+10…

So, a month now since my official request for retirement and until the moment of typing these words, things aren't over yet. On a positive note, I don't have to go to work daily right now as I'm officially off, but I'm still not completely detached from work because I didn't finish the paperwork related to my "leaving certificate". Thus, the month of November just passed me by without a salary in bank account. To add pepper and salt to the wounds, everyone is just working slowly, barely answering phone calls, and what would take a day to be done or even less, takes up to 2+ days to do, if not a week or weeks.

Anyway, away from my ranting, I've decided for this week's post to talk about 10 of my images that had been marked as "Inspirational" by YouPic. This comes after finally having my 20th image marked as inspirational. I've made a post long time ago about my first 10 images, and so this post will be about my second 10 inspirational image, as noted by YouPic. 

+10

So, here is the list and in the order of picking them up as "inspirational". I'll try to be brief as much as possible in describing each image.

1.

_MG_7671

 The first image in the list as you can see bears no title, because, well, I didn't really care much about it and I didn't think of it as something special. It is one shot from a series, when I shot the fireworks during the "Constitution Day" celebrations back in 2012. I was on the roof of Soug Sharg Mall and the location was not special or anything; It didn't provide any good perspective or foreground. Yet, I kept shooting that night and got an arsenal of fireworks shots.

2.

_MG_7773

 As you can see, #2 is like its predecessor and from the same location but with a different focal length, thus more buildings and lights are included. Again, I didn't think of a title for this shot because, come to think of it, it's a series with loads and loads of firework images! I can barely remember my own passwords at this age now (yes, 41 is old). Just to add some "dynamism" to the image, I've decided to crop it at 16:9 as if it was some wide-screen movie scene. Unlike its predecessor, I didn't work quite much on the blacks here to make it lighter. I think the tones weren't helping anyway.

3.

_MG_7751

Another one (and a favorite) from the series of the fireworks which was also marked as "inspirational" by YouPic. I like this one in particular because of the 3D-ish look that happens to be here. I was able to lighten the pitch black sky a bit and like its predecessor, it was cropped to 16:9. At that time I was experimenting with the cinematic looks, so I used this ratio quite often to mimic a movie scene or something. Well, I still do sometimes. One weird thing about this image is that the recorded f-number is f/36, while I'm sure that the max f-number for all of my lenses is f/32!

4.

Peekaboo Building

Peekaboo Building was just a random shot that I've taken in Dubai in 2013, when I was there for some ceremony I was invited to. I've stayed for 3 days but, literally, didn't find much to shoot there during my stay. This place is just not my thing really. Anyway, this is one of the random shots that I've taken as I was walking aimlessly on the roads not from my hotel. Of course, this shot was cropped and adjusted (specially to make the vertical and horizontal lines as straight and divergent as possible). It was uploaded in the abstract section on YouPic even and not in the architecture section. To me, it looks quite random!

5.

Herr Fengus

Then, we have here my little friend which showed up one morning during COVID-19 lock up in 2020, and then disappeared the next day. Well, in our garden some fungi like this show and disappear regularly (I guess they don't stay because of the water force over them). Anyway, shooting Herr Fengus was quite a challenge, because it was taken handheld and getting low. Even the focus here is not quite pinned correctly and I had to do some compromise with the f-number to let in more light. Originally, it was white-yellowish in color, but with post-processing, things flourished!

6.

Abhainn na gCuimhní Binne
(river of the sweet memories)

The next one came to me as a complete surprise. An old shot from Oughterard, Co. Galway, Ireland, which was shot with my old Canon 350D (my first Canon camera ever), back in 2009, during my first visit to Ireland ever. The scene here is quite random but I tried to make something out of it by color grading and dodging and burning here and there. Seems all that work (which I wasn't quite satisfied with) did pay off with being picked for the "Inspirational" section by YouPic. I remember some of these white spaces (the sky) needed some fixes and I'm guessing I've sorted this out by some patching work.

7.

In The Grace of The Cormac

In The Grace of The Cormac is an old panorama shot in my second visit to Ireland, in 2010, and this panorama was the beginning of a series of re-stitched panoramas done from RAW files without resorting to HDR techniques. Also, in this re-stitch of this panorama, I've included a human factor in the middle which I used to remove in the original (and I was lucky to have this lady photographer at the center). Using only RAW in stitching is not quite easy as I thought! The panorama is shot inside McCormac cathedral which forms a compound with Cashel Rock castle.
[Worth noting that this panorama particularly is available in large size for download and printing as a fine art piece from my MostPhotos profile].

8.

Il-Pixxina
(The Swimming Pool)

The next one in the series of re-stitched panoramas (from RAW) comes from the swimming pool of the place where I stayed in Qala, Malta. This panorama was shot twice back in 2015. My first trial wasn't successful and problematic because the light was changing quickly, so I tried to fix that the next day with another shoot with somewhat proper timing. This re-stitch, however, which is made from RAWs, was made from RAW files of the first trial (which I didn't delete). One element is missing from the original (2nd trial stitch done first) and that is the cat which posed for me in the scene!

9.

بَـهْـجَـةُ الـعـاصـِيْ
(Sinner's Delight)

As for #9, we have another re-stitched panorama from the old days when I was "able" somehow to go out on those cold winter nights to the seaside and do stuff with my camera. Like its original predecessor, the RAW-only re-stitched panorama was a challenge in terms of noise and details, as well as exposure. The title of this panorama can be understood in two ways depending on the perspective of the viewer; Looking at the city, this place can be the delight that the sinner is looking for, or considering the isolation from the city, this place can be the delight of repentance that the sinner is looking for.
[Worth noting that this panorama particularly is available in large size for download and printing as a fine art piece from my MostPhotos profile].

10.

يَـحْـمـورْ
(Redness)

The last one, came about as a surprise to me for various reasons. First, it had been a really long time since any of my images was marked as "inspirational" on YouPic. Secondly, the image is actually some neglected test shot done in the summer of 2012. I don't find anything special in this image, and here was the challenge in fact (for me) to create some interest by color-grading and other editing techniques. I'm still thinking, how come I didn't point my camera to the city on the left and take a shot there showing the reflection on water? To add more "strength" to the image (so to say) I've cropped it into a square and made sure that the horizon line is around the center of the image. 

Finale

Now, this is the post for this week. I'm not sure if I will post in 2 weeks time, but I do have some ideas cooking in my head which I hope that they would produce something to post about then.

One of the ideas that cook in my head is to pay tribute to the great Arab tenor whose songs I'm in love with: Sabah Fakhri صباح فخري. This great iconic marvel passed away from our mundane world on November 2nd; An event that poured melancholy into my life further, but c'est la vie. I've did few images back in 2016 probably trying to get some inspiration from the classical he sang on various occasions, but I think those weren't enough. More work need to be done in this aspect and I hope that my willpower is up to it.

By the time this is posted, I'm praying that my status with my workplace is finalized. I've spent the whole month of November without a salary because of that and I'm praying that it won't be another month without it. A question keeps popping up in my head now and then: What now after retirement, TJ? However, I'm trying to suppress my thoughts for the time being and just focus on the rubbish on my full plate with all these stuff related to the workplace and the papers here and there. But if I'm to be honest with myself, I really don't know what is my next step after retirement, except that I need to enjoy my life just a bit. Just a bit…
 

 

Għajnejn Miftuħiet Wiesgħiet…

Here I am, back to work and the daily turmoil; traffic jams, turbulent home, and turbulent sleeping pattern. Despite some of the problems I had in Malta, I do feel like doing back just to relax even more. I can get very lazy, I know, but who wouldn't be, with a continuous headache like this.
My sleeping pattern is not fixed and I've been going to work all week being awake since midnight or around that time (and sometimes before this time even). All that leaves me too exhausted and paralyzed with not much work done to my newly-acquired photos from Malta. The only time available for me in the meantime is after waking up in the middle of the night, and not much is done during these hours. I'm trying to organize my life a bit (starting with my room cleaning) but I think I will need few months to do this instead of some days or weeks!

it-toroq kollha jwasslu li Ġużeppi
(all roads lead to Joseph)

In the meantime, seems I've stitched all my arsenal of panoramas from Malta. What is left now is doing various projections of them. Some of those though won't have any other projections since they are just simple panoramas with few shots and not full space panoramas. Also, there should be a lot to be done in inspecting other single shots taken around Qala, where I stayed. I have to inspect these single shots thoroughly to find possibilities for 3D anaglyphs processing; some of those I did intend to make them into anaglyphs, but sometimes single shots taken from the same location repetitively can have a difference in perspective which would help in making a 3D image after all.

Kbir Qaddis Ġużeppi
(3D)

Unfortunately for me though, the panorama taken in Qala Pjazza where the church of Kbir Qaddis Ġużeppi lies, and which I've shot twice intending to make it as a 3D panorama, did not work quite well for many factors, specifically the change in the lighting conditions and the movement of the clouds (the two reasons are interconnected anyway). Thus, I've abandoned this idea.

Infra Ġużeppi

One of the interesting panoramas that have been stitched lately as well is the infrared panorama taken from the same pjazza (or piazza) in front of the church. Despite the shining sun, I had to raise the ISO value to 400 to shorten the exposure time down to ~1m20s. In the beginning there had been problems in finding matching points between many slides specially those where the clouds line occupy a large area of the image. However, removing the zenith and the nadir points seems to have worked wonder somehow and the problems were reduced to only 1 or 2 slides that needed control points to be specified manually, and what caused this was mainly a difference in levels or tones between the two slides caused by the movement of the clouds in the sky which turned the sun on and off and probably the angle at which some features are shot with do affect the direction of reflection of infrared radiation towards the camera (but I'm not sure about that, but this is the case of using a polarizer, hence it's no good to use a polarizer to shoot a panorama). The hardships in this panorama though started with the processing endeavor; it's infrared, i.e. no real colors. I was fluctuating between having a reddish look or a bluish look; should I apply a channel swab or not? I've tried many aspects for this but at the end I've decided to settle down with the black and white look (adding a tiny bit of bluish tint). My work was not over at this, but I had to crop away some of the annoying features, which means the panorama is not 360° any longer. I had to do this mainly to crop away the flaring sun. A typical annoyance with panoramas shot outdoors, and the annoyance increases when doing an infrared panorama (with an unconverted camera which requires long exposures). Now all what is left with this arsenal is to be sorted out and to see which one can be uploaded to stock sites, and which ones would be beneficial for the group's usage in contests, and let's not forget my website which settles there, idle…

Finale

For this load and this sleeping pattern, not much could be done this week I suppose. Well, many images were processed already but I don't like to put all the eggs in one basket here. Beside this, there might be a re-visit to some of the shots taken in Oman back in September to extract more of them. The matter of QTVRs from my panoramas from Malta is abandoned in the meantime. Probably if I know of a good (web) location to host these and display them easily for regular users, only then, probably, I'd like to create more QTVRs, or upon request.
This is my life right now: work, chores, and more work. Probably my long sleep since I got back from vacation is just a trial to escape reality? I'm not sure; I'm no psychologist. Least I'm hoping for is an end for this damn cough, which seems to get better by now - a good sign on top of all the black endeavors…

3D Giovanna Debono

Wara Malta…

Here I am. After some long journeys and so much fuss and hassle in life! I think there's so much to be talking about right now, specially that I didn't write any blog posts when I was in Malta (from September 27^th until October 8^th), but thanks to my laptop, I couldn't do that and now many things and many details escaped my mind. However, processing images and some panoramas is ongoing.
I have to say that I didn't get into the maximum of my efforts in Malta, specially after being struck with a serial bad luck, starting with my laptop stopping to function in what it seemed back then to be a short circuit in the motherboard. Luckily I had my tablet to do some of my business and when I did a search about this problem it seemed that most people suffered from this problem owned a DELL like me! And it is noted that most likely it is a motherboard problem. However, when I got back to Kuwait, the laptop worked just fine as nothing happened at all! I'm still trying to figure out what was going on exactly and learn, so I can avoid this problem in the future! Malta's and Kuwait's electricity are almost the same (230V for Malta and 240V for Kuwait, and both run on 50Hz). It sure gave me a hard time, but thanks to the owners of Dar ta' Żeppi who allowed me to use a laptop to transfer my files from the camera to my external hard disk.
I'm not sure what came over me but something out there turned my ambitious venture around and made me dormant. In fact, I didn't go to the typical tourists attraction in Malta, and specifically in the island of Gozo (Maltese: Għawdex), and I had just my share of walks in the narrow roads of il-Qala, the town where I was staying. The weather is nice but it's not as cold as Ireland in October; a typical Mediterranean weather. Thus, walking around had its toll on my body. In fact, I was literally "climbing" in some of these roads!

 

As you can see in the video, this is just an example of some portion of the roads. There were scenic views however. The owners did indeed offer me a ride to some of these tourists attractions but I was on hibernating mode and all I could think of is relaxation. I got tired of carrying my gear with me wherever I go, hence after few days I've totally abandoned the idea of doing panoramas out of the periphery of the B&B. I took strolls like in this video above, simply carrying my camera and 2 lenses maximum (typically the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, and Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 fisheye). In the beginning I was wandering around with my full gear (plus the VR-Head for panoramas) but it proved to be a killer specially in such roads. Not only you will get tired going up a road walking but also going down from the same route because you will need some power and force (while you're exhausted already) to brake your body and avoid falling down!

Is-Sema li Jaqgħu
(the falling sky)
Canon EF 15mm fisheye, f/9, 18m, ISO100.

Beside regular shots and panoramas there were infrared trials of course. I wasn't always lucky in this matter in fact (seems luck was always down in Malta!). I tried to take an infrared shot with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens in front of Kbir Qaddis Ġużeppi church, but the wind direction was always driving the clouds away from the scene giving me at the end a clear sky (those exposures took around 40 to 42 minutes!). I might though work on those later, but probably the best infrared shot I've taken was done with my Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens (the one I usually use for panoramas as well); Is-sema li jaqgħu. The clouds here served me well but the composition isn't quite right and somewhat "barren."  The sun provided a strong flare and had to be cropped out as well. For infrared shots with Rokinon fisheye lens (which has no socket at the back like the Canon EF 15mm fisheye), I've decided to do it the hard way by sticking it using a duct tape to the back of the lens. It is a long process and wastes time but I think it is worthy after all, specially with exposures lasting for long time like this. 

Fuq L-Għolja
(above the hill)
Sigma 70-300mm @300mm,
f/20, 4s, ISO100.

I didn't have to wander off far away just to snap some shots anyway. Some of the brilliant shots (to me at least) were snapped from the top of Dar ta' Żeppi itself. I noticed from the top of the roof how people are dependent on solar energy! However, I have to say that the lighting in the place was not giving me any easy time with my eyes. With this I have to say I'm not very optimistic about adapting to this technology! 

On the roof, I've waited specifically for the sunset time and I did take a lot of shots that need to be processed and checked for further manipulation. The one like Fuq L-Għolja was shot after the sun disk disappeared below the horizon. One thing I feel sorry for here is the fact that the sun disk was not going exactly behind the church (Nadur church here) but beside it. However, I did snap a lot of shots which I might work slowly on them later on after finishing essential key images.

Panorama-wise, I didn't wander off far to do them. The furthest point at which I did a panorama was at the piazza in front of Kbir Qaddis Ġużeppi church (a landmark of Qala town). Even though I processed this panorama (and I've planned it in 3D anaglyph format) but I'm still perplexed about its arrangement and is it really good enough to be a 3D image. In the meantime, I've worked on the rest, specially those taken inside Dar ta' Żeppi, mainly for writing a review in TripAdvisor, and to send a smaller version of those to the owners as a little gift. I doubt I will make any prints this time. To myself, two panoramas were really interesting for me.

Kamra tal-Banju
(the Bathroom)

One of these panoramas is Kamra tal-Banju, which had a dark atmosphere with those yellowish energy-saving lamps on the wall. I was baffled in the beginning whether I should do this panorama in daytime or nighttime (because of the window which leaks daylight into the bathroom). In fact, in daytime, the view is brighter to my eyes without even using the wall lamps. However,I've decided to do this one at night and depend on the wall lamps to make the lighting unique and avoid patterns of light on the walls. Thanks to the HDR technique, I was able to elaborate this more and also thanks to my white balance disk, I've calibrated the white balance before the work resulting in (almost) pure white tiles with brighter look.

L-Orizzont
(the horizon)

Probably the most brilliant panorama for me so far is the one taken from the roof (and in non-conventional panoramic way!). L-Orizzont was shot using my Sigma 70-300mm lens @225mm. No VR-Head was used here since it is not about doing a 360° but it's about catching a moment in the horizon and to show the elevations of hills and valleys against the bright horizon. The shoot was, of course, done in HDR technique, which allowed a lot of control. However, the sun disk was problematic that's instead of cropping it out (and the panorama then was already cropped after adjusting the tilt), I've cloned it out. In order to increase the contrast (after increasing it already with Curves and Vibrance layers), I've decided to add a Photo Filter layer to add a bluish streak, specifically to the lower part of the panorama and hence making a contrast on the basis of Complementary Colors (Blues and Yellows are at opposite ends on the color wheel).

L-Orizzont makes me feel happy when I look at it. In its original format, this panorama is 6.5 meters wide (~256in). I do wish if I can make a print of it in that size one day instead of shrinking it to few centimeters in one of those miserable exhibitions we have here.

Finale

That was briefly what was it like in Malta. Many details and events I've skipped actually, trying to keep it to the point. Strangely though I've got struck with some tearing feeling of loneliness more than I usually get when I travel alone. I get that feeling often, but not like this. For some days I was really pushing myself and forcing myself to go out and at least enjoy the weather (a weather type seldom I experience here in Kuwait). There had been few days when all I desired was to lay in bed and watch TV, specially music channels. They played a great variety to my liking. One of these songs got stuck in my mind up till this very moment.
It's a trip that made me shuffle my mind about many things and re-think of many things. It would be some time until I can go ahead and continue with whatever is there of unfinished projects in my list, but hopefully I've persist on. One thing I can't deny for sure, and that is, my life is such a great mess… I even can't imagine myself traveling again any time soon…