Kika X…

How silly was it for me to make a post without an introduction the last time! I guess I was in a bit of a hurry to finish whatever I can in time. Anyway, I don't think there is any important stuff to spill out in the introduction, but I really wanted to make another little announcement. But well, I guess I don't need a special section for this little one, so here we go.
I've lately uploaded my bubbles collection to my Canstockphoto (which you find by clicking the signature at the end of the post) and now I've posted "some" of these images (and some few more outside the series) into my 123RF profile. I say "some" here because some images from this series were not accepted for one reason or another. Thus, the full series is actually available (so far) ONLY on Canstockphoto. I don't know much about the pricing of each website but just in case you want to compare, go ahead. Some people have one account in one and not the other anyway. As for Dreamstime, I never received any email concerning this type of upload or series or any single response, thus I have not uploaded there at all. 

 

Kika X

And up with the 10^th week of Kika's photo-challenge. At this time, I got occupied pretty much with many things, specially helping my brother with his studied. Thus, my mind was not "that" free for much inspirational work. Mind was all over the place. This,in fact, would be the situation till the end of the series of Kika's photo-challenge.
The theme for Week 10 was "light." As usual, since I didn't have the proper time to take new photos, I've searched my arsenal and I couldn't find any better than one particular shot that had a special kind of light…

Boihéamach
(bohemian)

I love this selfie because of the light in use here. It was lit with a single candle (and posted about it back in 2019 and started a project then to portraits with one candle only). Beside the quality of the light here, it was shot in infrared (hence the blue tint and eye). I was lucky here to pinpoint the focus on the eye on my own; It was a lengthy process of trial and error! However, just so I won't be re-posting a photo just like that without any edit or any effort for the theme, I've decided to do a minor adjustment. So minor but with a huge impact: Contrast.

Boihéamach (2)

The difference is drastic and made me wonder: Why didn't I do this in the first place when I first processed this image? Probably, then, I was way too dependent on the histogram and feared going out of the gamut. The contrast here was fixed simply by using the black dropper in the Curve adjustment layer box and using it to set the black point of the image as a whole from a spot near the face (or the eye's pupil).
The image became more dramatic and more drastic and I'd say more Rambrandt-ish after this fix of the contrast, with apparently uplifting the blue tint from the whole image.
I think I really need to detach myself from perfection with histogram. A lesson to be learned in my future work; If my memory and habits serve me right. So, this far is my only contribution for Kika's Week 10 challenge: Light. 

 

Back-on-Villea

So at this time, of March still, I went back to the yard trying to catch some more "extreme" macro shots, and this time for the Bougainvillea. Or should I say, Bougainvillea's blooms. This plant really proved to be hard to work with because of its stiff branch (and thorns!) and a lot of the things that I wanted to try before did fail because of the breeze, wind, or the hard-to-reach pose. 

Hyperstigma

The stigma or central part of the bougainvillea bloom is quite interesting with its cinquefoil-like shape. However, unfortunately, the magnification I was using (4.2X) was way greater than what it should be and there was no time to change and experiment (again!) so I went on and tried to shoot whatever I could. Hyperstigmata here was shot from the top and directly onto the stigma but generally speaking, it is not quite clear and blurry. Probably good for a small size representation but definitely not a large size one. Seems even with a speedlite at hand and at 1/250 of a second, motion blur outside is yet to be conquered.

Stigma Profile

Stigma Profile II

Ironically, despite not being able to shoot the stigma right on, I was able to shoot a "profile" from the side (or behind). In Stigma Profile I and II, the effect of the direction of the light is obvious. It helped on creating an isolation of the foreground without much effort; Just by tilting the speedlite at hand just a little bit!

Stamen Head

Pinkoid

Same thing goes on with the stamen part of the flower, where changing the direction of the light did change the looks drastically (and the feel as well). I kind of find it comical that the masculine part of the flower comes out in such dominant pink, in Pinkoid; A color usually assigned to the feminine nature. Anyway, the bloom itself is pinkish/magenta in color, with all its inner parts. I was amazed to know that there are indeed bougainvillea varieties with white (and probably blue?) flowers! Would be nice to have them side by side with these pink/magenta ones. The plant though is quite random and needs special treatment to let it grow in some organized manner. Needless to say, we plant them in small pots right now, so, they wouldn't grow much like the one we planted long ago when we first settled in this then-new home. Nevertheless, the branches and the blooms do just fine as they are. 

Stigma Furnace

Back to the stigma and with changing lighting conditions again, seems I got something acceptable in Stigma Furnace. However, this result was not possible without editing; A heavy one as well. This said, there are still a number of images that I didn't touch or check thoroughly. A quick look at some of these didn't yield much impression on me but probably another visit to those again, with some cropping and "surreal" editing techniques, I might get out with something out of them.

 

Finale

As I'm typing this blog post, and specially the introduction up there, I've realized that there are a number of promises that I've made and which seems like that I've "ditched". Like the one time that I wanted to do more of the old panoramas in a new suit and upload them to Mostphotos. However, lately, my psyche had a great toll on me. Maybe some, who would read these lines, would consider it such an exaggeration to talk about the mental status in the finale of every post, but all I can say is, I really don't wish to see you in such a place, in your minds. The exhaustion of fighting off such mental issues is quite physical. Sprinkle that with back pains, and you would get such a lovely combination of stalemate.
I am in a phase of life at the moment that I really don't know what I want, where to go, or where am I going. Yes, I have few wishes, but under the current circumstances they are kind of far fetched. In fact, even those wishes I'm wishing and hoping for, probably won't make me any more dedicated or goal-oriented, nor grant me happiness. Something within is very tired.

Strobogenic IV…

As things are going crazy, and my continuous trials to calm myself down and take every day as it is, all I can say is: I'm tired. I'm absolutely tired. And guess what? Even though I don't have to go to work now with the lock-down, but still, I do feel so much pressure on my time, specially that I spend most of the daytime sleeping. Otherwise, things are going easy, sort of. Despite the total curfew or lock-down that had been issued and activated on Sunday May 10^th (it was partial for a month or more I think). All what I'm worried about is my coffee, and chocolate.

Strobo-Faces

And, again, I had an appointment with myself, doing some work with stroboscopic flashes, and this time a kind of a selfie. I did a number of selfies which I've posted about in previous posts, which were done using the stroboscopic flash, but back then, it was about the hand movement. This time, it would be about the head movement with a little change as well, and that is, fitting my speedlite here with a my (new) trusty oval diffuser!

One of the stroboscopic selfies made some months ago.

Oval diffuser from Impact.

Probably I've mentioned before in some old posts that I've lost this diffuser just a time when I really got used to it and started to love working with it because of the nature of diffusion and "atmospheric" light that it produces. Anyway, I've ordered this again some months back and now it is the first time to use this new one! As I've noted before, this time the selfies would include the movement of the head instead of the hands like before and I have to say it was challenging little bit. Despite being comfortable, staying in my chair and working with the camera (unlike other projects I've done like the chess project for example), still it was hard to pin the light, I guess one of the reasons was that I was shooting INFRARED selfies this time with my modified EOS 7D. So just imagine the hassle: Stroboscopic flash + Infrared filter on lens!

اِلْتِفاتْ
(Turning)

Despite setting the stroboscopic flash for 5 strikes, yet the number of ghosts always seemed to be less than 5. A simple movement like turning the head from the side and towards the camera did look harder than it should be! Eventually, anyway, I had to raise the power of the speedlite, as I'm working with infrared here and needed more power, plus the diffuser which of course would naturally need more power. These factors, of course, limited the number of possible strikes at the given frequency, so I had to satisfy myself with 3 or even 2 strikes alone. The results after all were not that bad and conveyed the needed surrealism.

تَجَلّي
(Manifestation)

Of course, things should not stop at the level of such a simple movement as turning my head around, right? So, the work started with doing some extra moves; Up and down, near the lens and far, or the reverse. But at this level I think I've dimmed the room a bit to have some space to lengthen the exposure time even for fractions and be able to adjust the number of strikes accordingly, and the frequency probably. One (digital) drawback of shooting with stroboscopic light is that such info (i.e. frequency, number of strikes) are not recorded in the EXIF, and I fail drastically when it comes to memorizing these settings with precision!

هَسْتيريا
(Hysteria)

I wasn't troubled much with the shortage in the number of strikes as much as I was troubled with the post-processing, as the grain or noise level was not comforting my eyes, despite using ISO100 for most or all of the shots (didn't check the EXIF thoroughly here!). I have to say though that the grain in infrared images is somewhat like a "brand" back when infrared used to be shot on special infrared film, thus it might be considered a typical look or something familiar, but I doubt many people know this fact anyway! Nevertheless, in the digital era things should be different I suppose. Anyway, I must admit that my editing practices to the RAW file here did add a spike to the level of grain here; I've been a bit aggressive with my approach! Nevertheless, the dark attitude and atmosphere did serve my purpose for presenting a psychopathic state of mind despite the grain or noise. If you ask why did I not try to clean the noise, well, the answer is obvious I guess, simply because it will degrade some details.

اِنْسِلاخْ
(Secession)

However, speaking of grain or noise is not all bad. In some shots like انسلاخ (Secession), the grain provided a pretty much needed texture to the skin and mimicked (unintentionally) the effect of changing skin or sloughing (as when the snake changes its skin). Adding a bit of sharpness to that, despite the grains, made quite the mood. Here we also see the virtue of shooting in infrared (with relatively low threshold value), where a brown eye like mine would change to blue; Higher threshold would get the shot closer and closer to be monochromatic with almost no hint of color. I think Secession is the best I did get out of this series in this experiment!

Surreal Appetite

I was going to leave the coming set of images for a later post but I realized that they are kind of connected, besides being a somewhat off-shot from the previous work with the stroboscopic flash. The thing with working with stroboscopic flash kind of triggered my appetite for more surreal portraiture work, but this time without the flash part; Simply, a camera and a lens.

جَدَلِيّ
(Argumentative)

The surreal work here involves the camera movement as you might have guessed already. I rarely use such techniques for anything in my photography, but with the lock-down and staying at home for weeks without stepping out, made me think of things that I didn't even thought I would think of… am I making any sense here?
Anyway, while virtually you can try such techniques of camera movements with anything, I preferred to do "portraiture" for my experiments. I wished to do selfies but this is kind of… impossible (I guess), so I picked my typical target: My brother.

وَسْواسْ
(Delusion)

Equipped with my Canon EF 50mm, I've set the camera on (TV) mode, and probably this is one of the rare occasions where I would use such a mode to shoot. Typically, I'm on Manual, Av, or Bulb. This is because I know the time that I need, so I want the camera to adjust the aperture for me. The time was set to 1 second only, which was enough for a quick twist to the camera. The aperture then was somewhere between f/11 and f/16. I have to say, producing some good lines with such movement is not as easy as I thought, and probably it would have been easier with light sources, but nevertheless, it was a good surreal experiment.

اِخْتِلاجُ فِكْرٍ 1
(A convulsion of thought 1)

اِخْتِلاجُ فِكْرٍ 2
(A convulsion of thought 2)

The processing of such images proved to be a challenge as well. But maybe this is more affected by the subject rather than the nature of the style itself? I'm not sure. I was struggling to strike a balance between adding contrast to the image to emphasize the motion blur lines and yet keep some dark areas untouched; A lot of dodge and burn and layer mask work.

Now with all this work with these images, there had been some photo-shoots on the side and I've started a series (somewhat) for some of these while planning to do so for some others as well, but I'll keep that for later times. I'm not sure though I'd be able to do a post in 2 weeks time from now, as I would be busy in preparing a blog post for my Arabic blog, or so I'm thinking for the time being!

Finale

Maybe I never imagined myself saying this, but as an introvert, this lock-down and situation is starting to suffocate me. Even though not much has changed in my life, and even I'm relaxing as much as I can (even with Ramadhan ongoing). But the stress that comes from the circle around me is pushing my buttons to some extent, specially with the regulations and the curfew (which turned to be almost full curfew for 22 hours a day) that makes going out for essentials a bit difficult (a permit is needed to go to the nearest supermarket and only to the nearest supermarket). Children on the other hand are also some hassle as they are gradually and slowly seem to lose sanity for not going outside like before, and not meeting their "comrades" in mornings like before. Keeping them amused is a hard task, and they are pushed to spend more time on devices; The thing that their parents were telling them not to do just some weeks ago. Strange times indeed…
Number of hits here is increasing by a ridiculous rate because of the stupid and careless people, which pushes me further into depression. Meanwhile, I'm trying as much as possible to think of ways to invest my time with my camera, and even to do something that might give me some extra income on the side if needed (but I didn't conclude anything yet). I've also started to follow some of my interests in astrology reading and watching videos, but mainly in a trial to understand myself before anything else.
On a positive note, it is May here and I don't remember the temperatures being as low as 33^oC in daytime like that for years. I've started a routine (if I can call it so) to stay in the yard for 20 minutes under the sun and read some e-books on my tablet. The real test for the temperature would be in June. Last year, June was the hottest month of the year with temperatures reaching 70^oC in some places here. We'll see if the coronavirus fixes this weather now, and minds as well.

جاحِظْ
(Pop-eyed)

Full of Selfies…

With all that craze about COVID19 already, things are being idle here, like most of the world I guess. However, it is just such a good time for an introvert like me! What was supposed to be a short holiday of 5 days for the Independence and Liberation Day, stretched over now and to be a month and some days more.
Meanwhile, I'm here working with my camera at ease and trying to find new ideas, inside the house of course, as I would do usually. On the other hand, sleeping as much as possible. The progress is slow though but who cares? I don't have to wake up in the morning to do the damn fingerprint attendance anymore now. I miss doing panoramas though.
On another occasion, I've been working on some "projects" which I've started before the current crisis, and I consider these projects like an "open" projects; Meaning, there is no final goal to them or anything but I would think about shooting these ideas now and then.
This week and in this post, I'm going to talk about one of these projects which probably I didn't mention anything about before in this blog, and that is Shooting specular. What I mean by that is, using specular (unmodified) light from the speedlites to shoot, and of course the target is myself; i.e. a selfie.

Specularis

It is strange that the word Specular is not identified by many dictionaries as a valid word! It feels kind of annoying to type this blog post and finding the word marked with a red line as if there is a spelling mistake!
Anyway, as I've explained above, a specular light is a light that does not undergo any changes or modifications (diffusing specially) to enhance its qualities and take a better control of it. It is common and typical to use diffused light to shoot almost anything, from product to portraits or even scenes outdoors. However, I was inspired by a photographer which I've encountered online (unfortunately, the name escapes me but I think her last name was Adler). This photographer did some amazing portraiture shots using specular lights. Thus, I though, why not try out to do some myself as a form of challenge. Of course, the only portrait I can take is of myself here, and maybe if he got some time, it would be of my brother; My typical model.

Void

First try of these "specular" selfies, was done with one speedlite. Because I don't have the means to suspend the speedlite right on the top of me, the speedlite was a pointing to my face with some angle, but I tried to make it pointing downward as much as possible. The idea was to light the protruding parts of the face and keep the hollow spaces, like the eyes and the open mouth, dark. After some trials, I realize that at the current situation this might not be possible without using Photoshop after all, which I did. The areas that needed the "surgery" here are mainly the eyes and the mouth, with some burning to keep them black or dark as much as possible. The image after all was also cropped to focus on the face only, and converted to B&W with a gentle tint. I think I can call it luck that while shooting Void some dust or maybe some flare from the speedlite itself caused some sparkles which I didn't notice until I started to process the image. I'm not completely satisfied with Void to be honest but it was one try from a somewhat long running project.

A Specular Selfie

Then, I had another try and it was a simple one but with a twist. Or, well, two twists let's say. It is the typical on-camera selfie shot with produces these bright selfies with dark background like beginners or amateurs portrait shots using on-camera flash, but the speedlite on the camera was fit with a honeycomb grid to concentrate the beam on the face, plus 2 speedlites were put at the back bouncing them off the white wall and thus removing any shadows at the back. I love taking selfies with hoodies; I'm not sure why but I just do! However, there was still some Photoshop work needed with this A Specular Selfie. Cropping, adding more fill to the shades or dark areas of the image to get some details out of the hair. However, this was not the end for this selfie, as more interesting stuff had to be done!

The Gothic Selfie

Typically, when I see bright eyes in an image (of me or of others), I'd think of converting the shot to B&W to give it a dramatic twist, specially if the bright shining eyes were combined with a darker tone for the skin. To my surprise though, when I did that to this selfie, The Gothic Selfie just happened to appear! Well, maybe with some adjustments here and there but the general look was pointing to something "gothic" - or least this is what I think; I don't know much about these look-styles. And wait for it, please. There is more to come out of this selfie too!

Luminosity

This one is the last in this mini-series; I promise. The 3^rd selfie, Luminosity, is a combination of the Gothic and the original, blending them together using the, you guessed it, Luminosity blending mood in Photoshop. The look is quite intriguing I guess that I might consider such option in the future when I work with other photos. It is like adding drama using B&W method but then adding colors to it to make it a dramatic colored image. I did try this method indeed in the next shot as we shall see.
The next idea was a fun one to do, and a quick one (despite the many, many, test shots). What I mean by quick here is the fact that I didn't need any special setting or preparations for the speedlites or the camera. Well, just the camera on a tripod.

Abducted

Honestly, I was not really sure what I was doing here. But the scene appeared as if I was being abducted by some aliens, so I went on that title. In this setup, I've simply held two 430EXII speedlites in my hands on the sides near my face (on low power).Never underestimate the power of low power! There is a lot of drama that can be extracted in portraits by using low power in speedlites or strobes. The white orbs around my head here are the ceiling's fixtures with LED lights and I had to clone one spot here to make the pattern symmetrical. In fact, this pattern is what inspired me to name the image Abducted. As for the facial expression, I was not really sure what to do with my face but I just did it and things kind of complimented each other. Now, without jumping to the B&W version of this image, which looks ordinary to me in fact, I've applied the Luminosity method here and the result was appealing to me as well.

Abducted (lum)

One of the issues that I was not sure of when processing Abducted, is the matter of the skin tone as I couldn't really decide whether it is normal to be so, or it is too bright. I did put the tones down a bit for the skin but with the Luminosity method, things went down drastically when it comes to the skin; Looks like I've had a tan already! Combing this with bright shining eyes and you have a dramatic, contrasty, version of the image; Even more dramatic than the original.

Now, these selfies were kind of successive (sort of) and one idea followed the other. Sometimes I just get lazy and work few days later but the idea is there. But things got a turn here as I was thinking of changing the "modus operandi" for how I work with the speedlite. In the previous selfies, the speedlite was on top, front, and on the sides. So, it was time to put it under. I usually avoid this position under normal conditions because it is a mark for some horror look or movies. Well, I just got the idea for that!

Coronal Attitude

Despite Sickness
Shot with Huawei Mate 9
Edited with PS.

In Coronal Attitude, I was not sure what I'm doing here but all I wanted is to keep the speedlite down there. Despite its simplicity, this shot took a lot of time in processing. I was fluctuating in editing between what I usually or conventionally do, and editing trying to achieve that cinematic look. One point that I really, really, hated here is the highlight on the nose tip which looks like banding. I tried to fix this in various ways but nothing seems to work! Guess it's how my nose works! Another point here is the color of the face mask in my hand, which I was reluctant about; Should I keep it saturated or desaturate it? I chose to desaturate it a little (originally it was saturated more than the image shows here). I would be lying if I said that I don't like shooting with a mask on my face really. Not sure why, but I think they add some kind of mystery to the whole image and character. In fact, I did take a lot of selfies with the mask even back in January with my mobile. Back then I was sick actually with the usual cold and to protect Mom and others, I would be walking around with the mask; That was even before the outbreak and the spread of the COVID-19 worldwide and reaching here already (which happened around the last week of February). I just loved that morning light through the balcony.

They Are Gone

And along the way with the craze and the fuss about the virus, things got sad even further at home actually with the departure of one of my uncles. Even though I didn't bound much with him but I felt very bad inside specially that he suffered in his last years from various issues that doctors simply couldn't diagnose or realize. He was simply unconscious to what is happening around him until one morning, we got the news of his departure in the hospital. He is relieved now from this mundane world and its pains and silly people. Combining these sad feelings inside me and the stressful news about that virus made me shoot They Are Gone, which is in some way an appreciation message to those who work day and night taking care of things; Patients, tests, keeping things going in essential positions in the state and so on. Some of these people are at the risk of losing their lives doing their jobs to keep OUR lives going. If you are reading this, please show them some appreciation.
Now, back to the technical part about They Are Gone, you might ask what this shot has to do with specular light; Apparently it is taken with natural light (which is in a sense specular by the way, but we are speaking about flash specular light here). The fact is, I did use the on-camera flash here to lighten the shadows a bit on the lower part of the body. Not the big speedlite I mean, but that tiny almost-useless flash on-camera. For such situations, it does nice job I guess and I didn't want to complicate the shot more than that; Just a camera, a tripod and the cable remote. The hassle with it though was in the angle and the distance which looking at it now actually still makes me uncomfortable a bit. Despite the lighting being good somewhat it still needed some extra work in post-processing because in that phase changing one factor would change something else and the whole thing reacts like a chain-reaction and thus the quality of the light has to be adjusted again and again. The main work was to soften the image and (ironically) diffuse the light from the window digitally giving a dreamy look or a glamor look.

The Cane

And just before finishing this post, this is one last shot which I thought of just before the departure of February, the Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month. Specular light was in use here as well and directed from the side of the face. I was lucky that the cane, despite its thickness, did a great job on blocking the light from the other side of the face just as I planned. I think also placing the speedlite a bit backward relative to the side of the face helped greatly with this and made the image split into 2; Light, and Dark. However, the main plan was to make a B&W image (thought I added slight tones to it) but the thing is, the red patch of the cane is not supposed to be visible anyway (and it isn't really in the original colored version). The major work in post-processing here though was on the eye, mainly with the dodge and burn tool (or something similar to that in fact).

Now, there are some plans or ideas cooking at the back of my head but there is one critical question that I'm still trying to find an answer for and that is: Would putting obstacles (not diffusers) in the light direction count as "modifying" a specular light? Logically it isn't but would be merely re-directing the light. Yet, I can't get over-obsessed with the idea and that sense of challenge when talking about specular lights as something to take it as it is and not touch it. But I'm there; Hopefully I'll get over that idea with some light "modifiers" that do not diffuse. Meanwhile, I'm working on some modifiers that diffuse the light too but we'll see. Been ages since I completed that project anyway!

Finale

Well, I hope everyone is OK and taking good care of themselves under these circumstances. For this blog, there had been numerous visits from Italy according to what I see in the statistics related to this blog, and that is before the crisis and lockdown. I hope, and I pray, that things will ease down soon specially with some good news arriving daily at the moment of typing this blog.
For someone as introvert as me, the situation didn't change much as I'm staying home most of the time, but the big stress here is caring for the health of those around me, specially my mother with her health issues which makes me close to having OCD over the health issues and cleanness.
On the artistic plane, there had been much work going on old and new images and hopefully I'll have the time to make a post about these in time, and as I'm typing this, the idea of making a new Arabic post for my other blog tickles my mind already, as I didn't make a post for that blog in some long time now. Also, on this plane, just one or two hours before finalizing this post, I've received a notification about one of my newly-added images on YouPic website which was marked as Inspirational by the admins of the website. That means more publicity for this particular image and apparently it has some interesting elements to it. This further even gives me an idea of creating a separate post about the 10 images been marked so far on YouPic and some story about them. We'll see about that.
Now, under these circumstances, the ideas are coming to me even stronger than before about trying to do something at home; Working at home, even though till this very moment of typing this, I couldn't reach a conclusion of how to do this or what to do even. But I have to say that under such circumstances I am blessed to be where am I already.

Cinematic Lady Nature
10^th Image to be marked as "Inspirational" on YouPic.

Mirrotrait!

Here we are, back to the old rhythm and the troubles with sleep and work; But to be honest, my sleeping problems are a bit down for the time being, but I often do find myself going to work without sleep and somewhat I'm OK with it! Schools didn't start yet here so, traffic jams are still lurking.
Anyway, for this post this week, I'm going to talk a bit about 2 shots I've taken some weeks ago. I was supposed to put them together with the previous post but I think that post became too long so I decided to cut it out at that and make a separate post now for these 2 shots specifically. What's so special about these two? Nothing special really; They are just portraiture shots taken at a focal length of 800mm. Yes, eight hundred millimeters.

Mirrotrait

As part of my effort of getting used to, and getting some work done, with my mirror lens, the Rokinon 800mm f/8, I've decided to put it into use for taking portraits. The design is that of a telescope and probably if I was in some other dimension or some other world with better capabilities I would be using that lens for some astrophotography indeed, or maybe for some wildlife photography. Anyway, not my luck, and I hated to see this lens just lying around being idle.

Rokinon 800mm f/8
Mirror Lens
(this one here for Nikon it seems?)

One of the "creative" tools that a photographer can (and encouraged to) use, is using lenses out of their "typical" purpose or perspective; e.g. shooting portraits with a wide angle lens which is typically used for landscape photography, or even shooting landscape with a lens which is typically used for portraiture. I, for one, been doing that for quite some time and in fact I've never believed in this "typical" purposes or dedications for lenses. Because in my mind, all I think of when I see or think of a lens is the magnification, distortion, proximity to subject and so on. This is why many of my selfies were shot using 20mm lens or wider (20mm being almost equivalent to 30mm on my APS-C camera).

Sample of donut bokeh
Source

Anyway, one of the key features of these Mirror Lenses is that they make up some weird bokeh shape. A bokeh in the shape of a donut, and this is exactly what I was after but, as the progress will go on, you will see how I've actually failed in achieving that donut, so far! Nevertheless, working with such a lens for portraiture is still an interesting experiment, despite the hardships with it. In fact, with such hardships, I'm amazed by those specs listed by manufacturers or sellers who state something similar to "for wildlife" or something like "cheap telephoto lens". The truth is, despite its focal length, I don't personally really classify it as a "telephoto" lens and absolutely not suitable for wildlife or birding; This is unless you really get the hang of it and master its controls, AND come up with some ways or innovate something for quick shooting and proper focusing. Maybe if I list these difficulties as points the image would be clearer:

• The lens is manual (of course).
• The focusing ring is bulky. In fact, it is not a focusing ring as much as it is a focusing "barrel".
• No collar, and with such long focal length, putting vibrations under control is a headache.
• Fixed aperture; F/8.
• During the shoot, I got some errors and I stopped shooting but then things gone normal again and I'm guessing the weight of the lens is the reason.
• Just forget about using filters. There are specific rear filters for this kind of lenses, but I don't have any, and the front thread is 105mm (and I have a ring for it and barely fits for fitting the solar gel filter on it).

Needless to say, with such a focal length one would need quite a space, and for this reason I've shot the portraits outside in the neighborhood just in front of my house. One technique I've adapted here is to fix my camera and tripod in position, and ask my brother to move accordingly to get him where I wanted in the frame. All I could do here with my brother is 2 shots mainly (because of the problems mentioned above) and for each one of these 2 I've approached processing in a different manner. Unfortunately, I was supposed to make some shots at night in hope that I would show the donut bokeh clearly this time because of the point light sources from cars or the houses around the neighborhood, but that didn't happen yet as I'm typing this post.

First shot
Original

First shot
After cropping

First shot probably with
a better crop using the
Golden Ratio rule.
But the image size is
drastically small.

 Generally speaking, images from this lens are "dull," if I can call them so. They lack contrast. Thus, there is some extra work to be done in post-processing phase. In the first shot, the background seemed fine, but of course no donut shapes because it was done afternoons and no pointy light sources were there. The pose itself was probably a mere coincidence, as I didn't ask my brother to make the pose and I was kind of busy doing the work with the settings when I looked up to the LiveView to see that he was there looking up so I snapped that. Moreover, in the post-processing phase, I had to crop the image but unfortunately, I didn't seem to follow any specific rule here, not even the rule of thirds. I think I've used the Diagonal Method here for cropping but I'm not sure it is quite suitable here, specially with the logo on the shirt showing. But no use now I guess since the photo has been already published on some social media platforms. The image's quality is "fine" but I wouldn't say "good" though. I had quite a struggle to put things in focus here, so there is a chance of human error I believe when it comes to some softness on the edges. Things had to be fixed later with my arsenal of sharpening tools in Photoshop.

Second shot
original
You can see how dark
is the skin here.

 
In the second shot, here I've already asked my brother to do a specific pose for me. But to shoot this one I had quite a struggle because of some malfunctioning, which I've mentioned above already, and maybe it was because of the weight of the lens, because when I've placed the camera back to landscape orientation it started to work properly. After that, I've flipped it back to portrait orientation and it kept working - and I had to snap my shot quickly to avoid any mishap.

Second shot
After crop and
fixing the tilt
Tried to lighten
the overall look.

Second shot with
probably a better crop
using the Golden Ratio

While processing the second shot, the image appeared to be quite washed out, and in order to enhance the contrast a bit, I had to play a bit with the exposure slider a bit, just to find out that there are indeed some details in the background that could be retrieved; The area was quite white! The thing, though, was that the front (my brother) got quite dark. For this reason, I've produced two versions of this shot as if I've bracketed my shots: One with dark background for the details, and one with proper exposure for the front. It was a great deal of work in Photoshop to merge the two and produce and acceptable image and still though I don't think I've made it. My brother looks darker than he should be I think. Here, too, the cropping seems to be made randomly, unfortunately.

After these 2 shots, there were supposed to be night shots as I've mentioned but nothing happened, for various reasons. Mainly because my brother is a busy man. I seriously thought of shooting a selfie of myself though (with the help of Case Air wireless tethering tool), but with such lens and such a focal length, the situation is quite cumbersome. Still an idea though which I might perform at any time. Speaking of shooting at night, that would definitely need some usage of speedlites I presume. A complicated process that already cooks in my head without doing much about it. I do have other things to do but just waiting for the right moment, and power, to do so.

Finale

Well, this is my little post for this week and hopefully I'll be having more to post 2 weeks after. I'm seriously thinking now for some topic for my Arabic blog since I didn't post there for some time, but I'm not sure what to post about. Maybe another photo story? Not sure.
Meanwhile, I'm doing some more experiments on specular lighting. Didn't get the chance to do much so far but I'm trying so let's hope I do get away with some nice shots. Just to note, that "specular" lighting is when the light direct and hard without any diffusion. In fact, there are other ideas I'm just waiting to implement.
Away from camera, mood swings had been frequent visitors lately; More than usual I'd presume. I'm trying hard to forget my pains, set backs, and the damn mood swings, by working as much as possible with the camera but the thing is, such swings make me powerless, and as usual, procrastinating. Add driving to and from work to the recipe and here we have a tasty dish of misery. If you are reading this, trust me, it was not an easy task to type this blog post over a span of 3 or 4 days and trying to finish it just before Thursday. Those moments where I would stand and look around me to see who would support me or anything like that are frequent as well; I just realized, I'm all alone. Not even those whom I'd consider friends would help me to make me feel not being ignored. I don't blame them anyway. I guess I'm just a boring person after all, who leads a boring life, and doing boring stuff just to let himself feel alive while being single at almost 40. Rant over.

Collective…

As a starter, I'm really not sure how am I typing this blog post with my continuous sleeping problems which are adorned with marvelous migraines from time to time during this week. Anyway, since I don't have much material for this post, I think it will be somewhat a quickie one.
In a continuation for my previous post, I'm still working on my project of shooting profiles (side shot) in infrared using only a candle. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in my previous post, but I've decided to call this project The Candle People. Things are now out of the profiles section as well, and I've started to shoot some face-front shots as well, upon request.

Abdullah A. (profile)

Abdullah A. (halfie)

So far, there had been only two requests to re-do the candle shots and change the profile look to the face-front look. Both from nephews. My first nephew did not like the look of his nose in such profile. Well, I guess many people are displeased with their noses nowadays (me included but I don't tend to hide it). However, I'm not expecting from people to understand the artistic values the way I see it through. In profile shots, I do appreciate the contour and the dramatic light and look of the face rather than the "beauty" of the person. Personally, beauty has nothing to do with this little project of mine. It is about evoking emotions via light and contour with no or little facial expressions. However, I've complied to the request and I still like the results. My first trial with him was to shoot a "halfie", but this halfie is not exactly done by cropping the face (even though it is a little) but by implying heavy shadows to half of the face (mainly by editing). This halfie might have a strange effect on the size of the eye here; I didn't change the size of the eye while editing, but it seems to me that is kind of large. Might be my imagination?

Abdullah A. (front)

Anyway, the other frontal shot here for Abdullah A was not exactly a halfie. Too bad though I had to crop a little too much here to balance the image because while shooting (using burst mode) the head was moving and one of the ears did not show completely in the image, which in turn forced me to crop a little from the other (and that meant cropping from the whole image and just from the side because I tend to keep the aspect ratio). On purpose here, I told my nephew to look up which I think gives a better emotional expression (at work with the forehead lines). To have some dramatic look (or to increase it so to say) I've resorted to an old technique which involves the usage of the High Pass filter in Photoshop. This of course exaggerated the noise level as well but I didn't bother to clean much of it here because the image in the first place is not intended to be "soft" in looks. This look, upward, seems to be a "hack" on its own to have a dramatic look. I've applied already with my other nephew who requested a re-shoot and seems to be OK. As I'm typing this there are still some from this series that needs to be processed yet.

Collective Ideas

Meanwhile, as I'm trying to work on the Candle People project, a flow of ideas somehow ticked my mind lately. At some level, I think the Candle People is one of these projects that just doesn't have a dead line. But it is ongoing whenever the chance shows up. Anyway, meanwhile, I think I will be back to one of my old passions, and it is a tiresome one actually, and that is: High Speed photography.
I didn't formulate a concrete idea about the subject but I'm intending to use the full set of speedlites in my arsenal (7 at the moment). I didn't make up my mind yet about how to set them up, but I think there would be two main methods or sets: a) Manual, and b) With an external trigger.

General scheme for the setup

First of all, sorry for the bad sketch here (and the bad scanning, done with my mobile in bad lighting conditions). As you can see here, this is the intended general setup that I'm thinking of for method A; the manual shooting. What I mean by manual shooting here is that I would control the camera manually with a master speedlite light on it to control other speedlites on the set. Meanwhile, the master will not shoot, but only responsible to give out the command to shoot to the slave speedlites. What I'm intending to do here is (and let's hope it works out well), is to use a very low flash power (if I can, lower than 1/32) and try to shoot using burst mood in hope that the low power consumption at this level of power would help on quick recycling and re-shooting quickly. I wouldn't know if this will work until I try! It would be a shame if it doesn't work that way though because with such number of speedlites, things could be balanced out somehow. Of course the position of the speedlites and direction is subject to change accordingly when the practical work is ongoing.
As for method B, the same schematic above applies, but the master speedlite is placed on the set as well and would be connected to a trigger. A laser trigger (which I failed using before). In previous times, I've used this trigger in connection to the camera itself but researching a bit and asking some professionals, I figured that the lag time (the time for the signal to travel from the trigger to the camera) is considerably long, making capturing the exact moment quite hard. Most professionals, as it seems, connect the trigger to the speedlite and not the camera and thus reducing the lag time considerably. I can connect one master to be triggered in that way and set others to slaves and all should (theoretically) shoot about the same moment. However, in this method, I'm supposed to leave the shutter open and work on the subject and speedlites with the trigger. For this, such method must be done in a dark environment, or maybe some ND filter on the lens would do? Not sure. We'll see about that. And like the situation in method A, the power is supposed to be set low for a quick recycling time and low power consumption.
Thinking about it, just theoretically, it seems that method A is favorable, despite my wish to get my old trigger working again since I failed using it many times. But if the burst mode works well in such setup, then things are set and I don't think I will try method B. The hardest part though remain: To setup my gear to work!

Finale

Beside the idea mentioned above, I'm thinking of other things as well but no need to put all the eggs in one basket. There had been also some simple shootings with my mobile for some geological stuff around my workplace and I've even uploaded one of the images to the stocks. I didn't upload to them in a long time.
With me now putting the contest on Duolingo behind my back, after some incidence of cheating as I've discovered, I've realized now the big mistake I've done in using this platform. I'm now trying to be more at ease and back to learn the language on my own pace instead of trying to gain more points and be leading the "score board" (or whatever they call it). In fact, I've had more time to post some articles in the Arabic forum after deserting the forum for quite a while. I've realized now how people do appreciate these posts which have some delicate matters and tips about Arabic that Duolingo is not providing for those who really want to learn the language. This made me think: What is really made for me? What I'm really supposed to do? I think this appreciation and this enthusiasm is the answer. Thinking about it, what did I really gain from being #1 on these leaderboard contests or whatever? Nothing but stress. While the solution was quite easy but I didn't see it back then; To leave these contests and focus on education and learning, and teaching those who need to. After turning off the "public" settings on Duolingo (which removes the leading board and all these scores stuff), I do feel such a relief. I have no more time and more organization capability for my time. I won't regret this.
Now, it's time to post this and go and figure my next move. A poem, or a new photo, or maybe a new article for the Arabic Duolingo forum. I can't believe it is weekend already. I'm perplexed as to whether I should sleep more, or work more on the things I like to do. or maybe play more. Two days for a weekend are just not enough… Not enough to forget what I need to forget out of my life…

By A Candle…

Well, just when the holidays are over, here I am having a short vacation on my own just to rest at home and have some sleep! Anyway, at the time of posting this, this would be the last day of my actual vacation and I'm going back to work after the weekend. Luckily, there had been some activities, and ideas still on the go. But let's start first with those that I didn't post about 2 weeks ago.

Remains

Some weeks ago I got this idea, or maybe a recurring idea, of doing some cubism in combination with selfies. Of course, the best (and first) solution that occurred to me is to do that with my Huawei. But despite its relative easiness, I had some hard time shooting because I wanted to use the rear lens rather than the front lens, because the resolution is greater. I also, somehow, had better view using the rear lens and shooting a selfie while looking at myself in the mirror.

بقايا إنسان (Remains of Man)
Click to enlarge

One of the problems was the perspective while shooting and I had to re-do some of these shots and just hope for the best focusing possible without looking directly on the phone's screen through the mirror. Moving my head would change the perspective of course and this is what I was trying to avoid, right? I made several shots (I believe more than 10) but I didn't use them all in composing the final image بقايا إنسان (Remains of Man). The main idea was to figure out one image per part of the face, and since we are talking cubism (well, sort of) then I had consider even the plain areas of the face, like the cheeks and the forehead and I'm glad that I did so! The image you see here is a complete collage, i.e. the images were not pasted on an original image of a full face. But totally put together from separate pieces.
I have to admit that the idea of shooting cubism like that is still going on in my head. Originally, I wanted to do this with my brother (my typical model in such cases) but he was too busy to have some time for me, so I decided to do a selfie out of it, as usual. However, I'm still hoping that I can do more of such art and probably with a DSLR if possible rather than a phone camera. But is it worthy? The phone camera seems more flexible and way too easy to handle the job, but the grave downside about it is: No technical flexibility. I really shot all these slides to compose my face you see above without controlling anything; from light metering, to shutter speed, to aperture. All I had to do is click the shutter button (which I've set to my volume button). Such pros and cons need a bit of thinking I guess, then I'll be ready to pick my next victim!

Candle People

I've been working on doing something with my DSLR, after all that fuss that Huawei contest made for me, so it occurred to me to start slow a bit. I did some macro shots but I'll be talking about in some other post maybe; It was something small and not really that interesting. But what happened later on is the thing that sparked a project in my head.

Candle Selfie

 At some point, I had kind of a flashback about portraits (or rather selfies I should say) done with my modified 7D and B+W 092 infrared filter, namely a series I've called Candle Selfie. I thought then, what if I expanded the idea further, with a bit of modification too. A face, one candle for light, but this time with a profile of the face and not face-on. Technically, I decided to use the Neewer IR720 (that is with 720nm threshold) filter instead of my typical and old B+W 092 infrared filter (which has I think around 690nm of threshold). Maybe just for a change? Not sure. But probably just to stand away from the typical looks of the infrared selfies that I used to take before. Even though, while processing, the looks persisted. Anyway, I started off with myself of course.

Boihéamach (Bohemian)

One critical change in the process here is the usage of my 50mm lens instead of the 20mm lens which I used to take those candle selfies back in 2017. Increasing the focal length played a critical role in giving my life a hard time to take a selfie with no help from anyone :)
I tried to use my wireless solutions but holding the candle in one hand and the mobile phone (which runs the wireless app and connecting to my camera) on the other hand was really cumbersome and I had to drop that idea once and for all. I won't be exaggerating if it took me about 2 days of trials and errors until I shot Boihéamach in the traditional way (focusing on a monopod and then trying to stand in its place). I used to shoot in a dark room but then I realized that I'm shooting in infrared with somewhat a high threshold and the lights in my room were all LED or CFL, so I can shoot with lights on! Which I did and it made my life just a biiiit easier…

Boihéamach (details)

Despite working on my own, I was lucky in fact to get my eye into a sharp focus. I was so fascinated with the details that I've cropped the image later and made a separate image out of the eye alone. In processing the image (and the images afterward) I've emphasized the blue and the "pink" color of the inner eyelids and the lips by increasing the Vibrance up to 100%. I don't normally do such a thing but since we are going crazy with this trend, why not? The problem with this step is that it increases some apparent chromatic noise (typical to infrared images), specially that these were shot using ISO200 instead of the lowest, ISO100. I picked this ISO just to have enough flexibility with the shutter speed (which ranged between 1/6s to 1/10s for all shots, this one and later ones). This was about enough to freeze the motion and avoid motion blur (because of the body movement not the camera's of course) but still, problems were ahead.

Abdullah F.

So, the project started and I've been already calling family members (males mainly) to model for me. Working with family members is one of the hardest things to do and that made me think of seriously calling for some professional model, but I'm not going to spend money just like that on some experiments and ideas I'm going through; After all, I'm not still a professional photographer. Shots for some of my nephews like the one of the left here turned out good (relatively) but still made me think of more work to be done. For example in this shot for my nephew, Abdullah F., a large portion of the shoulder is apparent in the shot (and this is because I kept my camera and 50mm lens away), which was not the case with my Boihéamach shot (it was cropped but still not much and the shoulder did not show up in the original shot that much). In this shot of my nephew as well, it seems that I've kept the camera in a lower position; lower than his head level. Despite all that, I still like the shot here and I've worked on dodging the hair to add some delicate details on that part of the image. So, probably I shouldn't get my camera that close to the face and show some portion of the head and hair after all?

Jassim H.

Unfortunately, I was not lucky with the rest of the people I've shot and many of them are to be re-made, if possible. One of the hardest aspects here is not only keeping the person stable, but also to look straight instead of looking at the candle. Raising the level of the candle as well did not help much, and that kept some of them look down (apparently my "high" is not equivalent to their "high"!). Also, 1/8s was not quite enough for the shutter speed to freeze the body movement in some shots like for my nephew Jassim H., and using 1/10s left the image quite dark even at ISO200. Thinking of going over ISO200 was out of the question (in fact I've hoped to lower it down at some point but that did not help and made it worse so I switched back to ISO200). I told my nephew already that I have to re-do the shot, maybe next Friday.
I've taken other shots but I will post them later maybe. Some of them were good and some are bad and need to be re-done, so let's see how the next week will unfold. I've already lost hope in re-shooting some people because I've already re-done it and it didn't work any better!

Finale

I'm typing this in supposedly a short vacation (for a week) off work and believe it or not, I'm seriously lacking the time to do many things I want to do! My time is torn between having rest as much as I want and doing my routine daily chores (e.g. Duolingo exercises and learning). I'm typing this just in the final hours of Wednesday.
Things look foggy around my workplace. Moving to the new location, which would be quite problematic for me, is still foggy for me. Things are quite but sometimes it feels like the calmness before the storm.
This little vacation makes me think of a bigger and longer vacation at some other time. A vacation that I need to take, and a travel that I need to make. I'm looking at my panorama gear with some sorrow as I didn't use them for some time. Probably the last panorama I've shot was here at home back in 2018. However, the world is going crazy and that makes me reluctant to do much in that field. I need to get some habits back but it's hard to fit them into a schedule. Maybe I'm being a bit of a perfectionist and I shouldn't think or work that way? But again, if I leave these habits for long, I'd be losing them, maybe, forever; Like writing poetry which I didn't do much about for months. On the same line, I didn't also make any posts for my Arabic blog for months as well. Is it all because of the summer season? i really wish if this is the reason; At least I'd be having some hope that I will be active again next winter. Some hope…