Go Mall…

Ramadhan is in and the usual sleeping problems are back as well. I can't wait to start my vacation starting from the 10^th day.  That's when the summer course would start around my workplace and things would get ugly as usual. I really don't understand how the mentalities around here work and what's their idea about "planning" but apparently they need a major brain surgery to fix that, and I'm almost hopeless about that too.

Thanks to Borderlinx and DHL, now the shipment that I was hoping to get before Ramadhan is definitely to be here after Ramadhan and who knows, I might not be able to get it even. Up till the time of typing this, no sign of my shipment which I'm supposed to get back into my Borderlinx box to be delivered in some other way other than DHL. Because of the dispute between the two, probably thousands of customers ran into havoc. I have to say, though, that prior to this order I was really thinking of shifting my interests into other stores around the globe rather than confine myself into US stores, for camera gear specifically. Anyway, I had to do this bit of shopping after some incident and a lengthy story; No need to bring it on here. However, let's see some of these delayed "joys."

Source: Amazon

I'm starting off here with 2 books, and the first one of them is not related to photography. Something related to two sectors I like: Archaeology and Linguistics. I'm not sure what will I find in this book (I didn't check the sample pages thoroughly), but despite my eagerness, I might have to put it aside for a while after its arrival because I do have some books on my stack of reading list, which were purchased 2 years ago from the Arabic Book Fair! *sigh* They are just some thick books…

Source: Amazon

The second one in this order is an interesting book (of course, otherwise I wouldn't order it, right?). It's about infrared portraiture, even though I'm not that interested in portraiture in the first place. However, since I'm inclined to the weird and strange or whatever is surreal in the world of photography, the topic of infrared portraiture seems plausible and I did it often (in the form of selfies, and a bit within my Scopa project which I've stopped). I'm guessing that the bulk of this book would be focusing on film, but we'll see when it comes (again, I didn't check the sample pages thoroughly).

Source:Amazon

The third item in the list was something that got me by surprise in fact. A set of 4 infrared filters (each with different threshold), just for $29.99? Too good to be true! I'm still not sure how to feel about this in fact; I do have a feeling that it is a low quality, but yet I'm willing to try them out when I get them. One of these filters is supposedly at a threshold of 920nm! Previously, I thought that my Kodak infrared gel filter has a threshold of 1000nm, but I was completely wrong (in fact 1000nm is the maximum a camera sensor can "see"). It is rather around 850nm, or what is usually dubbed as Wratten 87B. This threshold is suitable for what they call X-Ray Infrared (not a real x-ray but just a mocking term). Thus, I just can't imagine that I'm getting a 920nm threshold of a filter! How would the photos taken with this be like? Might be time to indulge my 20mm Voigtländer lens in some panorama work, in the future.
These are the main items which were ordered and which, unfortunately, cannot have them any time soon because of the postal problems. My hopes now are set to wish for the shipment not to be lost, as I didn't get any notifications till typing these words about the items being returned back to my box to be shipped to me by other means. Fingers crossed.

Working Re-Working

Meanwhile, as my plans are put to hold (at least till I start my vacation during Ramadhan) I spend my time checking my old photos and trying to come up with new solutions, specifically to those which I've forgotten or neglected for one reason or another. My main aid in this inspection is the LAB technique which I've been applying a lot lately (despite the troublesome aftermath to be cleared out later on). I have to say that I was surprised by some images like if they are new to me when cropped and edited all over again. I think that proves that the status of our mentality in time does affect our "vision" or how we see things and the world around us.

مدائن (towns)

One of these photos is [مدائن] (towns/cities); A photo I've shot back in 2013 when I first got my ever first infrared filter and I didn't know much about the technical aspects for this filter or this art in general. The dark and gloomy atmosphere was apparent at the moment I've fixed the colors (the typical blue tint was not quite visible after fixing the white balance). It really inspired me to write some poetry in Arabic but I didn't complete this task because of my, well, disturbed mind already.
I've intentionally sharpened a portion of the photo and keeping the rest soft to attract more attention and focus. With my calibrated monitor, the image should look dark with reasonable details (I edit while focusing on the histogram). However, as I noticed, on other devices the blacks can look brighter and even further noise artifacts would appear more prevalent (specifically at the bottom portions where rocks lie). This is why it's important to work with a calibrated monitor; Without any calibration, and with such levels of blacks, this photo would definitely be erratically printed! I can already see how it shows on my tablet and I'm not much impressed.

Sometimes digging out for old photos comes up with a bunch of ideas, creating anaglyphs is one of them, but what interests me more is the surreal chances, and that comes typically from trying to achieve the "mutli-exposure" look with some of my continuous/burst photos.

Surreale Tänzer

Doing those multi-exposures AFTER the shoot and even without a preparation beforehand makes it a difficult task somehow as to achieve the proper look which is typically assumed for multi-exposure images. Anyway, in Surreale Tänzer, I tried my best to merge a set of photos shot back in 2013 in more of a normal way (as I did once), keeping the colors as original as possible while showing a hint of movement. However, this didn't happen with Blending options. Thus, I tried another method, which was the focus stack blending in Photoshop. I tried this method before with some old images, and it did produce the same color spectrum as in Surreale Tänzer. There was some surplus of course which needed to be cropped out. I think I need to focus on this trend and look deeper into my old files, specially those from 2011 and 2012, which for me, were the very active years with my Canon EOS 7D.

Disturbed

Not only multi-exposure is part of my interests, but also some of those blurred images which, previously, proved useless somehow! As in Disturbed. I really don't know why I neglected this image from 2013, but the motion blur because of the wind during this relatively long exposure (13s) got my attention. I have to say that some of the images I've gone through this far did incite me to add some blur to them; Motion blur that is and not lens blur. Yet, I'm not sure it did look realistic for some of those images so I just ignored the idea for the time being. With Disturbed, the RAW was processed as any infrared shot would be processed (when the shot was taken I didn't know any of such processes). Generally speaking, I like it and it does give a sense of mystery to me but I'm not sure about the colors. Sometimes, I do wish I made it into B&W (which I might do after a while).

Finale

It is just the first week of Ramadhan and I'm really, really, wishing for my vacation to come by next week. I thought it would pass quickly but I was wrong. Chores, and bad time management and bad sleeping (more than before), all that combined made me wish if I just signed the whole month of Ramadhan as a leave! 
I'm living a somewhat strange transition, between hope and despair. Looking forward to life, and yet despising it. I'm not sure what is going on inside my head, but one thing for sure: I'm tired. Mentally, that is. I think lot of values need to be checked up and re-evaluated.

Ours,
till the end of time,
and beyond that.

Alexander 6, V43.

A disastrous day. My PC went down and I can't turn it on again. I think it is mainly a corruption in the registry of the OS. Writing this from my laptop which I rarely turn on at home. I have to look after a good computer workshop, instead of the stupid one I used to go to...
I will try to consider this stop as a little vacation for myself... away from facing the monitor most of the time. Well, still I do have the laptop, but I wouldn't be able to do much with the laptop. It's not made for heavy tasks. As for now, my backup plans would be to get a new motherboard and install Windows 7 with maximum RAMs and a good graphics card suitable for working with Photoshop (and not gaming), while keeping my old hard disk with all its data as an external hard disk. I can put it in an external case. I'm sure it's going to be costly but well, my salary and a bonus were just put into my account this week. Easy comes, easy goes. As for now, I think I can't do much imaging, but only to be calm and post verses from Alexander's story... and writing poetry if I can have the inspiration!

__________
1009. then Birbuár urged Alexander to show his Charnagút
1010. but Alexander refused and said: something in me says no
1011. thus while the crowds were getting closer to them
1012. Alexander looked up into the sky and thought
1013. then suddenly he shouted with all his power
1014. "Oh! What is this!"
1015. while the people looked up to the sky above
1016. Alexander held the hand of Birbuár and ran
1017. they crossed the crowds in a hard way
1018. and everyone started to run after them
1019. while Birbuár guided Alexander through the roads
1020. the roads of the village was winding left and right
1021. and some of them were hanging in the air
1022. while Alexander ran and looked around him amazed
1023. and inside an old house with no door they got in
1024. waiting for the crowds of people to pass by and go away
1025. then Alexander faced Birbuár and said to him with anger
1026. "you are verily a wicked man Birbuár,
1027. how much wickedness you have done to others?
1028. and you wanted me to show my Charnagút there?
1029. in the face of innocent children?"
1030. and Birbuár stuttered in his speech and said
1031. "O good king, I was indeed a wicked man,
1032. but help me to end this suffering and I shall help you!"