Retinol III-IV

Busy busy busy. So busy that I can't even play games! Can you believe that? However, to be honest, the major portion of my time is consumed by bad sleeping patterns. All in all, I'm trying to cope with the daily tasks here as well as trying as much as possible to work with my camera and a little bit with a new venture: Adding educational posts to Pinterest. This is a new thing and probably I won't be doing it often, as other things in my life do already have their own priorities. But I'll try to do it whenever I get a new idea or whenever a friend (who is learning Arabic) might suggest.

Announcement

As promised and as with my previous posts, I'd like here to start with a little announcement for a new batch of uploads to the stocks. This time they are scattered across the usual stocks where I upload.

The new batch

First of all, one of these images (won't say!) was canceled from the upload because of some brand name and it would be such a time-consuming process to remove that mark (stock websites usually don't accept such images). Anyway, photos with faces are typically uploaded to Mostphotos, with the exception of only one which is accepted in Canstockphoto as well. The rest are uploaded across Dreamstime, 123RF, as well as to Canstockphoto. However, 123RF, again, did refuse all 5 uploaded images (most of them were denied for being out of focus!). I'm pretty sure they would not be accepted by other stock websites if they were indeed out of focus - there is something fishy or misunderstood going on.

With this new batch, I'm trying to find time to re-process some of my old panoramas, specially the old ones from 2011 and 2012 and prepare them to upload them to my Mostphotos along with the rest of the large-size panoramas there (with a width of 10K pixels). Issues keep arising here though, specially with the new lock-down and health, but I'm trying my best (with coffee!) to organize my time and priorities (and yes, I'm failing so far).

Retinol III

Then, we arrive at my third image for Retinitis Pigmentosa (this year) - which was actually done in the same day as the previous one in the previous post. It was a quickie idea that occurred to me and thought of working it out right away after finishing Sensing which I talked about in the previous post.

The Seeing Hand

The principle thing was to be simple actually; Just using the sun to shoot something and the rest is to be fixed later in Photoshop, and with the help of a fisheye lens (my favorite Rokinon 8mm), the dramatic impact can be achieved (in terms of sizes and emphasis).
The idea of the shot is about the usage of hands to navigate through our spaces as people with Retinitis Pigmentosa and how we are greatly affected with the change (continuous change or period changes) in the environment around us on us; This is specifically about changing furniture at home frequently. Something that I've often suffered from, and still.
People with Retinitis Pigmentosa, like me, are typically using their body parts and memory to navigate through places and when at home, it is mostly memory that gets activated because things are "supposed" to be in their own fixed places.
Now as for the technical part, the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens does not have provide such a shallow depth of field, thus it was one of the first things to be done (after the general color editing in RAW first). It was important, though, not to exaggerate the synthetic lens bur here. Next, it was time to fix the eye on the palm, and for this, I've picked an old image from my arsenal (of my own eye). It was a struggle though to let it be as natural as possible as if it was drawn indeed on my palm. Till this very moment I'm not yet convinced that I did the job correctly.
Anyway, the shot was liked by some people specially those with Retinitis Pigmentosa and could relate to this particular problem. Thus, if you are reading this and you do know, or live with, someone who has such disease or any type of visual impairments, just mind the change in the environment around them. It can be just frustrating; Big time.

Kika III - Retinol IV

Yes, you read that right. I'm posting 2 shots from the Retinitis Pigmentosa project for this year into one post, here. The whole thing was actually a coincidence.
As I was planning a shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa in my head (for days), Kika gave out the theme for her 3^rd week challenge: Framing; And this is exactly the "structure" that I had in my mind for my shot about Retinitis Pigmentosa!

RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game

The idea behind RPG: Retinitis Pigmentosa Game is, again, the furniture and the obstacles that we face INSIDE the house. I was actually thinking of more like an "earthly" composition; Things set to the ground. However, after watching Kika's video for the weekly theme, framing, my mind started to (automatically) combining the two ideas and I came up with this framing, with furniture (or something similar that is) - of course with the blind cane as well to deliver the idea. Now the shoot was a bit of an adventure and unfortunately, I didn't take any shots to document the setting.

Air Remote, for wireless tethering.

The idea needed a top-view, and I guess nowhere is better to do such an idea except for the balcony (and we are lucky to have one). The problem here is, though, I am shooting myself with no help from anyone. So, it was a call for the Air Remote tethering tool, which I didn't use a lot since I got it years back simply because it does lack some features and it's quite cumbersome despite the (supposed) ease of use and the relief that it should be providing. This time, it was no exception, because it did disappoint me further. I will talk about that shortly.

Lateral arm from Photek

To shoot the ground from the balcony, it was natural to use the lateral arm to carry the camera and extend it out of the balcony looking downward. Luckily, I had those weight bags which I've ordered 3 years ago or so and never used them till this moment! Nevertheless, the situation was shaky and I had my heart up my throat. I'm blessed to have an elevator (lift) near me in the balcony to go up and down; Otherwise, I wouldn't even think about shooting this. 

The lens of choice here was my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 because, well, the field of view and the autofocus system. After shooting this though, I realized that I might have done better using Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5, to have a wider field of view and then crop it to a suitable size and boundary, and probably the manual focus of this lens won't be a big problem. After all, I was shooting at f/11, and with wider lenses, the depth of field is forgiving anyway. The main drawback in the whole process, though, was with the tethering.
Actually, day by day, I'm starting to realize that the usefulness of such device is quite limited more than I anticipated in the first place. Here for example and in this situation, I was aiming to capture bracketed images sequence in order to create HDR and be able to achieve the dramatic look by controlling the light in the image at "baking the HDR" level (i.e. tone-mapping). It turned out that because of the timer (10sec) which I've set initially to be able to do my pose, each bracketed image would be taken with a 10sec timer! Of course, holding my pose for 30 seconds is next to impossible, so, I had to go back and just take single images. I'm glad that I could somewhat achieve what I've envisioned using just a single RAW image though. I would have done it properly with an Intervalometer with proper time-delay settings to give me some time to go down to location via the elevator, and that way I would be doing bracketing quite easily, but I still need to check myself on location to pose properly. Maybe next time I will try to combine using both tools, if it was possible (honestly, never tried).
The irony is that every now and then when I decide to use the Air Remote Tethering I do get first a message for updating the firmware and I really don't know how that is done but what I really wonder about is what the update is really about? I don't see any features being enhanced at all; Specially the annoying rotating display which cannot be displayed correctly for shooting in portrait orientation. That's another story for another time and yet, there is another misfortune that I will talk about (hopefully) in my next post when I was about to take the 5^th shot for Retinitis Pigmentosa project.

Finale

Here we are, close to summer again. And yes, I'm not so excited about it. We've gone into partial lock-down here for one month period (ending at April 8^th). Everything will be re-evaluated afterward, and who knows, the lock-down might be extended.
People here are complaining about everything, about all measures and don't get me started with conspiracy theories. Each individual in this great nation is an Aristotle on its own. I just hope my mood swings won't attack me severely in the meantime as it did one year ago, last summer, when we had partial lock-down as well. Not to say it's all gone but I'm coping better. I think the routine of fasting lately beside reading the holy book added greatly to the comfort. I've stopped fasting just recently and strangely I can't stay up late now like I used to do when I was fasting; I'm getting tired easily. Probably because of the digestive operations taking place. Who knows…
Things are a bit awry on the work front, but that's a story for another time I guess. I'm trying to keep my peace of mind as much as possible by trying hard to neglect and forget about these problems. I foresee increasing responsibilities upon my shoulders, and I'm not sure how am I going to cope with these, nor whether I should trust my experience or not (apparently it's not a match, scientifically speaking). From one lock-down to another, things are just spanning and expanding and all there is to hope for form my side is…to stay away as much as possible, until some "right time" comes for a proper resignation.

 

Precautious Selfie (2020)

Meanwhile, as I'm posting these images about this year's Retinitis Pigmentosa project as well as about Kika's photo challenge, I'm still active with my camera but I don't want to post or talk about these images until I finish the Retinitis Pigmentosa series at least. I'm also anticipating working again with my speedlites, with both high speed and stroboscopic, but I'm still puzzled for what I'm going to do. Trying to seek hints from Kika herself, as well as from the work of other photographers I find (mainly on YouPic and YouTube). I'm posting these photos, of course, on my YouPic, but not yet on Instagram. You can check out the link if you like to take a peek on my YouPic profile. But I have to say that many of these images are actually old images re-made or some ignored test shots from the past that have been worked out, specifically to be posted on YouPic. My chores list, surprisingly, is building up and I'm trying to do one thing at a time (including the typing of this blog post actually). There is a lot waiting for me that I've been even postponing playing some games! No time to rest and my body is failing me as usual… also, it is time to think of a new post for my Arabic blog. I think I do need another vacation from blogging at some point, soon…

Retinol…

Busy busy busy! Been a while since I've posted here, and (hopefully) for a good reason. After putting on my last post some 2 or 3 weeks ago, which was a little advertising to my own work on Mostphotos, I've decided to go on and also do an Arabic post in my Arabic blog for the same purpose, and I've spent the past few weeks sharing and spreading the word. Fingers crossed!

That, however, is not all the matter. It is February already, and I guess I've mentioned already in some of my previous posts that I'll be getting ready to prepare some shots related to Retinitis Pigmentosa in this month, since it is the awareness month for this disease and I got into the habit of making related photos since 2016. What happened, though, is that I got into another weekly activity which somewhat ignited my imagination a bit and I really loved to participate, and that is #Kikasphotochallenge.

The #Kikasphotochallenge is a weekly photo challenge (to span over 12 weeks), with a theme proposed for every week. The theme is announced every Thursday on Kotuvakika's YouTube's channel. At the moment of typing these words, it is already week #3. At the time of posting it (Thursday), then we will be already into week #4, supposedly.

I've been trying on both ends, shooting for Retinitis Pigmentosa, and for #Kikasphotochallenge, and for that matter I've already participated in all 3 weeks with images (posted on Instagram of course). However, to keep things short and not to put all my eggs in one basket, I'll go slow and gradual by posting and talking about one image from each side of the stick; The RP project, and Kika's challenge!

Retina I

So, for starters, I'll talk first about the first image I've created for or about Retinitis Pigmentosa. First of all, I actually had to sit and pin down some ideas and also roam Pinterest a bit to gain some insights. One particular thing I've noticed about myself in this process is that I tend to gain more insight from quotes and text rather than from images.
I've pinned some ideas in my note and as I'm typing this right now, I have to say that I did filter some; I've canceled some or reformed some and changed the idea of some. Anyway, that's another story for another day. One of the posts that grabbed my attention on Pinterest is stating some facts about the glasses that we, people with Retinitis Pigmentosa wear and how or what they do (the fact is: Nothing. Glasses don't fix RP). And that was the topic of my first shot.

Visual Un-Aid

I have a confession to make here though. I was/am lazy to get my speedlite gear our (and still). Thus, I had to twist my brain around and try to find some interesting light to shoot in (and that mostly means that I would be shooting during daytime). So, my first shot here (or two shots as I'll explain) was done in, ahem, the bathroom. My bathroom's window casts interesting light in the morning and I admit, sometimes I just go there and switch of the lights just to gaze into that light (without taking any photos though). 

Anyway, as I've stated above, Visual Un-Aid is actually a composition of two shots (apparently). Using 50mm, I've tried my best not to move and to focus properly (using a cable remote of course) and shooting 2 frames, one with glasses and one without. There was a little shake between the two frames of course (tyyyypical) but Photoshop did some good job in aligning them. The rest is, of course, some game of masking to merge two and show the glasses on one side of the face. I won't go into the details of RAW editing; I really don't find any use in that. The trick, though, was to keep the shadows down but not without details still. The moral of the shot is that: With or without glasses, It's almost the same; It's dark. 

Kika I

Well, I've mentioned Kika and her challenges up above so I guess no need to list the whole thing all over again, but let's delve into the first challenge that Kika proposed for the first week: Childhood.
Again, my laziness here really got the best of me (concerning working with my speedlites), but also I really was not quite sure how to represent my childhood. Honestly, I was not that social and at this age I wouldn't be able to mimic the things I used to do with my siblings (like jumping off a cabinet and hitting my head against the chandelier, for example). Thus, I consider my trial quite mediocre, to say the least. 

Childhood Memories

Quercetti's Pallino
My most precious pastime
game during my childhood.

I looked and dug into my memorabilia (which other people in this house consider just pieces of junk) and I really wanted to use one specific toy for the shoot but I didn't find it (apparently lost to time), but I've found my Kinder Surprise toys box. Collected those around the ages of 9 to 10 (just a while before the invasion in 1990). I picked random toys here and I have to say, nothing was quite to my liking in terms of the composition.
For shooting, I've decided (naturally) to choose the sunlight for the task. I've shot bracketed and I did make a comparison between processing HDR and editing a single RAW file. Eventually, I've picked the HDR version but the two images were quite similar. However, HDR has more luster in the eyes and on the hair even though I almost wanted to discard it because of the luster on the skin which I didn't quite like. The perspective is weird a bit, I know. This is because I was actually lying on the ground in quite uncomfortable pose. Adding to my hurdles, the changing angle of the sun as it was rising made the sun beams change direction and strength as they were seeping through the balcony door. I had to work as fast as possible before it would have been blocked by the houses. Converting that image to B&W, though, did produce a remarkable "horrifying" image… which I liked.

Childhood Memories (B&W)

The B&W version though was not posted on Instagram; Only the colored version. Converting to B&W was also somewhat a lengthy process of blending and controlling highlights and shadows as much as possible and in various ways.
At this level I really wanted to stop and not think about doing any further work with this theme, as I was also working with my Retinitis Pigmentosa project. Other themes, though, were somewhat flexible with my creative juices, but that I will keep for other posts in the future.

Finale

In a time when I really thought I should just leave the thing called "Instagram" for a 3^rd time, suddenly things changed with Kika's challenge. Now, I don't know what will be happening after these 12-week challenge are over, but I kind of got into a small community within Instagram, away from the general… stupidity (sorry, couldn't find a better word) of Instagram; With all these posts that show on the exploring page having 1k+ likes and comments, I find myself digging into the lives of people that are closer to me in some way. They watch on YouTube what I watch, interested in what I think is interesting, and on the other hand we have people who suffer like I suffer with Retinitis Pigmentosa and share their exprience. My posts also, specially those about Retinitis Pigmentosa, do attract people and make them interact. To be honest, all I wanted is some Like after all. That was enough to show appreciation. This said, I don't know what or how would I be standing in relation to this platform (which I already despise greatly if not for few users). So it feels like a small bubble floating on the surface of a rampant sea, or rather a murky swamp.

I know what you might think at this point if you are reading this already. "this man is just a snob", but I'm really not. Instagram stopped me from giving Likes twice or thrice some years back because of all the Likes I used to give (thinking I'm just a bot), but honestly, I didn't find anything in return (specially from "friends" in real life that I worked on supporting them) and eventually that lead me to believe that it is just a waste of time. Compared to YouPic's community, Instagram is next to nothing. Saying this while I'm still using my free account there and not being a paying member (which limits me to post every 12 hours).
Another venue to rant about is the fact that hashtags on Instagram are literally useless except for searching for a specific tag; They have no role in spreading your post over the platform or getting it into the Explore page or even to give it a specific order on anyone's feed (if they are followers). This I've found out by experimenting. Unlike YouPic, Instagram does not have a regular or a systematic way of archiving or display new posts that one can explore, regardless of the number of followers the user has or anything else. For this reason, on YouPic, any user has a potential to attract new followers and viewers with every new post regardless of their content/feed and regardless of the (useless) hashtags within the post, and regardless of them being new comers or not. All are equal. This leaves Instagram being just a platform dedicated to businesses of all sorts (and often times users rank up via other methods outside of Instagram itself), and don't get me started with all the Story, IGTV (and the square format). Meanwhile, YouPic is indeed dedicated to photography and photographers WITH the capability of turning it into a business.

Note: I'm not advertising for YouPic nor was paid to do any review. This is purely my own sincere and honest point of view and comparison between the two platforms.

I do have some issues with YouPic myself, like the thing with the nudity content and the blocking mechanism, but nonetheless, the community (generally speaking) is more lenient and into the art of photography. So, if you are reading this and into photography and still roaming Instagram, try finding a place on YouPic and see.

I've talked before in my previous posts about preparing another batch of images to upload to the stocks as well as new panoramas to be offered exclusively on MostPhotos. The work is still ongoing with that but I'm lagging a bit because of all the projects (RP and Kika's) and the challenges that I'm taking the opportunity of to squeeze more juice out of my head. This is beside, ahem, playing some games. I've made a list already of all the files that I will try to upload to the stocks and I will do this on batches (probably 10 images each) and hopefully I will post about them here once they are up.

On the other hand, I've received an email from Trierenberg Circuit (or as we typically call it here: Austria's International Photocontest) inviting me to participate. I didn't participate in 2019 and seems that year the contest was canceled because of COVID (every year the contest start on September and ends on March the next year). Anyway, been thinking about it and I think I will be uploading some of my selfies done with the stroboscopic flash and some of these new panoramas that I've uploaded into MostPhotos already (well, they are not new but processed in a new method so to say). 

Despite not being on the go with my work but things seems to add up and I find myself forced to face the monitor for long hours indeed. Not complaining though. Things are busy this month and I'm hoping that would be a comforting agent to my ever-lasting mood swings…

Bumblebee…

After the problem with my last post like two weeks ago, which was probably accidental (because I type my post whenever possible, in two locations), I’ve decided now to develop a new way to write my blog down, just like I do with my Arabic blog: Type it as a document and then copy-paste it onto the blogging platform. I think it’d be safer that way, so we’ll see.

Meanwhile, I’ve been going through some upheaval here with my sleeping on and off and my vacation (along with the National Day holiday) are all over and, unfortunately, I didn’t do much with my camera, and now I’m back to work; The daily useless exhaustion. Anyway, despite being somewhat idle, I did some stuff that I might share here anyway!

Bumblebee

Some weeks ago I’ve received an email from Chris Hinterobermaier, the Chairman of Trierenberg’s Circuit photography contest (or as we dub it usually: Austria’s International Photo-contest), motivating me to participate in 2019’s edition of the contest and reminding me of my (unexpectedly) winning panorama last year The Pride of My Homeland and the “psychological” edit of Schizophrenia. Actually, in the beginning I was reluctant to participate. I even replied back telling him that I will think about it as I didn’t work with my camera much (specially after leaving the group). I’ve also told him that I might participate in old photos, this is just to keep his hopes low with the quality of the photos which I’m going to participate with (he might have been expecting something new, who knows!). Anyway, after weeks of thinking about and working on some photos, I’ve finally made a decision to participate and it was indeed with lot of old panoramas and photos but more or less with some changes (like converting some to B&W). Meanwhile, I was hoping to upload something related to Retinitis Pigmentosa as it was February (the month of Retinitis Pigmentosa), but here we go; It’s March already and I couldn’t make one photo related to the subject! I’m still working on it though while typing this text. I had one idea that involved my old car but unfortunately, I do need a great deal of help here and I have none to help, so in a nutshell, I had to abandon the idea for now and do other things, if possible.

Anxiety

Thus, I started on working with few ideas in a whim. But the progress was so slow that I needed few days to get things done, even though it was a vacation time, yet my sleeping pattern was going through spasms! Anyway, after trying out few shots, I’ve decided to shoot another selfie (as usual) with a twist, which produced Anxiety. The twist here is: Since I don’t have anyone to help out, I’ve shot many selfies with different hand poses and then re-composed them all into one image. For a dramatic look, I’ve already decided before shooting even to convert this image into B&W. Of course, I had to do that old trick with my eye and brighten it up by controlling the tones (deliberately even with layer masks).

In the beginning, I was planning to work with the concept of “Using Every Single Pixel,” and that is the tendency to frame the subject (me in this case of course) without leaving any unused spaces around the main subject. However, while shooting, I’ve discovered that this is not a good idea as I would later be copying and overlapping, beside aligning, which would move the frames a bit and cropping is, eventually, inevitable. It is a good practice to imagine the process in your head before and while shooting your photos. In this instance, it is not much of a hurdle since I’m just working in a room in the house, but imagine the situation if you are really out there, traveling or something, just far away from home; It would be good to have yourself backed up and ready for bad surprises by doing a bit of imagination before and during the shoot. One of the struggles here as well was the lighting. Since I wanted things to be dramatic, I knew I need just one light (and if need rises, I would use something to reflect it off).

Window capture for the layers layout from the original file of Anxiety.
That is before the final crop and converting to B&W.

However, to contain the light and concentrate it in one area, it was somewhat compulsory to use a snoot, and directing the light with the snoot alone is really, REALLY, an exhaustive procedure. I even tried to bounce the light off the walls (with the snoot on to contain the light and not spread it all over) but still it was not quite enough. It was about time though until I’ve found the right angle and the right power for the speedlite to finally start shooting the series.

After doing Anxiety, I had other plans for some shot to upload on the go to Trierenberg’s Circuit photo contest. In fact, as I was working with my camera, I was simultaneously in the process of uploading my photos to the contest, and there was a bit of vacancy under the themes of Red and Human Emotions which I thought of filling up with one image into both of them. However, this time I really needed a hand with the work, mainly the modeling, so who else would I pick for this mission? My brother!

In creating Remorse, the greatest hassle really was to find a proper red pigment to make into a tear; Something that wouldn’t be hard to wash later on and yet not so watery in looks. In fact, after giving up a bit about finding such substance (we did try many coloring stuff) I was telling my brother that maybe we should just shoot it with water and colorize it digitally (but even that might not work because water would be too slippery). Anyway, the rescue came along from his daughter’s watercolors set and we created somewhat a thick and saturated bit of pigment and, most importantly, washable! However, looking at it now, I do think I made some great mistake (regardless of how strong the message is, is any). I should have used a single light to add drama and deliver the emotional status better. Using two speedlites (for the background and for my brother) made the image kind of flat and more like an image you would find on stock websites. Well, I’m thinking already of uploading it to the stocks but I would need a model release from my brother. The hassle is in printing and writing down these releases (sigh).

Operation Orange

OK. This one here is a story of failure. So, if you are not into that then just skip this portion or close this page altogether. I’ve spent more than 4 weeks (from around January 29^th) in this project and at the end, the result was null. I had to stop it after all. I feel somewhat free after stopping it (because I really need to use the infrared camera in other things) and yet I feel being fooled. But it’s a mistake from my side, and I should learn from this. So, here is a description of this failed project.

After doing a time-lapse of two bananas about 2 months, shooting them in ultraviolet, I’ve decided to do another “rotten” video, and this time shooting infrared, and the target was an orange. Initially, and for about 2 weeks, I’ve set up a 100W tungsten lamp beside the set because it was the best infrared source. Here, I went through much of thinking to try and shoot with a speedlite (because, after all, the fungus needs a dark environment) but working with a speedlite was not an option because of the power problems along with it (speedlites have no indicator for the power level). Thus, naturally I thought of using a tungsten lamp even though it will keep the room bright most of the time, but I was hoping. After 2 weeks from continuous shooting (every 5 minutes, using my intervalometer of course), I realized not much is being changed; With exception of very little green dots on the surface of the orange. At this point, I did change the strategy and changed the lighting to the on-camera flash which is built-in. I didn’t consider this option in the beginning because the direction would be right on the orange and won’t add any depth like a light from the side; Basic lighting stuff in photography. But with this power problem (and not having a studio flash or strobe that can be connected to an electrical point), I had to step down and not trying to be a perfectionist here. Using the on-camera flash allowed me to check the power (because, naturally, it is part of the camera) as well as keep the room dark all the time. It was still an annoying task somewhat to check the batteries and change them once a day at least, and also check the memory cards to upload the images to the PC. Anyway, after about 4 weeks with slow degradation in the outer skin, a quick inspection to the images I’ve been working with here made me realize that the skin of the orange which changed its color to purple is “infrared invariant,” that is, with infrared photography such changes in color do not make any significant change in the perceived image. Adding to that, my friend noted that this purple color is not caused by the fungus actually. Anyway, not wanting to put everything to waste, I’ve just parsed and made this time-lapse video of the process, which is composed of more than 9000 frames over the span of more than 4 weeks. The time-lapse here is composed to fit all frames in the span of about 1 minute (I think most stock sites require such time limitation, so I kept it at that).

 

At this, I’ve learned my lesson, and I should really take some test shots with live samples before going on with such a long experiment that really, REALLY, wasted my time. Well, it’s over now, on to the next.

Finale

Well, I’m trying to work on something here so I couldn’t finish it to be posted here and anyway I think it would be a bad idea to post it as well and make this blog post longer than it is already. Hope things go well with this shot I’m going to make because February is over and I didn’t really do anything related to Retinitis Pigmentosa still! My initial ideas were put to rest. They involved working with my old car in some space near home but I definitely need someone to help me out AND I must work in the evening if I’m going to use the wireless function to control my speedlites (I do have a radio trigger but it is problematic at times). Anyway, I’m up to a new idea now so let’s hope it works well and ready by the week after next.

Since I’m back to work, stress had been building up and my sleeping is indeed swinging. I’m even waking up around midnight and go to work just like that without even a nap. Things are building up inside me and in a time I was thinking I need a vacation to travel, the idea of just resigning and quit out from all this trash altogether is a frequent mind-visitor. Things are hard though and it’s not easy to find another job right now. Even traveling and living somewhere else where I might, just might, find people that I can get along with better – even that had been an idea that comes often to my mind. Is that an effect of my age that I don’t get along with the rest? Is it because of my eye disease? Is it because I’m single still with no one to share my life with like most of my friends do? I really don’t know. I just know one thing: I’m sick. Sick of everything. I want to sit in a dark corner and simply cry. Cry as much as I can, as much as I want, without being afraid of anyone judging me; I doubt anyone would ask even why, that if anyone noticed anyway.
Anyway, I’m TJ. And TJ is always alright…

Racing Time…

Here we go, with a new year, and... some new load of problems I guess? Anyway, life a problem in its core I presume, right?
Well, in my previous post I was talking about doing a self-challenge as I used to do before and head to work with one camera and one lens (did that already with 50mm lens) and this time to be using 20mm lens. Anyway, for some technical reasons, I had to delay this for a while until I finish some experiments at home. Why? Because I'm using the intervalometer in shooting some time-lapse at home, and I do need the intervalometer to shoot long exposures as I'm planning, at work, if possible. So, I'm waiting!
Mentioning time-lapse, there is one big deal which occupied me for a while and I was not able to post about it in the previous post because I was simply busy processing the images and the video. Let's see…

Frozen

Refreshen
Source
In this shot I've used a continuous
light source focused on the glass
and the ice cubes in a dark
room and with a considerably long exposure.

I was encouraged to do this experiment after my work with the incense sticks and capturing smoke as well as doing a short time-lapse. Thus, I thought, why not work with a melting ice block? I did somewhat similar experiments before, doing long exposure for melting ice and the results were so-so I'd say. This time, as with the case with the incense sticks, I've planned to work with speedlites and take several shots. Originally, though, I was planning to do a real long exposure actually, and triggering the speedlites by sound every 1 minute or some other specific time period, but re-thinking the procedures and the capabilities, I changed my mind and decided to shoot normally with the intervalometer and capturing many photos and by this I would be a winner on both sides: Merging images as in double exposure or more than that, as well as forming a time-lapse for the whole process.

The set where the shooting took place, with 3 speedlites at work.

The main problem though was to make the ice block and how to make it interesting! After thinking thoroughly, and after noticing some candy tins which were prepared specially for some occasion I'm not aware of. Anyway, my brother helped me remove the golden paint on the tin, but still some work was left since the tin had some design. Not willing to paint it all over again, I've used balloons to cover the tin and make it all red (after felling it with marbles). Then, I've prepared a cylindrical canister open from two sides and filled it with water with the tin inside (hence the marbles to sink it down). I did face some problems here but let's not delve into these details, as they were about to drive me nuts!

The shoot in action.

Before the actual shooting takes place, I did practice on a glass in the same position where the ice block would be. I got the 3 speedlites to work perfectly as I need, despite the cumbersome settings or light modifiers I'm using here. I used 2 speedlites on the side, and one speedlite with a snoot to cast some light in the background even though, initially, I didn't want to do that in the first place, but then I thought it would be a good idea to separate the ice block from the pitched darkness of the background; However, in all 3 speedlites, I tried to use the minimum power to give just a hint about the boundaries and not illuminate everything (and this is also useful to save power more because I was not sure how long this process will be), and thus all speedlites were on powers less than 1/8 of the maximum.

Frosted Love
Time-lapse

It took me around 5 hours (or maybe a bit more) for the ice to melt down to considerable and acceptable amount (but not completely!). The hardest part was to remove that ice spot on the surface of the heart which seems to be there for hours and I was afraid that it won't melt down at all. I did melt it down a little but not completely (using a kitchen torch).

I had my lesson now for working with ice. It is probably the most unstable thing on planet Earth! You will notice how the ice block in the time-lapse moves around; Unfortunately, something I couldn't prevent or avoid. The white powder scattered around the block is actually salt which I used to stabilize the block in one place, but even with that, the block would rotate around itself as it was melting. You might have also noticed some purple spot in the lower right corner (and there are two of them if you checked the photo of the set above). These were clay (play-doh) pieces which I used to raise the acrylic board just a little to balance the block, but even with that, the block kept on moving left and right and I realized I would need salt here. For this reason, it was such an exhaustive work for 5 hours or so, even though I thought I would rest a bit while the process takes its own pace; I was completely wrong! I had to run often to the set to check its process and to adjust the block manually in between the shots. I'm happy though that the lighting from the speedlites kept consistency and there is almost no change in the light level in the video.

Defrosting Love

Finally, I didn't forget my major aim for this whole "little" project here, which is an image (and not a time-lapse video). With such a huge amount of images (more than 580 shots), I was a bit puzzled at what I'm aiming for, or more precisely, what images do I need to mimic the thawing of the ice (the time-lapse was in reverse so it was like if the heart is frosting not defrosting). Thus, I've set my mind to pick one image with 100 shots apart in between (approximately). The resulting image, Defrosting Love, was formed by blending the images using Lighten mode mostly but later needed some work with layer masks to hide some unneeded artifacts. The hurdle though was with the red tones as their saturation and lighting were a bit troublesome to tone down and keeping a natural level. Anyway, seems (just seems) I got it right.

Now, I still need to add some keywords to the image and get it ready to be uploaded to stock websites. Though I finished this little project a while ago, but I was really busy with other things around which kept me (or rather made me forget) about uploading this image. As for the time-lapse, I'm still reluctant to upload to stock websites (some of them accept footage) as it doesn't seem quite perfect, but I'm keeping my options open for the time being. I'm typing these words as I'm working on another project which hopefully I'll be posting about soon when it's over, and also I need to get ready for another idea which is cooking at the back of my head! I'm having a rain of ideas, and probably I should thank winter for it!

Finale

AC-E6N
AC Adapter for some Canon cameras,
including Canon EOS 7D.

This was a quick journey through a little project which I've done lately, and somehow it got me keen on trying more time-lapses, if possible. It also sparked my interest in getting one of those AC adapters for the camera and thus I wouldn't have to change the batteries often during the time-lapse shooting; It's quite critical to keep the camera untouched as much as possible. I asked about it around and the shop owner said it might be available in 3 weeks or so and I didn't really find it in listings of other shops around. I'm not going to order that with international shipping as well, as it's not really worth all that money for this item alone (I don't have anything else to order along with it). So, I guess all I can do for now is wait! 

Many ideas are running through my mind right now, and just to name few: Reviving the Scopa project which I've stopped months ago, and maybe, just maybe, I might try to go out at night like I used to do before and shoot something (crossing fingers to not encounter any annoyances). This is beside challenging myself with the one-camera one-lens challenge. 

Because of all of this "indulgence" with ideas, I really had little time to connect with myself and write a poem. I'm breaking my own promise to myself of writing at least one poem a month. I didn't compose any poem in December, and now January is on its beginnings, yet I'm not sure if I will write anything.

Despite this enthusiasm and this mind running with ideas, I'm on the contrary to all of that, tired. So tired. Of everything. Overthinking is taking its toll on me and I'm fighting back with whatever power left in me. This aside, I've noticed how much I'm getting frustrated and angry and simply irritated by simple things. They say this usually happens when a person keeps so much inside without venting or dealing with these feelings; All that would show later as a burst of anger against the silliest of things. This is what is happening to me really.

Deep inside me, there is a perplexing mix of feelings of love and hate, eagerness and despise, but the greatest of all of these feelings, is the fear from tomorrow...

Rimming…

Well, that was a break! A break from blogging that is, but a forced one unfortunately. I was preparing a post for my Arabic blog about "rim lighting" and things started to build up as my work demanded some work which required some dedicated time. I even worked on that during the weekend! Can you imagine? Doing a work-related work in a weekend? Pfft… Just to add to my misery, a car accident occurred which actually wasted my whole day (I had it as an off-day from work).

Meanwhile, because of that article I was preparing, or even before starting with it, I did prepare some images and probably would be working in the future about some more. But first things first!

Split

It all started with a comb. Yes, a comb. And not just any comb. A comb which might be used with beards or baby hair (I guess?)... and it's broken into pieces. Probably, as an INFP myself, metaphors and symbols do play an integral part of my expressions; Visually and linguistically. Thus, when I saw this tiny comb, I think something inside had been moved…

580EX II Speedlite covered and
leaving a small slit on the top only.

Now to business: Lighting. I knew from the beginning that lighting this shot is going to be somewhat picky. It needs to be dramatic, as well as directed to the comb itself alone as much as possible. The situation was settled by using a black paper on the speedlite to block all the light except of a tiny strip. This tiny strip was also somewhat wide for the comb but it did the job after all, and an increase in f-number (to f/8 actually from f/2 I think) was required to give it that dramatic look. I had to, however, paint the background in black myself because the black surface I used had a texture and with lighting on its side it gives out quite a visible texture behind the comb. This little quickie shot, triggered more work later on in fact.

I could not resist the temptations for trying out this method (of covering the speedlite) with a selfie, and so I did. This time though, I've covered 2 speedlites with black papers and made a vertical slit in the middle (almost) about 1mm wide or so (tried to make it as thin as possible and yet passing some light). The results were... interesting!

I didn't have the time to fix the speedlites on tripods or anything and then level them up and down. I just held them both in my hands and extended my arms to the sides at full length. The looks are somewhat similar to the hatchet lighting style but with more drastic shadows I guess. Quite a strange look to me as if the light beam stopped at some limit on my face though! But the strangest thing was the black "hole" in my forehead is if my forehead had a bulge! I guess I won't know if this is normal or not until I have to shoot faces of other people (with the camera of course), and see the results for myself.

Rimming

A cylinder opened on both sides.
This is what I used for the next
few experiments with the speedlites.

These experiments with "slitting" the light beam reminded me of an old method which I've read in some books but didn't get the chance to apply it much. That method is specifically dedicated to shooting engraved flat objects, like coins or medals. Having a plenty of cans around (from consuming those delicious chocolate biscuit sticks!), I decided to go on and experiment further to see for myself what can be done with those. Thus, I picked one (and I have an arsenal of them!) and removed its bottom, and stuffed it with black paper (don't have a black paint). In the beginning, I thought of lifting the cylinder a bit with some coins but they were too slippery and shaky, so I used small paper clippers (and they would help holding the paper inside the cylinder firmly as well).

The first trial was with a decorated golden tray. We use it here for serving coffee (my favorite Turkish style!). It was tricky somewhat for a number of reasons:

• The tray was smooth and caused the metallic can to slide easily.
• The tray was polished and that caused some reflection problems.

This is beside the common problem of lighting inside the cylinder when the camera is placed on top (and turning the inside of the cylinder into pitched dark), but that was a minor problem somehow because light was still seeping through and I could even use the AF function of the lens sometimes. For those situations where light is critically needed inside the cylinder with the camera on top, I would be using some LED light placed near the speedlites. However, the critical problem with those polished surfaces is the reflections of my hand and the camera's strip (the camera's body is black so that was not a big deal). The best I could do about these reflections is to try to let them be on the edges of the frame as much as possible and then crop them later. Usually in such situations, specifically when shooting glass (like those in museums), we would place the camera and lens into somewhat large black paper or foam board (just big enough to cover the actual frame to be photographed) and in that way the black color is reflected off the glass or in other words: clearing the glass. This is beside using polarizers too sometimes. However, all of these techniques are for the "macro" world and not for the macro shooting we are doing here with a lens going inside a cylinder! Anyway, to keep things a bit interesting, I've created a "texture" made out of the repetition of Golden Curves, and it's now available exclusively on Dreamstime.

There is one thing for sure in such shots and that is cleaning is a must. By cleaning I mean working on Photoshop to clean the image. Here in Glowing 20, I didn't work on cleaning the image (except of replacing the background with black), and adding some sharpening to that and the surface of the coin got bloomed with these small dots like digital noise! Now, the challenge still did not begin, yet.

Shooting objects which are not flat proved to be difficult with such a cylinder. Mainly, of course, because the light is projected from below and we do need details of the top part. Thus, the light should strike at about the middle of the object or on its top (from the side to give a rimming effect). In Delicati above, I got desperate and I was back again to the black paper slits covering the speedlite head. For this reason, I've decided to "make" another cylinder with various slits on the sides, and holes as well. It's too early to talk about the results from these 2 as I didn't experiment with them much (and I would delay this blog post if I want to include the results here!), so I might keep this for another post. However, I did try a cylinder with slits with the same object in Delicati.

Cylinder with slits, the one I used
to shoot Argentum. Covered
some slits with black pieces of
paper with the help a rubber band
so the light from speedlites would
pass through certain slits only.

The looks of Argentum look pretty impressive, more than Delicati. Well, to my eyes at least. But the mystical look as I believe is greatly emphasized in Argentum rather than in Delicati. But one problem here remains: Flares. By flares here I mean the harsh highlights reflecting off the metallic surface. Probably to solve such issue I would have to place some kind of a modifier to soften the light as it enters through the slits of the cylinder but this is another issue I need to test with in the near future to see how it would work out; Though I have my own suspicions about the usefulness of this. In Argentum I've worked around such strong flares on the metallic body in Photoshop doing some magic with the "Blending" options for the layers. Just to note, Argentum is also available on the stock, in 123RF. 

After working on Argentum, I did continue to do some work and little projects with this method of lighting and some of them are on the stock already indeed, but let's keep that for another post maybe.

On The Side

Beside all of this fuss going on with my speedlites, I couldn't hold myself further from capturing and making some new 3D anaglyphs. The target this time was some fossils in the Geology department in my workplace. The department was renovated and the display cases had been changed or re-organized and I have to say some of those was really, really, appetite-instigating for some 3D work. 

Even though I've noticed those a month or two ago, but I couldn't work out with them except in recent weeks, and I had to do it using my Huawei Mate 9 smartphone, and there is a word I'd like to say but let's end this 3D talk first. It would have been better if I could have shot those using my DSLR camera but the situation is not on my side here specially that I go to that department in the final minutes before leaving my workplace (to do the fingerprint scanning for leaving). Moreover, I would have probably used a polarizer or some black board to hide the glass flare but with a mobile phone camera there was not much I could do. Thus, though the illusion is good enough for pop up (at least to my eyes), but the flare and reflections from the glass case makes it a bit annoying.

The case with the trilobite (if my memory serves me right here about the name) was a bit better but the probably the shit was too much between shots that it took me some time further to ensure that this illusion goes without ghosting effect. It is with this image that it was prevalent that higher pixel resolution does not mean necessarily a good image quality. The resolution for my Huawei Mate 9 is 20MP, while it's 18MP for my old Canon EOS 7D. Naturally, the file size for shots taken with a 20MP camera is larger than those taken with 18MP camera. However, the resolution when zoomed in at 100% proved to me that there is a critical factor related to the sensor and its size and not just its resolution which decides how clear the image can be. At close up, the shot for this trilobite was a bit muddy-like and not quite sharp. One might say it's motion blur or a focusing problem, but all that is (with time) can be quite easily distinguished when seen on the image. And that murky-looking details is absolutely a resolution issue and not anything else. Anyway, I'm limited with my options here and at the end, I do have to work with the mobile phone (I even look weird shooting several shots for these fossils with students roaming the place!). I still have some specimens in my mind and I might try to shoot them for 3D work in the coming few days!

Finale

Now, I was going, hopelessly, to write down a new poem but unfortunately, because of this busy schedule and pressed time and exhausted body, it was really hard to focus on the words and feelings I need to write, even though I do have a general concept in my mind about what I want to express. All I can hope for for now is that I would be able to do something about it in 2 weeks from this post!

The weather is getting down with its temperatures. Such a good tiding and announcement for the coming of winter. This summer really exhausted me as it is already. I can't believe how I'm coping with this for 3 years now without traveling. 

After quitting Instagram, I'm trying to focus my attention onto Twitter, as I'm using it as a platform to "advertise" for my stock images on somewhat a daily basis. Not sure how effective this is but this is the least I can do to publish my work. I am also publishing some weird panoramas (mostly planets) that I didn't think of uploading to the stocks before, but with a catch: Each stock website would be responsible (or exclusively offering) a specific type of images; From Malta, Ireland or even those tiny projects I do at home. Beside Twitter, I'm also publishing my work on Pinterest, even though it kind of feels weird and I'm not sure how it really works! This said, I'm also trying to cancel out my accounts in some stock websites as I deem them not useful at all. Who knows though, I might consider finding new venues as well.

Meanwhile, my time is passing in such a strange way as my life goes on. It is slow, yet so fast in the same time. Memories from the old days are frequently passing my mind and evoke emotions that I've been trying hard to hide in every single damn day that passes. I'm not ashamed to say even that some times I had to cry alone, but well, who cares after all. It's me, and it's my time and no one else's. The question remains though, how much time is left for me to live what I want to live, or maybe I'm not destined to live what I wanted to live…

RP Go Leor…

Well, I'm officially stuck in a rut. All I'm doing right now or thinking about right now is taking selfies, and putting other projects behind my back (well, beside doing a post for my Arabic blog). Megalomania? Not really, but it all initiated with the Schizophrenia project which I talked about last post, this is beside doing a project for this month, February, as it being the Awareness Month for Retinitis Pigmentosa and I'm used to do a shot every year for this occasion. I even designed an icon with a purpose, but nothing official about it but only some ideas. Let's talk about these a bit shall we?

Iconography

This is actually an old idea that I had in my mind, as I used to ask myself: What if we, people with Retinitis Pigmentosa, do have a special sign to make people aware of our condition as we go around, either walking (or even driving though it's dangerous)? I know though that where I live, people are close to savagery and probably won't care much about such a sign as they didn't care before for traffic signs and related stuff. But would people in other (normal) places would consider such a sign? Care for it? Considered something official? Such thoughts came back to me as I was tickling my mind to think of a substitute for my ideas for shooting something for RP (since I couldn't find a blind-cane in the WHOLE country). Thus, it was time to work!

RP Icon/Sign

The idea of the icon is simple: An eye (inside a frame) with two vertical bars cutting through the body of the eye signifying the limited sideways vision or peripheral vision. However, RP has various levels of course and some patients might be legally blind; so, I'm not sure if this icon would really be adequate to represent them. I've used blue-yellow combination here depending on contrast relationship between the two colors on the color wheel. Thinking about it now, I might as well upload it as a vector to some stock websites but I would need to fix some stuff. The two vertical lines should have probably been thicker and somewhat equal in thickness to the outline of the eye. We'll see about that later. I think the outer border as well should be considered in terms of thickness to match the eye. Would I live to see this sticker hanging on someone or stuck to some car? Maybe…

RP Blend

As you already know probably, and as I've mentioned before already, I had to cancel my main idea for this project about Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) Awareness Month, because I couldn't find a blind-cane or stick with any major provider for medical supplies. NOTHING, in the whole country. Of course, I could have ordered it online, there are a plenty out there. However, this will take a long time relatively for the delivery, besides costing so much in shipping for such a simple item like this! Thus, I had to go around this problem and create something new. Well, not exactly new, but let's say an old idea with a different scope…

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Feb 10, 2018 at 6:16pm PST

Road of Hurdles

Peripheral Damage

I'm posting the image from my Instagram page so it would be easier to view and check the B&W version instead of posting them both here. Anyway, as I said, the idea is old but the "vision" is new let's say. The idea is similar to last year's Peripheral Damage somehow when I photographed my eye from inside a snoot. The idea is about the limited peripheral vision which RP patients like me have (and some patients do go blind completely as time goes on). For this shot I've used my chess board (no, not a chess fan and I don't like it and I don't play it and I would never ever think of playing it) - It is a set that I've purchased a year or two ago specifically for that purpose. In fact, a friend of mine has more elaborate set with pawns or pieces (or whatever) made of metal and are closer to the human figure. However, I got this set so I would stop borrowing stuff from other people!

The process of shooting was problematic and I had to do a lot of trial and error and it was not possible to shoot it alone. After some help from my brother and my sister, Ive finally managed to pin the focus and the composition. The final composition, though, had to use some crop to remove my forehead which I could not hide whatsoever! And truth be said, all trials had my eye dim somehow and lacking that luster. That thing had to be fixed in processing the RAW files and then in Photoshop. The thing I'm worried about so much is the noise level which seems so robust to be removed with my typical approach in noise reduction plugins. Right after finishing this little quickie project, a new idea struck my head and I started working on it right away. This idea was in fact inspired by a previous project, Schizophrenia, which I've talked about in my last post.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Feb 12, 2018 at 6:20pm PST

The Walk of RP

Despite its simplicity, though, I did have a struggle with The Walk of RP and I had to shoot it on 2 occasions (on 2 days). Going around with the speedlite, I've found out that fitting the speedlite with a globe diffuser on the camera did provide the unique, spooky and mysterious look I need. I tried to pin down the focus the first time (as I was using Voigtländer 20mm lens which is a semi-automatic lens) by estimating the distance to my face. However, on the first day, all shots were actually blurred! It was so upsetting (however, I used some of those for 3D anaglyphs later on). On the next day (I remember that I've overslept after fixing my alarm on the wrong time, so I skipped work and used that time with my camera), I tried again but this time I was forced to use the external monitor to check the focus more precisely.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Feb 17, 2018 at 6:26pm PST

Werewolf

Eventually out of these shots, later on, I've extracted few stuff. I was aiming at creating a 3D Anaglyph at first but then I thought, why not doing this thing as a regular image on its own. Thus, I've created Werewolf and in both, colors and B&W. I've done various things as well with those infrared images (specifically the Schizophrenia project) but let's skip that for the moment, as it is only a change in colors and looks. Maybe later. But let's see one 3D example…

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Feb 18, 2018 at 6:20pm PST

And I've made a handful of those anaglyphs, and still aiming to do more in the future. After emailing some stock websites it seems some of them do accept such art, so I thought I might put this forward and try to do more 3D anaglyphs to upload. I just need the good subject though.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Feb 13, 2018 at 6:21pm PST

Behind The Scenes

one of the blurry shots taken on the first day merged into an anaglyph!

Finale

Well, seems things will be getting busy the next few days, but there is no trace of hope for my Scopa project. I've gone through a a "sorting meeting" with the group which was to sort and pick images for the upcoming contest, Austria's International Photography Contest, or commonly known as the Trierenberg Circuit. I was kind of disappointed to see one of my panoramas which I'm proud of beside a single shot to be just dropped down and for somewhat absurd reasons not related to composition or quality. Thus, I might consider uploading them separately on my own. This is not because I do encourage or like contests, but this panorama and that single image have so much in it; something cultural and a heritage, thus I want to show it to all.
On the other hand, I've been somewhat disappointed by some behavior on Instagram, as I see many of my so-called "friends" and members of the group do give Likes and comments generously to others but not to me, the one who posts daily. Most (not all) of my Likes are actually given by strangers who probably searched using a specific hashtag or maybe visitors from Explore? If my images made it there anyway (not sure how an image would be displayed there). I think I need to adjust my behavior online, and I'm starting that off by giving Likes for Likes only.
Some poetry are sparking a little in my head but I didn't get the chance to pin down the words. Mainly, I got moved by Werewolf which I've posted above but unfortunately, my mind was so much in a mess to just write anything down. As I'm reading and exploring the world of INFPs (after doing the MBTI lately), there is some emphasis on writing, so I might need to push that further. I do write some thoughts on a daily basis though (and translate them into Irish as a way to practice the language a bit) but that wouldn't be much of a writing, would it? We need poetry there.