2 weeks. I leave you now with one of my favorite Muwashshahat by one of my favorite tenors, Sabah Fakhri...

Greasing The Engine…

Here we are... Ramadhan is over, and my vacation is over as well and I'm back to work with the usual greasing my engine problem like after every vacation. A number of stuff I've been doing with my camera through this short vacation, and somehow was trying to catch my chances before I get back to the humdrum of the daily life and the tired body. Sleeping was a problem of course, and can't imagine how my life would have been if I didn't take that vacation as well! I'm grateful though for one last miracle, and that is my shipment is finally here after taking a long route and some extra expenses through the sick mailing system we have here. Anyway, I might talk about that later.

Out of The UV

It has been a while now with my thoughts about trying a portraiture or a selfie using my UV filter. I even got myself some CFL-type blacklights to try out and experiment in shooting such portraits (with some plans of painting with sun screen). However, after working a bit and some testing, it turns out that such blacklights are not quite practical and/or useful for portraiture at least (might be useful and practical for static objects for tabletop photography). Anyway, I had my own little experiment with a selfie using these blacklights…

UV Man I

Googling around, I didn't find quite the descriptive article that describes how dangerous are the blacklights, and what is their damage on the long or short terms. Anyway, I worked with them anyway fixing my exposure to one second only and raising my ISO to 640. I was wearing my glasses without really realizing it, but then I thought they would be a good protection for my eyes. I've worked before with these blacklights and I noticed that I get some irritation to my eyes when they are on. All in all, the glasses were a good addition to the shot I believe, as I didn't plan for these reflections off them.

UV Man II

One of the signs of a good UV filter (or a combination of UV filter and a hot mirror) is that glasses appear black or almost opaque when shot with these filters and this is how I exactly realized that the DR-655 filter was a good filter because my glasses got dark when I tried to shoot some selfies under the sun before (when I first got the filter). That worked well here making my glasses like a mirror reflecting off the blacklights under my face (placed into desk lamps).

Transmission chart for
Kenko's DR-655 Hot Mirror.
Click to enlarge.

However, when I tried my speedlite (though I know it's not a good UV source) the opacity of the glasses was gone and my eyes appeared from behind the glasses, proving that speedlites probably fire some infrared BELOW the limit of 700nm (which is the beginning of the blockade by DR-655 hot mirror according to charts). This effect for the speedlite over my glasses persisted even when I covered the speedlite with somewhat thick blue and purple layers of cellophane with the hope of blocking the infrared range; However, no use. I've made several shots (and UV Man II taken before UV Man I actually) and I guess only 2 shots were somewhat the best of them all. I've used excessive sharpening with UV Man II here to compensate for the little motion blur in the image (probably doesn't show clearly when in small size). For this, it seems that there is no escape of doing my future UV portraiture projects under the sun; The summer's sun. Speaking of "escape," I think it is time to move to the next title: Escape.

الهروب - The Escape - Al-Hurúb

Somehow I loved to call the next shot in Arabic rather than, typically, in English or any other languages. Hmm, this has been a trend in my mind lately. Anyway, this is all about a panorama shot which I've been planning to do for a long time; I won't be exaggerating if I say that the idea had been there for 2 years, if not more. Initially, the idea for this panorama was to be shot in "normal" mode, so to say. However, when time arrived for its execution, I decided to do it in infrared (with my modified camera of course) as this would add more drama, contrast and visual impact.

الهروب - The Escape

I did indeed a panorama (a simple one) in this location before and I remember it didn't go well (it was in HDR too). It was so simple, with only doors showing. The idea of adding an element like this hand was the thing that delayed my work. I was thinking of using my bro as a model to show his hand only out of the (bathroom) door, yet I couldn't fix the timing with him and I doubt he has the patience for such work. I went as far as thinking of getting a mannequin (or the hand alone at least), and again, I couldn't get to that. Thus, again, I'm all by myself.  Unfortunately, I didn't take single shots to explain some issues, so I will go explaining some of these issues by points:

1. First things first: It's an infrared panorama, which means I need a good infrared source. Thus, I had to change the bulb in this small square space from CFL to tungsten bulb (150W!) to ensure my intake of infrared in the place (and I was not disappointed).
2. It was perplexing to position the tripod in the first place, and it was obvious that it won't be at the center anyway, so I tried to place centered with respect to the bathroom door where the hand shall be exposes.
3. Naturally, there would be overlapping of images when doing this panorama because of the added element (the hand). So, things has to be unchanged between the shoots as much as possible. For this, I opened the bathroom door and let it swing on its own to its own limit (the vent fan was on so the air sucks up the door a bit in addition to the door's weight). At this point, I've placed a marker on the ground (let's hope Mom didn't notice!). Later on, after shooting the panorama, I've gone inside the bathroom and extended my arm outside and tried my best to align the door with the marked line I did earlier. I took many shots with different poses for the hand and when stitching I really wanted to add them all in some sort of a surreal look, but because of the troublesome errors, I've satisfied myself with only one hand.
4. Even with one hand, stitching errors prevailed and to be honest, I'm not sure if the final product here has all its stitching errors fixed! 

The working infrared filter here is Kodak's gel filter (#87B) which has a threshold of about 820nm. The tungsten bulb here provided with just what I need of infrared and I started shooting at f/10, 4 seconds each, at ISO 160. Of course, no HDR bracketing here, that would be a far fetch somehow. In fact, even with 4 seconds, my hand was not that stable but it might not show easily in the big picture. Yet, with such a strong infrared filter, 4 seconds of exposure is plausible indeed. To ensure the proper exposure time, I've shot the bathroom door some several shots and checked their histogram to decide for the proper exposure for all of the scene (because this door is the most important in the whole scene as well), and that worked well. The black space under the arch was not dark in reality, but this is the main hall which was lit mainly by LEDs and CFLs, and these two do not emit enough infrared to show up clearly in just 4 seconds of exposure with this filter - It was just perfect! Well, there were some tiny white dots which I needed to clear out. The white-gray space under this black space under the arch is just the sofa covered with some "black" cloth to hide the details of the sofa. But you know what? I'm regretting that and now I wish if I made it ALL black there.
I've made various projections so far and still working on more out of this panorama, so I might leave those for my next posts anyway, but the priority was for creating a QTVR out of this panorama. Unlike my previous posts where I would post a little QTVR here (which requires QuickTime to be installed), now I'm going to depend on 360Cities.net embed my QTVRs here. And this one has been published already as well!

The Escape

Pinhology

During the last days of my vacation I started to get excited again about my pinhole (lens) and really wanted to do something about it. I was focusing on getting sharper image in the past but now, my focus is mainly surreal in essence. Thus, sharpness was not much of an issue for me this time. All I wanted to do is record some motion, and in B&W. Some of these images as I saw do have a mental effect on me at some level. Something out of this world, or simply psychological. With this though, I've dug deeper and learned further about pinholes and I'm seriously considering making one on my own for my camera (but first I need to clean my mental desk of some hanging tasks and issues).

المقرئ - The Reciter
Pinhole: 2m, ISO100.

My first idea was doing a bit of motion (as I stated already) and the idea was to make a moving silhouette. Easy said than done when the talk is about a pinhole lens. Using ND filters was out of question here (even though I do have some gel NDs and I could have easily stuck them on the pinhole). Originally, I wanted to have a light coming from above, but when I saw the window in this room of the house (specially in the morning) I really loved it. It was perfect for the job and in fact more plausible for a silhouette (even though more work was needed with dodge and burn when processed). The exposure of two minutes (plus 1 minute timer to prepare myself with the black cloth) was just enough to record this motion as I was flipping through the pages of my Quran (Koran). Maybe the background was not well organized but I can't complain. I've already had a problem with the camera to get enough distance in the room to get the framing I wanted (one more reason to think of some way to integrate pinhole work with my regular lenses). Converting to B&W saved the situation further, because I realized that my clothes showed up with all the fanciful colors and designs! 

Escape 2
Pinhole: 39s, ISO100.

The streak of "inspiration" did not stop with that room, as I'm starting to notice the light patterns wherever I go now and truly putting my mind into this pinhole work altogether. The room this time was the guest room and the light was coming through from the door that leads to the outside. Again, it did capture my sight (even though it was getting dusty by that time and got extreme after I've finished, luckily!). Had some go with simple poses like in Escape 2 (thought of it as a sequel to The Escape panorama). Even though my body was not completely stable during the 39 seconds exposure, but the image looked stable enough. During the post-processing phase I did decrease the clarity to give it the dreamy-like (or should I say psychological horror) look. Also, and again, there was some work with the dodge and burn to be done and I made a compromise here between showing little details in the blacks but not quite enough to figure out any shape. To keep things in black here, I had to wear my t-shirt turned around to hide those designs! Anyway, I couldn't stop thinking about keeping myself in motion, because motion in such long exposures, to me, resembles the life of the image and somewhat like resurrecting something within the viewer when he or she looks at it.

Escape 3
Pinhole: 39s, ISO100.

Thus moving to the next idea, with only one hand extending through (not behind the glass door) and this time moving my fingers only, and the result as you can see in Escape 3, it did have that motion effect somehow. However, instead of reducing the clarity when processing this image as in the case of Escape 2, I've increased it. That way the shades of the fingers appeared clearly further. These shades of the fingertips were made by the motion of the fingers actually. By the end, I still had one more shot to take and this time I did have some motion by head and hands but the end result was not much to be noticed, and the whole thing appeared as if some Anonymous person standing behind some glass. 

Anonymous
Pinhole: 39s, ISO100.

The focus on pinhole photography made me expand my thinking a bit; Somewhere behind the pinhole lens that I've purchased and in many occasions I would find myself senselessly digging myself into numbers and calculations trying to figure out or visualize the outcome of various light wavelengths, diameters, and even focal lengths (despite for me it has been fixed at 44mm). I think that shooting with the pinhole for some time would, naturally, push the photographer further to focus on the light and its quality, as was the case in the classical times with films. Of course, it is still digital and one can shoot and check it out later and fix it later, but still, the length of the exposure alone makes it worthy to invest some time in focusing and reflecting on the light available and what to do or how to do the shoot. All that, I believe, would reflect back and add to the experience of the photographer and his eyes and vision when working with regular lenses. Right now, I'm thinking seriously as well of merging speedlites with the work with this pinhole (in terms of a stroboscope). Needs a bit of thinking…

Finale

Neewer Set of Infrared Filters.
IR720, IR760, IR850, IR950.

A bunch of ideas are roaming my mind and with me being back to work doesn't make it any easier for me to work on them, but I shall try. I know it will be some long time. Miraculously, I got the shipment that was wandering the globe before my expectations and in my hands now a set of four infrared filters that need to be tested. I have some curious interest in the IR950, which supposedly has a threshold of 950nm; Such a high value for an infrared filter and I've been clicking around with it using high ISO (12,800) here and there. I might post these results later. But I need to go beyond that as well; I really need some scientific method to get a concrete idea of the capabilities of such filters, specially after being tricked with Tiffen's Hot Mirror before! All I can do so far is just click and test against known sources of IR like the sun and tungsten lights, as well as speedlites.

Seems I've been away from poetry for weeks now (again) but I do have these visits of some words which do not quite settle down in my head. I think I've been running with my pace in life lately specially with the end of my vacation, focusing on my camera work. I need to get back to that. I really don't know how to pass this summer, specially with no solid plans for traveling in the near future. Things are getting so narrow; So narrow that make me chest feel like crashing on its own, but as if nothing to be done. Sometimes, depression would not be clinical nor mere sadness, but simply feeling to be in the wrong time, in the wrong place, simply surrounded by stupidity. All I can do, then, is to keep myself amused, on my own…