Success…

Phew! It's over! What an exhaustive 10-days time! I barely had time to do anything else; work, home for lunch and then out again to the expo, then back again home for a little work with some photos (if any power was left) and hitting the sack so hard with exhaustion. I think it did make some toll on my health too. Anyway, the expo which accompanies Kuwait's 40^th Arabic Book fair is now over, with brilliant success, and what is left now is some reflection and thought, as well as analyzing some events.
It was a gamble in fact. I didn't know how the public would perceive a display of 3D images in a photography expo, but my bet was on the fact that it is a new and a weird idea which people are not used to in here. The fame was obvious when I saw some people advancing directly towards our group's booth and heading directly to the 3D display. However, I did have to follow every visitor possible (not in the first opening hours in the morning though), just to check their reaction, and also provide any help needed.
Among the audience there were many types: The analytical, the ignorant, the surprised... etc. It was fun noting these types down. Probably the most mysterious type was the one which looks thoroughly through the 3D glasses, for some time, put them down calmly then, and walks away without a single facial expression to note any feelings! Some other types surprised me as well, like some of them who said they don't see any difference at all when they look with and without glasses; Not quite sure what's the problem here but noting how other people perceived it, it seems such people did have a perception problem. The most annoying type was the one which puts the glasses for a second and puts it back; apparently not interested in the first place but probably the hand has a brain of its own to move! The majority of the annoying audience was composed of kids, kids, and kids! Even though I kept tracking my glasses, still some of them just disappeared into thin air! Adding to kids, some irresponsible adults.

Images displayed in the expo.

Now, the mess is over with, it is time to re-think and re-schedule my life as much as possible. I have many ideas I'm trying to apply and test... and some will cost me some precious pennies. I do have as well some scattered ideas for making some photographs, but let's hope I get the opportunity and time to work on them seriously! Aside, there lies a long abandoned project: The Geltani conlang. I was supposed to make a web version for the conlang, and there are still some screws that need to be tightened, specially in the transliteration notation.

On the other hand, there are a number of plans and tasks to do, like making test prints, and thinking of new ways to make prints for upcoming exhibitions. Presenting prints in some unusual way can be one of the points to keep us afloat in the world of art and photography altogether. It is a matter of presenting something new to the public. However, there are some other ideas on the waiting list, like the concept of the 4D image. I'm not sure how to apply this yet but it surely needs some practical work and trials and errors to examine how good this idea could be. I did give it out a try in few months back from now, but the subject needs more testing to come out with a concrete conclusion! 

ن (Nún)

In the meantime, I'm keeping myself a bit busy with some cultural activities, like visiting the theater as much as I can since it is Kuwait's 16^th festival, and working with panoramas acquired from the Den Gallery during the Arabic Book fair back in November. I'm still trying to extract more projections and styles from these 5 panoramas as it can be seen in ن. There are plenty of possibilities, yet I cannot simply form just any projection and stitch it without a specific goal or aim in mind - something I'm learning to master from visiting such galleries and going to the theaters to understand how to read emotions and in between the lines. In The world of artists, do what artists do!

Welcome to Den!

QTVR

Speaking of a documentation of such gallery naturally brings about the topic of QTVRs. In fact, We had some lengthy discussions about the properties of QTVRs and how the gallery would make use of these. There are methods and ways to introduce QTVRs but they do require some quite a knowledge in coding or building webpages (like using Java and Flash) which I'm not acquainted with. In this blog, I do usually use QTVR (.mov) files and embed them to be viewed in this page. Learning such methods for website building with QTVRs can be quite useful, but it might be a headache trigger as well - and after all, I'm just a photographer. Anyway, I've decided to make one QTVR out of one of these 5 panoramas (and two of them are not complete panoramas in fact).

However, it seems it is about time to learn these new website techniques, but I'm not ready for it yet, as my schedule is getting tighter for the time being even after the end of the exhibition. In fact, I was waiting for the exhibition to be over with just to do other activities on hold. 

These activities within the Den Gallery were done voluntarily, as I've discovered that an old friend's brother and their relatives are involved in this prestigious gallery. Now, I'm hoping that my surreal projection styles would be inspirational to them as artists as well!

Ring of Arts

Finale

Now, I've talked a bit about what's in my list of activities, specially those related to photography, but I still have more. Well, excluding the daily routine and the bills, as well as cleaning my room! 

I'm already enrolled now in a special 3-day workshop discussing High-Speed photography and using the HSS mode in the Speedlites. In the plans as well, searching for classes for KSL (Kuwaiti Sign Language) and if ASL (American Sign Language) if possible. I really loved to learn this language in a long time now and I had some trials, but with time gaps in between trials, everything is forgotten easily! Maybe it is time to get something concrete like I did before with the German classes about 9 or 8 years ago!

I'm not sure how necessary is this; I mean going into activities like that. However, it is probably an unconscious trial from my side to escape my reality? Trying to find myself a name? I don't know. One thing for sure though: my tired body will take the toll for sure; but I'm hoping it will be like the case with muscles: The More weight you take, the bigger the muscles grow! 

I was wishing to display my panoramas from the my first commissioned work in Bait Al-Othman museum, which got me a tiny stream of extra income, but unfortunately, I cannot do much right now until they publish the images on their own. They didn't buy the right of these images (which should cost more of course!). Now I'm thinking of how to expand the circle of customers, and probably my work in Den Gallery would be a spark in that road.

Golden Times

Heizung…

Supposedly it should have been a quiet and an easy-going summer. Well, I was wrong. Things are going with speed, specifically after the announcement of some Expo for which our group was invited; and it is of a classy type as well. Photos must be chosen carefully. Beside this fact, I've been busy running errands to complete my Visa request to Malta. Quite pressed in time here and I've changed the plans already. Seems that I'm going to divide my was-to-be long vacation into portions of smaller ones to save days and also because of reservations problems in the chosen time. Hence, I'm going to have first a 3-day long leave (followed by a weekend holiday) for my travel to Oman with the group. Then after, I'm going to have to wait till 27^th. I got a nice offer for staying in between this time and up till October 7^th.
This Visa specifically is somehow weird for me to do, as it is a Schengen Area (Malta is a member in the Schengen). No online application, no fees, but a health insurance (!) and I have to fill it on papers. Needless to say that I had to go through a maze just to find the location of the embassy itself! (before this time, in 2010, the Visa request was attained via the Austrian embassy here). As of this moment of writing this blog post, tickets are purchased already via Turkish Airlines (Türkçe Hava Yılları), and I've taken a personal shot for the application. I'm left with the insurance and officially booking the place and, ahem, filling the Visa form!

Expo

Now back to our Expo story. As I said, we received a special invitation and hence the photo pick and sorting is a delicate matter. As of writing these words, the sorting meeting is not yet held, so probably the results will be available by next week's post. Meanwhile, I had to press myself a bit and try hard on fixing some photos and looking for those which I didn't bring to a sorting or filtering meeting before. There is one troublesome issue though: size.
Issues with size require a special crop and I do think that it is better to be done without interpolation; meaning: cropping to the required size without keeping the DPI resolution fixed. Keeping the DPI fixed will create extra pixels to compensate for the lost pixels in between. More to come about that below.

Yggdrasil

Some of the images underwent a critical fix, like Yggdrasil. This panorama was shot back in April in Al-Hamra mall and there were many projections made out of this one. However, one of the most dramatic projections of those was the one used in Yggdrasil. Previously, the panorama was deemed interesting if not for the group of people on the lower left corner which broke the symmetry. I decided to crop out this portion of the panorama ending up removing the whole ground; ironically, no one made a comment about the traces of cloning out the tripod on the ground!

Spider

The final look of the panorama became more as an abstract. Because of the colors tones and the severe chromatic aberrations on edges (mainly because of the high amount of stretch by the projection style), I've decided to change the image totally to B&W to get rid of all that hassle.
Most of the images to be sorted out are panoramas except for one single shot. I wouldn't list all the fixes that were involved with all of them, but let's hope some of them get a pass. The noise level is humongous and that lowers my expectations!

Finale

Printed and Varnished

Here it is finally, one of my favorite shots; printed and varnished! Well, I didn't print it in the original size, otherwise it should be around the size of A4 (210mm x 297mm). I've enlarged the image (keeping the DPI flexible here and not fixed) to the size of, around, A2 (420mm × 594mm). I wished I could enlarge it even further, but I feared the flaws. Keeping the DPI (dots per inch) flexible and not fixed, means that the size of the dots composing the image is changed, while keeping the DPI fixed means that the image had to be interpolated (i.e. follow a specific algorithm) to predict or generate the new dots (or pixels) which would fall in between separated dots (because of the enlargement). Notice that DPI is precisely a measure for the displayed dots on monitor, and for the printing process the resolution that must be used is PPI (point per inch), but eventually despite the difference in their concepts, the two are proportional; changing one will definitely change the other. Beside, controlling the PPI for a printer does require a special RIP (Raster Image Processor).
Changing the size from around A4 to A2 reduced the resolution or the DPI from 300dpi to around 160dpi. Doing the calculations this seemed a fair resolution to view the image from a distance of one meter or so. The print seems clean after all, and the contrast was increased by the varnish. The sepia tone seem to be vibrant even more after the varnish (was much closer to white without the varnish). All what is required now is to deliver this humble print as a gift to the celebrity! I'm not sure how to find him (and surprise him) but I will try to do this ASAP (adding to the burden on my back for this summer!).

Now with all that fuss going on about the vacation and the Expo, it feels like events are taking place in few days from now and not by the end of September (the Expo is in August though). Some are saying the situation is dangerous with all the crazy situation world wide. Well, I will be crazy myself (if I'm not already) if I stayed here without a change in scenery. It is astonishing how your bitter memories turn out to be the sweetest after all. It is time to be isolate, again…

Mawahb 5 Expo…

A tiresome week had gone and I'm still following up with its consequences - as usual, sleep deprivation. I can call it a successful week with all the positive feedback we received for our booth in the latest Mawahb 5 Expo; and my own panoramas specifically got large base of attention, starting with the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Sheik Mohammed Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah.

Explaining Ludendorffs Wirklichkeit to the minister, and on the far right appears the Kuwaiti actor Abdul-Rahman Al-Aqil. Frankly, didn't know he's there until I got this image from friends!

It was a funny chat, and I didn't know he is a photographer too! Turned out that he is a Nikonian, while I'm a Canonese! He started the chat with a statement:

I saw your photo and I wanted to see this man in person, now I see you're wearing a Canon around your neck, you made me sad. 

Oh well, it was the usual strife between Nikons and Canons! At least I did a job that people kept, keep and probably will keep talking about! Up till that moment, I really didn't know he is a photographer as well. It was a pleasant encounter and the beginning of a robust engine. The only thing that kept me annoyed in the duration of the expo is the quality of the prints we've made, and they are supposed to be printed at the #1 print shop here. In one of my discussions with the people working in that print shop, I've realized that the term "calibration" never crossed the dictionaries of those people, yet.

Quick glance at our booth

In this expo, I didn't run around doing a documentation for the whole place as I did 3 years ago. But simply dedicated my efforts for the stage (and man, what an awful legs' pain it was). I didn't have a good lens with low f-value (wide aperture), but the maximum zoom I could do was with my Sigma 70-300mm, and adding a teleconverter (x2) to double the focal length was another definition for "Disaster!" And because the dark atmosphere, there was no escape but to raise the ISO somewhere in between 1600 to 2500. Most of the shots were taken in ISO2000 in fact. Viewing these photos in small size (and after processing) seems fine, but sure not for printing on a large scale.
Taking shots at this events and specifically from the stage is something somehow important for me personally. This is because I'm not a portraiture fan at all, and while a photographer must expand his horizon to other fields other than his, I find it hard to work with portraiture, mainly because of some introversion traits. Thus, the stage is a suitable environment for someone like me to work on capturing gestures and emotions without having to deal in person with the subject. Needless to say, I don't have to plan anything related to the lighting of the scene; it is just all there waiting to be captured.
Well, the work is not over yet with these photos but I will leave you now with a show of some of them which are processed so far, in hope that you'll like them. Keep in mind that the light conditions beside the lens' conditions were NOT to be appreciated! Sorry for the low quality of the slideshow though; this is the only way I got to upload it here!
Note: Music is Soulmates by Lee Rosevere, and can be downloaded for free from freemusicarchive.

  

Dull Times...

Another dull week, with few serious work on any front. Summer just began and I wish it's over already. It does sound sometimes as if all my problems start with summer. Anyway, work is minimum, and by work I mean my camera, not my "job". I don't have much respect for this place right now actually.
On the other hand, I'm slowly starting to figure the headache of the Irish visa (again). Things should be sorted out as soon as possible though, and first of all, I have to set a plan for the dates of traveling and such. Thank God the passport is valid till next year and I don't have to do anything about this. If they keep a record of visitors to the Republic, probably granting my visa would be a piece of cake... ah well.

Macro

It was a day in which I brought my camera to my workplace to take shots of the beautiful garbage containers that were left beside my workplace for months now. After taking these shots, I've decided to check out the garden on the side of the building, which was colorful and blooming just some months ago - when we had some "weather". Even though it's filled with dead blooms and plants now, it could be a good target for some abstract work as well.

لب (Core)
Canon EF 50mm + 30mm ET, f/7.1,
100^-1sec, ISO640.

Because this was not planned initially, I didn't bring a tripod with me, and I guess this is obvious if you check the ISO in the specs of لب (Core). After many disastrous trials, accompanied for handshake AND slight breeze, I decided to go even beyond ISO400. The sun was fine but in such a macro level (with the hep of extension tubes of course) and such a shake, a compromise had to be made. And truth be told, I'm not sure how it became f/7.1 either! It was supposed to be fixed on f/8; seems I've nudged the dial without noticing!
I'm quite satisfied with the details in لب (Core) despite the out of focus regions which might somehow plague the scene a bit. The geometry of the details inside the dead core is to my eyes satisfaction, and the overall resolution is quite good even after cropping, so that even the fine hair on the side were pleasantly sharp at 100% view. Let's call it, a "strike of luck"! Cropping though did take some time to be decided, and yet I'm still not satisfied about it. Probably the law of thirds inside the square was due and the heart of the core should have been placed in one of the "power points".

تلك (That One)
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm ET, f/3.5,
320^-1sec, ISO400.

Seeing how long are the stems carrying these dead blooms, I changed the extension tube from 30mm to 12mm. The next shot I was planning needed some perception of depth, as I was planning to shoot the stem from above. The problem here though, I must use extension tubes to allow for close distance focus (50mm's closest focusing distance is about 45cm, or about 0.18 in.). However, I think that تلك (That One) needed more than just close focusing distance. It needs more angle of view to show some curvature in a clear way (and I'm not going to use the old 18-55mm here). The situation literally left me puzzled. However, with some sharpness to a distance object (thanks to AF!), probably the depth is depicted somehow. What was left was simply squaring and adjusting to the law of thirds.

البركان الناعم (Soft Volcano)
Canon EF 50mm + 30mm ET, f/6.3,
100^-1sec, ISO400.

Back to the 30mm extension tube. This time, my eyes captured a small "volcano" formation inside a dead core, just like the first shot above in fact, but this time, the point was protruding more. In البركان الناعم (Soft Volcano) the aperture was set mainly by "sense" and not by using any rules of thumb that are usually taken in macro photography. It is almost a rule that in macro shots, the aperture should not be any less than f/8. Anyway, as I was trying to make a compromise between the shutter speed and the ISO with the aperture (I was using Av mode, without tripod, without flash), f/6.3 seemed reasonable. The final result is a perplexing combination of out- and in-focus areas which makes it hard to specify exactly where is the plane of focus, as it has rendered the shot somewhat in 3D; to my eyes at least. There were several shots in fact, because I was using the burst mode (which I like to use in times of shake!), but this one seemed the finest. The protruding point from the core was not sharp enough though, unfortunately. Again, it was squared and fitted into one of the "power points" according to the law of thirds.

I'm not sure why I did name these shots specifically in Arabic in the first place, but to some sense, it did sound more "plausible". The squaring of all of these shots sounded "natural" to me since there are lot of unwanted details and the area of interest is pretty small compared to the whole frame; a whole rectangle wouldn't look "elegant" so to say, besides, it would have added more space than planned to the shot. It is also a better choice, as it seems, to rounded objects like these dead cores!

Kill It!

With minimum photographic activity, I'm still going on with Black and White exploration with old photos. Nothing special for this week in fact, except for an interesting encounter with an old panorama taken from the Arab Organization Headquarter (February, 2013), namely the Tiempos Andaluzas.

Tiempos Andaluzas

In this panorama, as you can see, there were lot of reflections because of the polished floor and, naturally, the glass facades everywhere. To me it was one major point in the weakness of the whole panorama; if these reflections were combined with symmetry, the situation might have been different at least. However, when converting to B&W (and adding a red tint), some of these reflections were simply "killed;" in the sense of being camouflaged with the surroundings. This helped a bit here and puts forward a new venture of thought and considerations when processing panoramas. B&W render could be a savior at some point beside being a touch of art!

Comparison between the colored and the B&W versions.
Notice the black arrows on the colored version.
Click to Enlarge

As you can see, not all reflections could be eliminated, naturally, but this was a good start. Moreover, the veins of the marble floor were emphasized further because of the tint. The original tint was pretty red. However, with going on with processing, the general tone changed to (dark) sepia somewhat, but I don't think it's that bad after all. I think some tint does help on pronouncing some details in white areas more than white does at times.

Finale

Well, I was supposed to talk a little about some work with Geltani conlang, and supposedly do a recording, but I'm canceling this for now as I had some technical problems concerning recording these events. I've done a primary check up for translating the UDHR and I have to say, it does sound a jaw twisting venture; not only a tongue twister! However, I'd rather train myself on producing these sounds rather than changing the value assigned. The main work though remains on putting key rules (to myself) for producing the glyphs for words, as well as adding some touches to the grammar and words manipulation. This is important because the conlang is largely based on Arabic, and Arabic script is an abjadic script, which means we might have more than one word with the same letters, but different in vowels. Vowels (short ones that is) are not recorded in Geltani.
I've been doing my homework, and sent some email asking for help with the Arabic phonology which I'm trying to understand. However, no reply as of yet. Seems I'm not good at getting responses anyway! This matter, which I reckoned to be a simple task, swept through a learning curve of phonetics and anatomy of the mouth just to understand how I speak!

After successfully sending and printing two of my photos, I've decided to add them to printing gallery on my website; which is something I didn't update in a while! The two photos are almost of the same size (around A2 with the margin) and would cost around 35K.D. here. Still thinking of easy ways to send these prints for benefit outside but having a strong currency and the lack of means to transfer money easily, makes this project a failure for the time being. PayPal wouldn't let me receive money with my current location and credit card.

Print Screen of two pages from my website after update.

My life is getting busier now and I had to stop fasting for the time being, in hope that it would empower me to do the hanging tasks on my schedule. It's not a language or a camera matter only, but a complete sweep through my life and the capability to organize it. Just to think of all the preparations I have to do just before traveling gives me a shiver in the spine really, but remembering that it is something that I must do, makes me calm down a little. I'm starting to get careless and careless about everything around me, day by day...

Mechanics...

Writing this post at the last moment before posting. Well, that's natural. My week wasn't productive much, feeling deteriorated because of summer. I've been trying though to do something in macro level and I did come up with something but it wasn't much to consider. I'm not sure I will be doing much the next week either, except of writing articles for my other blog.
On the other hand, my gift of prints to some friends in the US finally arrived and were received. I'm so happy that the prints were even above their expectations. Instead of framing and hanging them in the office as they said they were planning, they decided it is too good to have it in the office, and instead they will hang it at home! Big smile on this face; such a feeling needed in a long time! In the meantime, I'm not sure what to exactly do with my black and white prints of the same images. I might try to offer them for sale on Instagram - though I'm sure no interest would be yielded.

The Prints (Colored Version)

Mechanics

As I've stated above, the activity is dormant this week, and I'm not expecting any raise in the level of work with my camera in the coming few days. However, just out of curiosity I've brought my camera with me to work one day, and in fact I was planning to shoot the garbage which our admins pay for respecting us in front of my workplace. Anyway, I got better idea than wasting my battery on work issues.

Time Mechanics
Canon EF 50mm + 68mm ET,
f/22, 1h5m, ISO100.

Thus, just having some spark in my mind for some activity I decided to do a long exposure for another clock (which I did many times before) - this time however, for my watch; and that means a macro setting.
I figured a tripod won't be much useful as I'm intending to work on the meeting table in my workplace, thus, I used a stack of files and for the stability of the watch, I've placed it around the edge of a coffee mug! Too bad I didn't think of taking a shot for the setting back then. Anyway, as the main subject is the second dial (or hand), a small exposure for one minute or even 40 seconds would be just fine to show the movement of the dial - but something was not going OK here.
Because of the light coming from the windows in the office (and the room's lights), there was some apparent flare in the results and the watch facade was washed out of details. It's not like having an over exposure, but it is simply light pollution into the system. Tried to turn off the lights (and the windows cannot be blocked unfortunately), and tried to block the small distance between the lens system and the watch in some way by placing dark objects, and I even tried placing the polarizer on the lens, but all of that that didn't work well. Anyway, decided now it is time to get a black cloth which is something I was planning to do for long time - you will know why below.The place for clothes is near my workplace and just takes 5 minutes driving from my work place (1 minute in traffic-free road!).
With the black cloth, I was able (according to my measurements) to extend the exposure time up to 4 hours! But with my limited time in the office, I had to adjust the black cloth covering in such a way to allow some light to get slightly and thus the exposure time, after some trials, was set to one hour and 4 minutes (added one minute just to be on the safe side).

I wasn't disappointed here. The white tip of the seconds hand worked well with the slight light coming into the set, and because of its (relatively) rapid movement, the movement is recorded clearly on the sensor because the hand goes on all around the hour. The details on the black surface of the watch showed significantly nice (needed to reduce the brightness later and add contrast). The hard work though was with cleaning the noise and the other artifacts. For the first time ever, I try the Dust and Scratches command in Photoshop, and proved quite useful for some type of noise that neither NIK nor NoiseNinja was able to remove.
I think I made a mistake here for trying to smooth out the images before doing the adjustments needed for the colors of the image. The chromatic noise specifically was also persistent and I had to do "cleaning" before and after the processing. I've uploaded this image to some stock sites, and I'm not sure it will get accepted for the "cranky" quality when viewed at 100% zoom. I might as well use it elsewhere anyway.

Scanography

I've mentioned above that it was about time to get a black cloth. This black cloth (preferably velvet but didn't find one) is essential in the art of Scanography; an art of doing images by flatbed scanners. A black cloth is not always the choice, it can be a white cloth, but I think with bright or reflective objects it is preferred to use black cloth instead.
This is my first time to try this kind of art, and there is so much to learn ahead. However, from what I get, it seems that old fashioned flatbed scanners are better equipped for this task, more than my (relatively) new type scanners; this is because the depth of field of older scanners is relatively higher (still shallow) than modern ones - something related to the use of prisms in older scanners and fluorescent light to light up objects. In modern scanners, like mine (HP 3-in-1 type), it seems that LEDs are used and the use of prisms is not involved here as it seems, making the depth of field so shallow that 1mm high from the glass board (the bed of the scanner) will render the object blurred.

My Life Is A Scopa

I tried varied objects (a ring, a watch) initially, but since the depth is not what I expected, I headed to try thinner objects that can somehow stick to the bed of the scanner; and couldn't find any better than my scopa deck of cards. The scanner, after spreading the cards, was covered with the black cloth to block the light as much as possible; the cover can't be closed here because the cards are forming a thick substance after all.
The scanning process was done at 1200dpi, and according to what I understand so far, the resolution has more to do to the magnification factor and not the printing size of the final image. Anyway, to fill the image of the cards, I've made two scans here, each with a different distribution of the cards, as random as possible. These two images later were duplicated and mixed up and blended to form My Life Is A Scopa. As you might see from the image, a slight shift in the height of some cards would render the image blurred and out of focus. I have to say I'm somehow disappointed but nevertheless, I'm willing to try more of this technique, providing that I get the appropriate substances.
In working out with this image, I had to crop some portions of the edges and recompose the framing (after duplicating and blending the two images), as well as remove some black areas in the middle by copying some parts into these places. I wonder now if there is some way to increase the depth manually by placing some subject over the flatbed? Just a thought...

Lingua

On the lingua side (i.e. language side) I've found (or more like deducted) some time for working out with tiny research about the IPA representation of the standard Arabic sounds. I stumbled on a specific article in Wikipedia dedicated to the phonology of the Arabic language. The page has some notes about the essential phonemes I want to research; namely [ط], [ظ], [ض], in addition to some notes about [ع] and [أ]. For the former three, the IPA mentioned on Omniglot, and the one mentioned in this page - these sounds are supposedly pharyngealized (issued from the pharynx) and it also mentions that sometimes they are "velarized"; meaning to be issued from the velum point. The points are mixed up in fact and mostly put (as it seems from the resources at the bottom of the page) originally by non-Arabic speakers.
According to this chart and these notes, we should have, for example, two variations of [ط]: velar, and pharyngeal. I'm trying to figure out the real variation here. Probably, just probably, some people in the Levine circle do have a deeper sound of it which might sound like it is produced from the pharynx. Yet, this is not exactly the standard Arabic we are talking about. Anyway, this variation is simply not thought over when I listen to other Arab speakers. It is not like shifting the sound of "j" (/d͡ʒ/) to "g" (/g/) when an Egyptian person speaks. We do see that "j" and "g," as sounds, are different, but I do not think that we think over the sounds of velarized and pharyngealized /t/ [ط].
Now looking deeper and trying to understand the "standard" version of Arabic starting with a sound as (tˤ: Voiceless/Stop/Alveolar/Pharyngealized). Technically, after spending some time saying it to myself and trying to check the movement of the tongue inside my mouth, I realized, first of all, the sound is not "voiceless" but quite the opposite; voiced. This is apparent from the fact that the pressure of air in the mouth to say this sound is harder than simple /t/, or it can be considered something in between /t/ and /d/ in pressure; but I do not think it is completely voiceless like it is in the chart. The Arabic Wikipedia's article about this sound is, it seems, a mere translation for the English one (in short) but it does give a description for the movement of the tongue after the plosive movement of the tongue against the upper ridge; specifically, the back of the tongue. It does sound from this description that they classify it as velarized, rather than pharyngealized - and without the movement of the vocal cords. This would make the proper symbol /t̪ˠ/, and the "t" is shown here because it is the most approximate version for this sound, despite the fact /t/ is voiceless and here I'm inclined to state that this sound is voiced instead.
The case is even more complicated (for me) with the sound of [ض], which goes under the same criterion as the sound before, but it is more complicated here because of the amount of the air pressed against the ridge and the plosive movement. The Arabic Wikipedia didn't help much here to decide, but this one too doesn't sound pharyngealized as in Omniglot version, and more into velarized region; yet I need to work more on my sounds to decide!
One of the surprises that I've encountered in Wikipedia's article about Arabic Phonology, is that some linguists consider the sound of [ع] as a voiced fricative! As far as I know, fricative sounds like /s/ and /z/ do produce a continuous (or a person is able to produce a continuous) vibration of air when said; the sound of [ع] is clearly not so! It is apparently a plosive sound.There are extra notes about this notes in Wikipedia's article. Needs more to check out, and I need to ask an expert about it.

On the other hand I worked a bit with my UDHR translation into Geltani and I'm not sure I'm satisfied about the final form of the sentences. The grammar, which I try to mimic Turkic languages with, needs more patches and fixes, beside adding idioms or expressions unique for Geltani for some regular phrases (e.g. "each other"). Also, there is some more check ups to follow for the glyphs and the way they are written. The progress is slow but it's going on. Hopefully I will be able to produce a sound recording for the UDHR in Geltani later on.

Finale

I've reserved a room in The Waterfront already, the place where I stayed in my first visit to Ireland back in 2009. I had to do it early since there was only one room left! A friend of mine was wishing to come with me to relax (been into his own troubles) but I'm not sure if he is able to.
Now, I have to do the usual errands related to all the work with the visa, taking photos and preparing for the trip, and most importantly, taking care of things for Mom. I'm just hoping my load of "good" photos from there would be more. Frankly, I'm not sure if my budget is ready for this or not but I'm putting a sign on my forehead that says "I don't give a damn!"... I NEED to travel after all this stress and havoc. I need to really know and feel that I'm alive still.
Well, this has been my life for this week. It sounds goal-less somewhat, like I'm living week to week; I guess this is the best I could do. Am I supposed to exhaust myself to the point that I block my mind from thinking about the future, and the emotions and my life in general? Probably the most appropriate answer here is: yes.

Weiß und Schwarz...

OK. I really don't want to talk about this week for now. Summer is not officially here but I can see the consequences already, with 40^oC around 10 o'clock in the morning. On the other hand, I've sent 2 prints as a gift this week to a friend in the US (which I consider as an anniversary gift). As per the moment this was typed, no news about the shipment yet - and this is the eternal problem with EMS mailing here; no tracking system. The only way to track it is when the shipment is handed to UPS in the US. I wouldn't be doing this task with DHL or any other courier services, as their prices are ridiculously high.

The prints before packaging. Sizes around A2 (with the white margin).

With these prints, I've tried a new glossy spray (and also a matte spray by mistake). This glossy spray is specified for acrylic colors. As it's known, acrylic colors are water-based, and I thought this is more likely the case with prints done with large inkjet like the HP DesignJet and the others. I think I was right. The glossy cover worked well with these prints and made the colors even more vibrant.

While printing these, the print shop guy made a mistake and printed the images in black and white. To my surprise, the tones were promising in black and white, if only I did manage to do the toning myself before printing! This event, triggered me to do a full week of converting images to black and white all the way.

Weiß und Schwarz

As mentioned above, the whole thing started with black and white prints by mistake. After returning back home that day, I directly worked on these photos and checked to see what can be done with black and white toning.

Washing Shore (BW)

Good Morning Kuwait (VIII)

These were the beginnings of the trend. One of the big problems with converting to B&W is the fact that it tends, sometimes, to produce more artifacts because of the limited range - such artifacts would show as random spots in some areas, specially when such area is brightened. Anyway, I continued my way with converting such images and my aim was specifically dedicated to those with some dramatic effects and panoramas...

Έδαφος
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/11(?), 15^-1, ISO100.

Some images that I didn't think of displaying originally, like Έδαφος (Terrain), are now in the target for conversion. The colored version, despite the clouds formation, was somewhat monotonous specially with the lack of a strong contrast and saturation (to increase those, more artifacts will show up even) and no details that would move the eye across except for the clouds. The feature here (the small wall ruin) isn't large enough to fill the frame too. I think the conversion here made a push on the visual impact as a whole, and I was able to pull a contrast between the sky and the ground by toning both colors; and literally, I've reversed the brightness of both.

Στην Κορυφή (BW/Sepia)

Another shot from Failaka is Στην Κορυφή (On Top) which is converted to B&W and tinted in sepia. The shot was dramatic as it is already in the colored version, and converting made it pop out more in my eyes. But to give an idea about the artifacts that are produced, you can see for yourself on the top left corner of the image to see some spots. One might mistaken those for lens' dirt or sensor's, but they are more pronounced here when toning for black and white.
To reduce the effect of the artifacts, I did some Surface Blur, one of the options available in Photoshop, but I have to say it might work for some noise grain, and not for such hideous spots in general. Such spots need a severer approach, like the Median trick, which I didn't do here.

Denkmal für Freiheit

Some images were enhanced as well with better separation, and better visual impact than in the original color version; or should I say, the color version didn't say it as it should be or as I wished it to be. Only now in fact I've thought of converting some of these images to B&W, like Denkmal für Freiheit. It looks though as if I used a flash here to light the monument against a dark sky. Here though, there is another artifacts problem with the toning (on the right side of the image). The reflection is even enhanced without the colors, with some needed dodge and burn as well.

Ikaros Loop (BW)

Now to the fun part. Panoramas. Considerations for a dramatic impact with panoramas are a bit twisted and not directly viewable or recognizable as it is the situation with regular shots. This is mainly because it is a picture of a space (of course we are talking about full panoramas here) and not a single simple object. The dramatic impact in the world of panorama making should be pre-calculated, so to speak, in location. Meaning, the architecture of the place should be considered and under what circumstances or projections it would be dramatic and eye catching. In panoramas like Ikaros Loop, the drama was foretold in the lines the cross each other on the ground and in the patterns of colors already in the colored version - here though in the black and white version, we remove the colors and emphasize the contrast and sharpness.

Heaven is Watching (BW)

Many panoramas went under inspection, and still, trying to find those that best fit the black and white conversion, but probably the one that caught my eyes after conversion the most is Heaven is Watching which was taken on top of a roundabout near my workplace. To convert this piece, I've used the template already available in Black and White adjustment layer: Infrared. After that some modifications were added to add contrast. Finally, a bluish tint was added. The sky here is of course the first source of visual impact. The infrared template here shortened the working time significantly when it, simply, darkened the bright sky and brightened the dark ground.
At the moment of writing this, the search is still going on for more images to convert to B&W, specially that my photographic activity is dramatically dormant in such a season; unless I guess an idea for some macro work when possible.

Finale

I'm not sure what's going on with my life here, but my breath is becoming heavier by day here. I'm planning seriously to go back to Ireland, to the same place I visited in 2009 and this time in hope for much more photography work to do. Probably a friend will follow me. My only drug and condolences that keep my mind away from my own troubles, specifically at work (which I disrespect by day) is writing these blog articles you see. The Arabic blog specifically gives me a feel and sense of accomplishment as I'm trying to teach and in the same time arabize the technical terms in photography, in hope that such work will prepare the way for even more advanced acknowledgement in the future.
I know, I've been blabbering a lot about my projects with Geltani and re-defining Arabic IPA, but seems my problem is always time. Time, time, time. If I'm going to keep two blogs postings in time, then time is something consumed pretty much easily that way. I have to re-think my strategy in sharing my time at WORK between my projects. Otherwise, nothing will be done that way.
... Morocco seems a nice place to be... isn't it?

The Wait For Jonathan's...

Here we go, another week just passes. Not doing much photography, not much thinking of Geltani or other projects. However, I got the chance to update some aspects about my website and uploading new photos that are ready to be printed. I'm thinking seriously of expanding my services out of this country as well; since people here are not to be relied upon when it comes to arts. I'm expanding such ads to instagram as well as twitter.

Glimpse of my website, with the 4 new images added.

It seems like life is so slow when I'm on vacation without traveling. The orders that I've placed online last week are still not complete; not all of them reached my US box at the time of writing this. My car, still not available at the time of writing this post (and I'm supposed to pick it up today and see if it works well). My only leisure in such times was to play some games. Despite the nice weather relatively, yet I didn't stroll outside in the neighborhood much with my camera - but hopefully will do more of this in the near future (as the temperatures are dropping down to 20s^oC at noon time!). Beside gaming, I've doing lot of surfing and research for future photography-related equipments. My mind was struck with some crazy idea of getting one of those rangefinder lenses (expensive!!) and getting a mount to use them with my Canon EOS 7D. This plan, however, is for the far future, as well for the near future, I'm planning on having some wide lens in the range of 10-12mm - but this won't be a fisheye, but a distortion free (virtually) lens. I think such lens would help me with my future panoramas if I got it to work with my Manfrotto 303SPH VR-Head.
In the meantime, I've spent some time with my camera to do some calibration work and preparing profiles for noise reduction in NIK and NoiseNinja plugins. Ive used the MacBeth chart in the beginning (which came with my new ColorMunki device) but then I've decided to use the patch that was provided by NoiseNinja because it contains more colors. I was going to do it all manually by choosing every patch of those to be analyzed but then I've succumbed to the automatic process in both plugins. I'm not sure they would completely help with noise removal without affecting he details of the image much, but at least they can be a starting point. The temperature at which the images of the chart of patches is shot is also critical for the level of the noise in the image at any ISO. This chart, however, is taken at low temperature (room's temperature); in the range of 20^o-25^oC. I might do another one for some high temperature, who knows!

Calibration Chart by NoiseNinja - printed and photographed for profiling.

I've decided to provide a link for downloading these profiles (in ZIP files) just in case it would be useful for readers. The profiles do not cover the whole range of ISOs, but only full stops (100, 200, 400,... 12800 or H) and theoretically are useful only for Canon EOS 7D users.

NIK Noise Profiles (Dfine)

NoiseNinja Profiles

Hope they become useful for other shooters!

Halloween at Jonathan's

As I said before, I've been spending my time playing lot of games currently in this corrupted vacation. This is the only joy for me in such vacation. Lately, I've got the news about a new spooky game from the author of TLC, The Lost Crown game, Jonathan Boakes. It is, supposedly, a mini-game under a Halloween theme. If there is a wish to visit the southern region of the British Isles that still persists in me (along with my desire to visit Ireland, again and again), it would be all attributed to Jonathan's games and his depiction of the seaside on the Cornish side of the world. The Lost Crown game sucked me into the magic of the seaside and the sea life in those simple villages that made me almost living there. I'm waiting for The Last Crown which is a sequel for the Lost Crown. I leave you here with the ad for the Halloween mini-game:

Click to Enlarge

Jonathan made a blog post as well about this game with little description. You can read it here. Jonathan Boakes is also the author of other games under the same category of the Supernatural and mystique genre, like Dark Fall I, II, III sequel and The Lost Crown, and he collaborated in other games as well under the same genre. You can't skip his games if you like the mysterious and magical, the simple and occult. They just blend in naturally...

For the time being now, I'll be surfing through some of the old images until I get some inspiration and power to create new photos and with my project. Seems like getting back to work and routine would be beneficial in my case after all!!

New Definition...

This week, I've discovered a new meaning for the word Ridiculous. The definition for this word is: trying to send something that weighs less than half a kilo (< 2.2 lb) for an amount of KD 98 (~US$ 347). Thanks to DHL now with their completely unexpected pricing system, I have delayed my plans for sending the prints I've made as gifts to the US. I'm looking for further options now, between FedEx and Aramex, and even the local Post Service even though they have a bad reputation for inbound delivery, a friend of mine said their outbound service is fine and the items are registered. Not sure exactly what they mean by registered, but seems it is some sort of a tracking system; but not online. Instead, it is done by the phone! Sometimes I do wonder, if one day I would be able to see this postal service headbutting the other services from DHL and FedEx. If their prices are as reasonable as I've been told, I do hope they would engage in such activity and grow up in this field rather than just being a local service.

The prints to be sent, after applying glossy spray

Just a note worth mentioning here about the image above, it was taken with polarizing sheet on the lens and the speedlite to subtract the flare of the light pulse from the print surface, since it was sprayed shortly before the image was taken and it wasn't dry just yet. There is a little glare though on the left print and this is because its movement while it was hanging which made the short not absolutely direct (and the light from the speedlite bounced from the surface a little bit).

As I am writing this on Tuesday in hope it would be posted on Thursday, I can tell that my week is getting busier and I'm planning to visit the book fair before it closes down on December 1^st. Beside that I have work-related work that I need to pay attention to. I didn't pay attention to such stuff for a while! We are thinking (or more like pushed to) expanding our horizon to offer services, and as a beginning, services for staff members in campus for research purposes. Hope no pressure is coming along the way. Anyway, I'm supposed to prepare a draft of terms and conditions to be discussed later. This comes in a time when I really want to break free. I do feel some disrespect from the admins in my work place and every now and then we have to bear with silly problems that should not have happened in the first place. In my work place, there are no problems - people are.

The plan now for Wednesday is to make some phone calls and check with the post office how to prepare my shipment and whether they do offer packaging. Also, if possible, I will try to head to the book fair and have a fast round. I remember when I used to go more than once in the old days, but now, I barely follow the news and here you go, I've suddenly discovered it's open! Just a note, I'm supposed to attend an Italian musical ceremony on Wednesday, so in hope these pictures will be posted by next week, if any!

Back to my photography and the sluggish progress I've been encountering so far. Being busy with chores and exhausted most of the day (with only 5 hours of sleep everyday), all of that leaves me exhausted and barely able to think of some ideas to photograph - it's even hard to process those images I've taken from the US.

In Kinder We Trust
Canon EF 50mm, f/2, 8000^-1sec, ISO 100.

Had been days now with me going to work with some Kinder Surprise eggs (sorry American fellas, it's banned for you). My brain seems to kick back to childhood days now. The final result is, a collection of toys that I've enjoyed assembling and showing. This was the spark for an idea of a photo that made me think about it for some days. The lens of choice here is the 50mm because of its maximum aperture (f/1.4), which was an essential part (even though I somehow regret the shallow depth in the final image). For the purpose of spotlight effect I had to bring my mini-modifiers for the speedlite with me to work (plus the tripod of course and the speedlites kit)... talk about exhaustion from taking stuff out of the car! Anyway, maybe I better summer the setup in form of points:

• To make a spotlight effect, I needed the honeycomb grid attached to the speedlite. Attaching two grids of 40^o and 25^o with each other, yields an angle of 16^o. I think the perfect angle for a spotlight effect.
• The office was bright specially with two windows and translucent white curtains, and that means in order to make the speedlite the only factor in the scene, I have to speed up the shutter speed even beyond the sync speed (1/250). Hence, as you can see above, I've used the maximum shutter speed for Canon EOS 7D; 1/8000 of a second. Yet, there are still some traces for light at the back of the scene (on left and right edges, but they are faint).
• In order to work with such high shutter speed, I have to enable the High-Speed function on my 580EX II, which means in return that I have to use the TTL cord instead of relying on the wireless function. 
• The white balance was set to Cloudy, even though I could have used some gel filters in the honeycomb grid. However, I think the balance of colors is fine that way after all.
• After shooting at several angles while holding the speedlite above the set, and after changing the power of the speedlite, I think this was the best shot among all.

And back to my US images, I've been processing lot of square format panoramas (and some cropped single images). This somehow inspires me to put a special folder on my Flickr and also make a mass email including only square format images.

Anybody Home?

One of the panoramas that seems to be gotten a lot of approval from viewers is Anybody Home?, which was done previously (and printed) in a flat format. I was planning to do this with a planet project in the beginning but seeing how much I would have to do to eliminate the nadir point, I've flipped the viewing angle back and transformed the image to a tunnel view projection.
In this panorama specifically, I didn't tone down the reds too much as I usually do (because of the changing color space). The reds were toned down a little only and tried to keep a shiny touch with it. Probably that what made this image specifically an eye-catching one? Or is it the order of the furniture? I'm not sure really...

Source: Amazon

I'm still reading The Art of Photography by Bruce Barnbaum which is a mine of information and a treasure trove. However, lot of stuff I couldn't understand specially the details about working with films, because, simply, I don't have the proper tools to do so. I'm a native digital shooter.
However, I've came across a useful "trick" if I should say which is combining two exposures by layer masks in Photoshop, but by selecting the highlights areas only from one layer and masking it on the other (or vice versa) - the important point is to mix shadows and highlights from 2 slides, with each one of them showing a good highlight, or a good shadow. This technique was known to me in another way and I don't remember it was affective like this one. This technique here is a minimized HDR without the magic - this is my own words to describe it.

Chinese Reflections

One of the images created in that way is the Chinese Reflections. The original image was bracketed (3 shots) but I've used only the first two to extract details from both regions, shadows and highlights.
Anyway, placing the two layers on top of each other doesn't mean no processing is needed; in fact, lot of it is needed here. Mainly because the layer mask after applying a mask (painting in black or deleting a white space) will produce weird shapes and shades, and this is cured by using the Gaussian Blur to some degree. After the Gaussian Blur, the work is continued of course as usual with many adjustment layers to control the contrast and several other things.
This method is really helpful in case that the third shot in the bracket is too shaky to be merged into HDR with the rest. It doesn't yield magical appearances like tone-mapping with Photomatix does, but it saves an image from being neglected!

Now, the latest with the group. Beside the plan to go to the Italian concert on Wednesday night, I've heard some talk about a session of photography out of the country - and probably to South Africa (most probably for wild life photography). I'm not sure I can make it after all the expenses that I had to pull for my vacation in the US, but I have to wait and see. If the travel is going to occur in January or February as I heard, then it's going to be summer in South Africa. Would I really sacrifice the winter here for a summer overboard? It's really a hard decision.

As for now, I have some thoughts and my heart is dangling between accepting some facts or wait for something to happen. But, first of all, two month should pass at least since these two months right now (in lunar or Hejri calendar) are not quite good to do anything. Sometimes I do feel my health is degrading, but it is all just so mental...

Ikaros...

Ikaros. Some island in the vicinity of Greece, but the Ikaros I'm talking about here is the now-called, Failaka island. Maybe I should call it Ikaros of the Orient?
I've finally did what I was wishing for, for the time being; spending a night on Failaka and get back the next day. I almost ran into a disaster when I realized that I didn't bring the wire to connect my camera to the laptop, nor I did bring an external hard disk to dumb my files into it. Anyway, gracefully, my 16GB and 8GB memory cards did the job for the two days. I recorded some videos in the beginning and that took some large space in the card as well.

I. Failaka:
On Failaka island I've found the places that I need for doing a "flash panorama". Perfect deserted place and buildings in wreckage. However, it is hard to move at night on the island. Not many places got electricity, and I couldn't move far from the hotel (Ikaros Hotel). I was trying to do a star-trail photography at night but the sky did not differ from that on the main land, and the few people on the island in the vicinity of the hotel were annoying with their vehicles and lights. I think it is not a job for one person though, and with my weak eyes already, I wouldn't dare moving around in such a darkness.
My first target on the island was to take a panorama of some place; a place the resembles destruction (and of course this was abundant almost every where on the island). Empty and deserted doesn't mean necessarily a safe environment; I had to watch my steps here and there, and also I had to pick a place that resembles my idea the most. Despite the fact that lot of these places were deserted, but not all of them give interesting patterns in the inside to make some interesting panoramas after all.

Zerstörung (Destruction)

This place was, I guess, a workshop or some engineers work place (judging from the instructions and some debris), and it was located near the old power plant. I liked this place because of the patterns of the sun rays across the broken roof, beside the "amazing" ground with all the trash and debris on it resembling a real destruction scene.
The greatest challenge was to settle the tripod itself on such floor. Here at this moment, and going around carrying my backpack, tripod and the VR-head only, I couldn't think of going back to my car to bring the other tools just to snap a shot of the Nadir point. From the beginning, I realized that the Nadir point will be a challenge already. It wouldn't be a big deal if I'm planning for a flat panorama only, like the one above, but later on I decided to do a QTVR for it. Remember: always take a shot for the nadir (from the VR-head itself) even if you are planning for a flat panorama. You wouldn't know what this will be useful for, nor when your mind suddenly changes and make a QTVR out of your scene. However, I admit that later on, some panoramas I did were simple (360 panoramas) without any zenith or nadirs. I'm breaking my own rules!

Anyway, later on, there was a trial on a QTVR and the nadir point, as expected, proved to be a challenge somehow. I put the name of the picture, instead of a logo or something. Check out that you have QuickTime plugin installed.



Now, there is a lot to be done with the pictures from Failaka. Reminds me of the happy times after getting back from Ireland with loads and loads of images that kept me working the whole year or so. This of course is not comparable, but with these few panoramas, I can do many things that might make me look busy, and also might add to the inventory of the prints that I can offer too. Just by the end of the second day and to pass the time till the ferry arrives, I was roaming the island aimlessly trying to find some targets... like this...

Marching Chicken

II. Business:

Trying to keep ahead now with my prints and website. Now, it seems that I got myself a first customer and hopefully things are going well in that direction. There had been some delays though.

The final product to be delivered. The picture was taken in a haste anyway!

Now after such prints and news, and maybe some people can be (or so I foresaw) potential customers, I think it is time to delete some of my work on stock sites, specially those which are the most liked and cheered. It is a hard decision indeed because, up to this moment, I still Likes on some of these old images, but I think it is better to remove them from stock sites if I'm going to make them as prints for people. This way, only one resource file will be available with me.
Also, after my last visit to Failaka, I did a panorama in the main hotel (Ikaros hotel, no other hotels there!) and that is sort of tempting me to start publishing myself out, i.e. writing proposals. However, this step could be somehow a dangerous step if I write to the management of the hotel about my services, while I did take a panorama already without their acknowledgement. Who knows, they can sue me for it! But it is an idea, worth investigating I guess, and lays in wait to be exploited.
Now the time is getting closer for the expo and mostly everything is in place, all what is left is some preparation or decorations for the place itself, i.e. the corner in the expo. Responsibilities had been thrown on my head again and I don't know what to do about it but anyway, in hope things will sort themselves out soon.

These were extremely exhaustive two weeks now, and I can't wait until I have some good rest and a slow paced business plans...

Planeta Herba