Stalemate…

Sounds it's been ages since I've typed anything here. Actually I was busy with my other Arabic blog putting up an article discussing the "Native ISO" as a concept, and how to find it out practically for the camera under question. It seems anyway that most, if not all, Canon cameras do have a native ISO of 160. I used to mix up the concept of the lowest ISO and the Native ISO, but it turned out this is not correct. After testing, I find it indeed as it was mentioned in many websites and discussion threads, the Native ISO of 160 for Canon has less noise than ISO 100 (the lowest)! Not only that, but even one full stops from ISO 160 (e.g. 320, 640) do show lesser level of noise from those less and those more in one third stop for each value. This is one major step of knowledge in fact, as gaining 2/3 of a stop without sacrificing the quality to the noise can do wonders, specially when working with speedlites and high-speed photography. Thus, from now on, I'm going to set my ISO on 160 by default!

Scopone

It feels like being in a head-lock with this Scopa project. Been days now, or rather weeks, without doing anything about it. This is mainly for the lack of people (models) who are willing to take the step with me, as I've finished all the regular cards, and now it is time to shoot the court cards which must contain a person. 

Fante di Denari

My first trial was to shoot the Fante di Denari with my nephew; A shot that needs to be re-done apparently. The shot was taken with my Voigtländer 20mm lens which apparently proved to be a bad choice here, not because of the distortion (barely visible here), but because of the extra spaces that I needed to deal with and which resulted in some space above the head, and that, should not there. Adding to that, my nephew's devilish looks were not, well, devilish enough! After this shot, I've decided to shoot next with my 50mm, which is in fact the correct choice for portraiture photography on cropped sensors like my camera's, because it approximate the perspective of 80mm lens on full-frame camera. So I moved next to do the Fante di Spade, and this time the victim is the usual brother of mine. One day I think he would be killing me but I can't find any better replacements! 

Fante di Spade

Beside changing the lens to 50mm when doing the Fante di Spade, I've also changed the position of the speedlites. Instead of striking from below on the side as in Fante di Denari, I've placed them right in front of my brother in Fante di Spade. Because of the lack of space inside the frame, I've changed here to a dagger instead, as placing a sword in such narrow space would eventually cause it to protrude outside the frame. Can't say I'm satisfied about his hand placement with the dagger but I need to satisfy myself with it for the time being, after directing his pose myself (ahem). He had some hard time wearing all these stuff already! With him, a devilish face was achieved, and I pretty much liked it that I've made his head shot into a separate image by cropping from the original before converting the whole image to B&W.

Il Fante

It's a good thing that I've been doing all this project's shots in infrared, as it opens such a wide gate for creativity instead of sticking to the original colors, and not to mention the fact that our eyes turn bluish in such images making them a bit more interesting!

Exactly how my chess horse looks like.

Now to add to my obstacles and problems, we have the issue of the Cavallo, the Horseman or Horse card. Of course I will not be shooting a real horse, but it was time to think further of some substitute. Initially, my idea was to find a horse head costume, but seeing how it was hard to get a crown for my Re (king) shooting later on (and I'm not sure if they will fit properly even), so I had to think of something else. It seems inevitable to do some photo editing and montage and the idea was there for me: Superimposing an image of a horse over the original shot. Thought of downloading the image from some photo stock website, but then I thought why not shoot it myself. My first target was my chess pawns, but that thing did look like a Scottish terrier more than a horse!!!

Re-Discover

Since my Scopa project is undergoing a stalemate, I've decided for a big part to dig up and check old photos and apply some techniques that I've not used in a long time, namely the  LAB Editing technique, in which colors are enhanced or modified by converting the image to LAB from RGB (and back to RGB later). Meanwhile, I did indeed discover some stuff, and also I did process some pretty old images that I've totally neglected because of various reasons (mainly being of bad exposure or shaky) - so old were they that some of them actually date back to 2009 with my first visit to Ireland with my old Canon 350D and 2 kit lenses! Moreover, there were some "artistic" editing to some images, doing effects and all these stuff... you know.

Tranquility by The Pond

It started well with some neglected shots from The Chinese Scholars Garden on Staten Island; shot back in 2012. I've neglected some of these shots mainly for not being "interesting" enough or simply because I was not able to think outside the box of HDR rendering. Thinking about HDR, sometimes, made me neglect those images with one shaky exposure. Moreover, some overexposures were and could have been fixed in certain techniques, and I failed to see through it back then. That's why I always hold the believe to always keep the "apparently" not so good images. You wouldn't know when it will be good, at least for the social media!

By The Pond

For many of these shots, the LAB Editing technique comes to the rescue even though the angle can be somewhat "boring." Indeed, I didn't even imagine that people would express their liking for Tranquility by The Pond or By The Pond at all. Worth noting here as well that reflections off the surface of the water were enhanced further by doing such technique and enhancing the colors in general (I didn't have a polarizer back then and I doubt I would be using it if I had it back then even). Probably it would have been even better with a polarizer for sure but at least something is saved and shown! Important thing though is: Editing the RAW file to enhance the shadows and show some details there, specially if it is the darkest exposure of some HDR bracketing trial.

Tríd an Triantán
(through the triangle)

When it comes to overexposure for some areas, and to be specific to the sky, where there are no details, like it was the case with Tríd an Triantán, a simple masking and adding a background would do the trick. I could have added some background from another source, but I always preferred to add from the same image, mostly by duplicating the layer and adding a layer mask to it, then moving it (while detaching the layer mask from the main layer). Some cloning work might be due though, just to add few touches or fix something. In Tríd an Triantán, which was shot in 2009 in the periphery of Ashford Castle (with 18-55mm kit lens), I tried to apply another effect to mimic the shallow depth of field; Say, just to keep it interesting. I've applied this effect before to another image from Staten Island, The Moon Gate, but probably it fits Tríd an Triantán more because of the angle of view (it goes straight, while it is somewhat upward in The Moon Gate).

The Moon Gate

To apply this effect, I had to use Lens Blur instead of the usual Gaussian Blur, and it had to be applied on 3 layers with 3 different levels of blurring. This is essential as in reality the shallow depth of field starts light and ends up heavy in the horizon (or at infinity). Moreover, such an effect is better off with Lens Blur because the algorithm used in this effect mimics the shallow depth of field for the lenses, while Gaussian Blur effect does not (and more systematic). Thus, to keep things real: Please use Lens Blur!
However, with all that work to revive some old forgotten shots, I'm doubtful about their "Printability" - Yes, that's word I've made up just now. Many of these shots look good in small sizes making them good for social media posting and all, but the original ones are unlikely to be printed in large sizes, say like A3 or A2 for any expo to come. This is mainly because of the noise level which, if cleaned, might take off more details than it should. But I wouldn't know for sure till I try, so we'll see!

Panoramic Endeavor

This is something I've been trying for a while since I'm not doing anymore panoramas; So just to create something new out of my previous work. This thing is mainly creating animations out of panoramas, and specially those planet or circular panoramas. Sometimes though, instead of animations, some tessellation-like patterns are made (and uploaded to the stocks!). The main target was Instagram in fact, but with those large files of tessellations or patterns, it did sound feasible to be uploaded (after reducing their dimensions) to the stocks.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 14, 2018 at 10:23pm PST

As for the animations, the main problem was the reduction in resolution with the ongoing rotation with each frame (rotating each frame 5°). To minimize this effect, I had to work on larger file sizes and in 16-bit TIFF if possible. However, later on and after reading some threads online, it seems that such a reduction is caused mainly by Photoshop itself for some algorithm-related problem it seems. Meanwhile, rotating an image to the main cardinal points (90°, 180° and 270°) does not reduce the quality of the image. Then it occurred to me, to do four specific layers of the image with each oriented to one of these cardinal directions and rotate each for 5° (making up for 17 frames per copy). This way, the quality loss will be lesser. Adding to that, I still do work with a large file and reducing it to a small size (with a crop) and then rendering the video for Instagram at even a smaller size. All that work is done with JPEGs images and not TIFF anymore, so sparing me the memory crisis! With the addition of Actions, the work now is even a piece of cake; All I have to do is click a button several times and now I have 17 frames rotating with 5° each.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 23, 2018 at 11:03pm PST

For the time being, the favorite size to render these animations to is 600X600 pixels. However, it seems that I have to uplift the limit a bit and try 800X800 pixels, as it might look a bit stretched on some devices. And speaking of animations, there is another useful usage for them for regular horizontal panoramas, where I used to cut these into 3 slides (most of the time) and post them in a Swipe or Album manner on Instagram. Posting them like that did make up for some awkward alignment and that's why I would need to add a 4^th slide to put things in a proper perspective. Now though, doing animations, this is not necessary anymore. I can simply move the panorama horizontally and it is played back as a video in the same window and no need to swipe!

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 15, 2018 at 10:21pm PST

There is a tiny problem with these horizontal animations though, which is how to divide the horizontal movement on equal number of pixels that matches the width of the panorama. Thus, unlike with polar/circular images, with displacement measured by degrees, the movement on the horizontal plane is measured by pixels. Hence, it does look sometimes as if the animation has jumps and not going smoothly. The loss in quality during these displacements though seems close to null apparently, which is good!

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 6, 2018 at 10:29pm PST

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Jan 13, 2018 at 10:17pm PST

Vertical twisted panoramas as well appeal more to me for making textures like those above and I'm planning to do more of them soon. Those can make up for really huge files, but unfortunately, no stocks would be accepting them (maximum as far as I know, is around 30MB). It would be a great addition to have such files uploaded online at sizes of 100-300MB! To end this matter for now, here is a funny story:

As I was digging my old files looking for old panoramas and old neglected shots to do some art with them or animations, I've noticed that I didn't make a planet panorama from inside the Chinese Scholars Garden; specifically around the pond. I've made only a flat version of that place. Probably I've neglected this option because of some of the hardships and errors, I don't know! But looking at it now, it does sound good enough to be displayed.

Planeta Fenestra

To add some spices to "my discovery," I've edited the image with LAB technique again and tried to enhance some colors as well as reduce the overexposure (which is probably why I've neglected this panorama for long). And with this, we have a happy ending for this story and who knows, I might discover another neglected panorama!

Finale

Selfie Seal

With this long post, it does seem like I'm having a lot of activities in my life, while the truth is the opposite in fact, as I didn't touch my camera much and most of my work is about re-working old photos and trying to create something out of old things (even out of my selfie on the left). My mind is busy, and so is my schedule and body unfortunately. I do have a number of ideas I need to do, specially with February approaching; the Retinitis Pigmentosa Month. Just so to see, let's list these ideas down for the moment:

• Doing something for RP month as mentioned above.
• An old idea inspired by Sabah Fakhri, and still cannot do because I do need special arrangement and a narrow space.
• Infrared panorama indoors which would involve a hand (of a human or mannequin, whatever).
• Photo shoot for some selfies to be combined later on with Photoshop, reflecting schizophrenia or multi-personalities disorders.
• Photo series with chairs reflecting on corruption and old mentalities at work.
• Shooting through the microscope (again).
• Doing a photo shoot reflecting my personality as I deducted lately from some personality tests, where I got the classification of INFP-T (The Mediator type). 

All of these are just some ideas for now and all on hold, with my Scopa project on stalemate as well. Probably I'm dreaming too much? I guess. My life do look like being on a roller-coaster and I can't stop it. Everything around me is changing, and I don't see it to the good side. I pray that I will be able to travel for some time, away from this place, just to get things out of my mind for real. I feel like my mind and body are overflowing with those things they call "bad vibes." For some reason, I really don't feel like following onto that path of "positivity talk;" Deep inside, I feel it as seeing the world with pink-colored glasses and losing touch with reality, and the end result is a hard slam. If I'm thought of as a pessimist, then I guess I am with no shame in that. Probably my camera has done its job to its fulfillment, and the need to travel for some time is long due. When? I don't know…

Escoba…

Things with my Scopa project are going slow but steady, even though in many occasions I find myself baffled on how to create the design of the assumed card under question, specially when it comes to numbers higher than 5. So far, as I'm typing these words, I've been well into cards of six. Depending on what I have at hand, sometimes the card design can be somewhat awkward compared to the original design on the Scopa card, Napoletane design, like the one I did for Five of Clubs!

Cinque di Bastoni

In some other instances, the design would need a completely new shot to add some more elements which I can use in the future, like the Five of Cups cards. Even though I could have used the Ace of Cups card which was previously shot (first one in the series in fact) but I thought that the Asso (or Ace) card should have its own special look, and the Cup used in that card should not appear in regular cards then after. There is an idea though to use that for more advanced cards like the Donna (or Fante), Cavallo and Re cards. Those would include a model, some human figure, which is the hardest part that might take quite a time to be done.

Cinque di Coppe
The central portion of the card was shot anew,
while the rest are elements from older shots.

As the series is going on, I'm planning to do a special design for the Settebello (i.e. seven of Coins) which is a special card in Scopa (worth a point on its own right). The design would be without any hands appearing like the rest, and with more saturated golden tint. I make some shots already for this design but did not work on it yet, as I have to finish the sixes first; Just to be organized rather than working in a sporadic manner. This in fact kind of puts on a crossing thoughts: Should I do the same for all cards of Seven for all suits, or should I do this alone for the Settebello card? I doubt I can ask the opinion of anyone else around…

Album of completed cards.

Now, going back to the court cards or cards that need a model (from 8 to 10), I've been thinking thoroughly and I think I will try to use some members in the family, even though I'm usually the type that does not get encouraged in that venue, since I had my own bad experiment when dealing with photography with family members (not taken seriously as I do it). However, I'll try. Next problem to think of is the problem of the clothing and props; What should I use and how should it look? Medieval or Renaissance? Or maybe something completely different, and simple? I had some plans already for the poses (well, somewhat) but I think I will cut these plans and stick to shots down to the torso level instead of taking a shot for the whole body. However, in that case we might have a problem to be solved with the Cavallo; The Horseman. Many ideas coming in and out and I wouldn't know how to solve them probably until I get my hands on my camera and work! 

Junk

Probably I've talked about my intention to do apply some idea of a panorama in a narrow space just to experiment and see how it would look. I did, and twice in fact. As my first trial seemed to have failed, with me using a speedlite in a dark room, I guess it is final that any trials for a panorama with speedlites is destined to fail anyway for some reasons!

The storage room shot with speedlite (fit with a diffuser).

The speedlite was handheld (with its battery-pack in my pocket) and tried my best to place it behind the camera in every shot (in the darkness) with a globe (oval) diffuser on its head. Good news: with a speedlite, the exposure can be limited to 1/250s. Bad news? Everything; almost. Because of the change in the relative position of the speedlite with every shot, the shadows tend to change positions as well, and that would increase the factors for stitching errors. I have to say, I've never thought about it despite its simplicity! It just slipped through my mind. After all, even the spooky look was not achieved much. You can notice the reflections of the speedlite reflected mainly off the wooden door of the cupboard. That called for another trial, and this time working with HDR, as I usually do. 

Same Location done in HDR and tone-mapped.

Working with HDR bracketing now, I used the single light in the ceiling of this small room, and the technique proved to be efficient in achieving the dark and mysterious I was aiming for, beside other looks; That with some additions in Photoshop later on of course. From that point on, other projections were generated using this stitch only. Maybe the only awkward thing here is, the lengthy working time (one hour or a bit more), and in this place specifically I've avoided shooting the zenith and the nadir points. Stitching errors were there and it was hard to eliminate them, so since it was an experiment I didn't bother much about fixing them. However, this might be caused by the proximity of the place or maybe my panorama head needs some check-up. All in all, my Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens which I usually use for panorama shooting doesn't have a unique entrance pupil which eliminates the parallax error completely; My last check for it some years back proved that it can be reduced, but not eliminated.

Planet projection of the panorama.

My dreams of doing a panorama out of the ordinary using a speedlite or any type of portable light source must end up here I guess and look over to other methods, if any, to do panoramas. The field of infrared and UV are still waiting of course. In fact, I've been planning for one panorama of that kind even before thinking about this panorama in this small room, but the problem is, having someone to aid me with it, and since I have no one to help with this delicate business, I've been seriously thinking of getting a mannequin (just the hand at least) of some sort to what I have in my mind. We'll see…

Finale

 Well, seems things are going somehow slow but steady. Which is fine, but I won't be satisfied until I finish them one by one. Ideas of travel seem to be putting a lesser burden on my mind but they are there after all. And more over, some serious thought but living here as a whole - it's not about the quality of life after all but sometimes you just need the right people to be with, to surround yourself with, and achieve something with. That doesn't seem to be happening in this place on Earth where I am right now. My only soulful joy for the time being, as it seems, is to enjoy every bit of winter, before it all runs out and we are again into the hell of summer. I can't wait to get some long weekend by next week…
 

Cártaí…

Well, the work is started and still going on with my "lil" project, the Scopa cards. As I've foresaw already, the process will not be easy, specially with no adequate place, nor proper help, and no proper props. However, I've done some cards already, and I'm using some of these basic cards (specifically the Ace or Asso cards) to create cards of multiples (up to seven supposedly). Not all the time of course, and in many occasions I would have to re-shoot.



Each suit of cards (that is, cards of specific sign) had its own problems, but mainly, the major problem is finding a proper prop or item to act for that specific suit. Talking about aces, which is the most simple and basic shot that should be there, ended up using various items far away from their "real" counterpart: a censer for a cup, a sugar bowl lid for a coin, and a scabbard for a club or baton. However, for the Ace of Swords, I did indeed get a sword (a heirloom of the family). The swords suit specifically is putting me in dilemma somewhat as I made already several cards by merging previously made ones, but I'm not sure if I should continue like this or not, as I initially had an idea of involving my dagger (which I brought from Oman) for this mission as well.

Quattro di Spade (Four of Swords)
made with repetition of a specific shot taken solely for that purpose.

Due

I've done, so far, almost all the "two" cards for each suit.  Some of them are probably on my "re-do" list, but I'll need to figure out some time for them. Basically, however, the "two" card is composed or made out of a single shot which was taken for this purpose previously. I was aiming to keep things simple in fact, to quicken my pace. However, I couldn't resist the idea of using some extra elements when it was about shooting Due di Coppe, that is the Two of Cups. Then I thought, why not merge some High-Speed into it?

Speedlite 430EX II.

Things came along together here in fact. The time this idea popped up in my mind was contemporaneous with the selling of some 430EX II Speedlites by a friend, who is converting to Nikon (as usual) and needed to get rid of his gear, and among them these two speedlites for some cheap value! It was a bargain I could not miss, and so I got them, and now I own 6 speedlites - what a High-Speed photographer wouldn't wish for?! Well, Syl Arena in one of his books made it clear that he owns about 13 speedlites for his "missions." So, having 6 speedlites is nothing really. The problem with 430EX II model though is that it does not accept external power supply like the 580EX II, and cannot be set to a Master like the 580EX II, but only as a Slave. However, in combination with what I have, it just does the job perfectly. Notice that 430EX II is a very old model by now, and Canon issued 430EX III-RT probably a year ago (RT signifies it works with Radio Transmission), and that was after actually issuing the high end speedlite, 600EX-RT. Unfortunately for me, I can't work with 600EX-RT since all my collection of speedlites work with infrared wireless beaming, I would need some extra measures to let the new and old speedlites work  together then.

My playground with 6 Speedlites.

Probably the shot here did not need to work in High-Speed, but I couldn't risk it with the movement of the water. I wanted to freeze it. Thus, I've pushed my shutter up to 1/2000s. When we talk about High-Speed, it does not necessarily mean shooting with such a high speed for the shutter, but it simply means we need to surpass the limitation of the sync speed (which is 1/250s for my camera here). I use High-Speed shooting often just to kill the ambient light, which otherwise, would be visible at the sync speed of the camera.



Now, despite the simplicity of the idea: pouring water into a grail-like bowl; yet there had been some delays to do it. Mainly because I needed a model (my brother of course) to work with me while I stand behind the camera. I tried to do it alone as with the rest of the shots before, but unfortunately, that was awkward and completely clumsy which made my concentration shatter. I had to wait for my brother till he had the time to do it with me. The first thing to do then, was to change my lens from Voigtländer 20mm (with which I've shot most of my shots in this project so far) to my old 50mm; This is to get a proper field of view. Also, f/11 was reduced down to f/8 and then further to f/6.3 to allow for more light to pass in: High-Speed mode reduces the speedlite power, so imagine bouncing it off as well, which makes it weaker further (bouncing here is essential to reduce the flare off the metallic surface) . Initially, I wanted to use only 5 speedlites on the side but the dark shadows pushed me to run the 6^th one which was used as a commander only, fitting a globe diffuser on it. The rest was a work for Photoshop, which was lengthy as well, but doing panoramas and fixes to them I guess makes this nothing to compared to them.



And since we are talking about Twos, probably I should put on this which I've shot for the Two of Coins card, but there is a strong probability that I would need to re-do it again, since the lid which I've used as a coin is off the center on my palm. I've struggled in fact to fix it to my fingers with a rubber band so I can open my palm while shooting this. What it did not occur to me at that time is the fact that I could have done that easily (relatively) by simply shooting down at my palm instead of standing in front of the camera! What was I thinking? I simply do not know...

Finale

 Well, my mind now is having a surge of ideas and I'm trying to keep concentrating on this one project right now, the Scopa project, but probably it is about time that I might have to take a break from this one and work on another idea, then go back to Scopa. Well, just to avoid being bored I guess? Maybe. Or maybe I just need to do these ideas before they rotten in my head and I lose interest. I'm already having an idea for doing a panorama and another one for a single shot dedicated to my urge to travel. Now, on the stack, there is another idea for a panorama in a narrow space (talk about claustrophobia again). I might do this latter panorama first as it is, relatively, easier to do and does not need any help (i.e. a model or so). We'll see by this weekend, with my queue line of games to play!
Winter is getting colder, with a nicer weather (to me), but maybe I should find some time to get some new winter clothes? Well, not fond of shopping in general but maybe I should make time for this. A new jacket might be good. However, it doesn't seem I would be going out this winter to shoot. Many things are there that trouble my mood and mind, so I better keep it all to myself for now. Besides, my need for sleep is growing by day as well. Sometimes I feel like having a 2 weeks vacation, for nothing but merely sleeping. I will keep my hopes for that though for the new year's eve, as I'm planning to have some long weekend by then!

I Progetti…

Weather getting colder here, with some rains; A time to rejoice. The only thing I'm hating about this is the traffic jams. They are there all the time in this place of course, but with a tiny spit of rain and the whole scene turns like if it is a snowstorm in Siberia. I quite realize the need to drive safely but no need to create a "soap opera" about it. Such conditions, specially at night, tend to put more pressure on my vision as it seems. Let's see if we are able to go out and shoot at late nights as in the old days during this winter. Though, thinking about it, I really can't think of a proper place that would deserve my attention right now. Most of my projects and inspirations are done indoors, and specifically my home, and with my body being split between work, traffic jams, and home, I really started to hate the idea of driving just to do a shoot. Unless it's for money of course. Meanwhile, I'll keep trying to do my thing with my own head and my own ideas with little projects…

Let's Play

I've done a session about 2 or 3 weeks ago with my brother doing the preacher gesture. Out of 8 or 9 shots, I've settled with 2 shots mainly that were relatively good. I've discussed these in the previous post anyway if you like to read about it. However, I've decided to take this one step further with a little edit.

Due del Predicatore

Due del Predicatore (Two of Preacher) is formed by one of these shots done previously, with duplicating the image and rotating it. Some delicate masking work was involved here as well. It was an experiment just to see how it would look like, but this experiment did trigger something else. An idea.
This idea is still waiting to be completed, but I've managed to put a plan or a general view for it by writing them down, and all I need now is some props, and a model. As usual, I might need the services of my poor brother again!
The idea is about creating a set of Scopa game cards, but in images; Real ones. Thus, I will need some disks or coins for real, swords or knives, for real, and many other things that I'm still not sure how I will be getting those.

Notes and plans for the next project.

In a nutshell, I'm supposed to end up with 40 images, one for each type of cards in the Scopa game. Sounds too much work, and I think it is indeed, but I think simplifying things further would help on quickening the process. For example, I'm set on using a single speedlite for all images and probably I would be using the globe diffuser on it for most of the shots. I've decided also that all shots should be with my modified camera and using the infrared filter (B+W 092), but later on, the images would be converted to B&W completely, and maybe with some reduced contrast like in the case of Due del Predicatore. I think the lighting should be dramatic, but with some sense of mystery, and I believe nothing mimics the feeling of mystery better than the gray tones. In Scopa, the "faces" cards, or cards with human figures are three: Donna, Cavallo, and Re (queen, horse, and king respectively). I'm planning to keep the shooting for these cards to the end since they require a full body shot, and it would be nice to have various figures instead of working, again, with my brother alone. Thus, for the time being, I might get on working with the "normal" cards. There is a problem with the Donna though, as I don't think I will be able to get a female figure to help me here (not ready to pay for a model, pardon me), so a little research here revealed that in some Italian versions of the game, the Donna is called "Fante" instead; soldier, or foot soldier, and sometimes this would be translated into English as "The Knave." So, there are other routes around this problem I guess; we'll see.
Lens-wise, there will not be a single lens to work as I might range my shots from macro to normal, but I believe the work won't be out of 3 main lenses I have: 20mm Voigtländer, 50mm Canon, and 100mm Macro Canon. The last one though seems to be acting weird lately so I might use extension tubes if I have to with my 50mm lens. For a beginning, I'm already planning on setting the aperture to f/11, always. Talk about more flash power! There is some thought ahead about how to represent this set (and how to upload it to stock if it is feasible to be sold like that) but such thoughts are kept for later in the meantime, and it's important to get it done first. Till the time to complete this comes, I need to get busy with another simple project that I've decided to do and might post about it later!

An Taobh Níos Dorcha

"The Darker Side," this is what the title is about. However, to be honest, this idea was not the core of this shooting session with myself, but rather the idea was completely stemming from a technical aspect, and a desire to create something that would be suitable with the Swipe property on Instagram. In other words, an image made specifically for Instagram in the first place. There was nothing to think of, naturally, except of my face. Beside the fact that selfies on Instagram seldom appear as slides to swipe through; it's either regular shots in a slideshow or a panorama (which I post regularly on Instagram). Thus, a selfie sounded the perfect idea!

The set (and mess) for this little project.

The idea of "the darker side" of the personality sounded cliché to me. I think the idea had been used since early sci-fi times, but thinking about it, I really couldn't think of anything better to put to proper use with this shoot. However, I was already planning to do this using some Photoshop editing, since I can't make myself look like a wolf or something on location, specially with such sensitive shooting!
As can be seen here with the set, I've placed 2 white paper boards or sheets of cardboard behind the camera with one speedlite pointing to one of them. The idea was to give an effect of two speedlites with the power of one higher than the other, all that using just a single speedlite (which kind of worked here after a struggle with the settings, and the power supply!). The shoot is pretty sensitive because I have to stay still in front of the lens without moving a muscle, except of changing my facial expressions from angelic, to demonic! Of course, my old portable monitor had been put to some good use here. Since I wanted some "dramatic" look and unusual ones, it was natural to think of shooting infrared again. I didn't want to deprive the image of colors this time, since I believe colors here, the slight addition of them, makes greater impact on the viewer. I'll save the B&W when it comes to absolute facial expressions and skin wrinkles!

The Joker Side of The TJ

The work is to take 2 shots, as stable as possible, in the same position as much as possible. Thus, it requires high shutter speed, but indoors, however, the sync speed (1/250s) is just enough to dim the surrounding. You can see or imagine part of the mess that my room is if you checked the set above, thus it was important to dim my surroundings, or in other words, kill the ambient light. I mentioned above that I used a single speedlite reflecting it off 2 boards in V-shape to mimic the effect of 2 speedlites, one more powerful than the other. After mingling with some settings I've created the effect needed but it appeared in reverse order: left of the picture is darker. I have to admit though, the monitor kind of tricked me into believing that the test shots were properly lit (I didn't check the histogram) and when it was the time to process the RAW files, I had to pump the Exposure drastically. There was a trial also to use a second speedlite (430EX II) to add light to the hair somehow, but I've neglected the idea and I'm glad I did so!
Because of the way that Instagram slides work (swiping to the left) and I want to show the "angelic" side first, I had to reverse the image and go on with my work. The rest was some Liquify tool job with some masks to complete the demonic figure on the right. There is some tiny work that had to be done to the size of the image as well since I need to divide it to two equal parts, and hence The Joker Side of The TJ appears in somewhat panoramic ratio.

A post shared by TJ.Photography (@tj_q8) on Nov 13, 2017 at 6:17pm PST

On Instagram, it seems that many people liked the idea and considered it something new. This is encouraging to think of something similar, to be going around the various options that Instagram offers like the Swipe option here. It is an open door to surrealism. Nevertheless, I do wish if Instagram enables or do something about 360 images which might make my life a bit easier. However, this swipe display on Instagram does indeed spark for me some ideas about displaying the images in a special way physically, when the time allows for that. Anyway, the idea is still not concrete and I'm trying to focus on other projects right now.

Saved By PS

I've talked before about doingsome product photo shoot for my nephew and his Rubik cubes (though cubes is not a precise term for that anymore). Since I do not own a dedicated product photography gear (e.g. a tent or light cube), I usually try to improvise, and discover as well.

On two occasions, I've used a white themed set, something close to high-key environment to shoot such products, specially that most of them are contained in white. In all these occasions though, the plastic or acrylic piece underneath was the main problem. It did provide some reflections nicely, but it showed a seam line behind the products. Though I used this seam to fix the horizon tilt, but that doesn't work all the time and not necessarily correct. Quite a considerable time was spent to eliminate and do a surgery to remove this line in Photoshop. What came after, made this a child's play.

On the third occasion, I tried to change my approach and headed to use black themed set; Not close to low-key though as I'm supposed to use more than one speedlite here in various directions. I tried to keep it simple as well, but that didn't work out unfortunately, and I had to go for the plastic sheet for reflections again, as the look was flat and quite simple (in looks that is). Despite moving the speedlite off-center and away from the camera but it did make the image look flat (and I used a bit of on-camera flash to fill the front). Generally speaking, something was missing and I was working in a haste. Anyway, I had other things to finish, so I uploaded these images and showed them to my nephew who was pleased about them but he is no artist - I told him that I was in a haste as I didn't want to keep him waiting for more than week but he said it's fine to wait. Thus, I went through another trial and this time using the plastic sheet underneath for some reflections, but again, problems happened!

To begin with, I had to change the viewing angle (or camera angle that is) and lower it further. I think that way is more interesting to look at than a typical view from the top. After shooting few trials, it was obvious that speedlites are not doing any good for me here in this situation with much flare and unwanted stray lights and even shadows. Thus, I've decided to go ambient and it proved to be quicker in terms of the workflow, and reliable. I think I fell a victim to what Syl Arena described in one of his books as: the eagerness to create light and forgetting the available possibilities. Meaning, the ambient light can be good enough, but still you might try hard (and waste time) to create an interesting light thinking that a good look is only achievable by external lighting, or modified lighting that is. This is wrong, and probably I should have considered the ambient light from the very beginning of the whole thing.
Another problem prevailed though, and it is a lesson for me to learn: Black is quite sensitive to dirt. While shooting on white, dust particles can get overwhelmed by light and eventually disappear from the scene, or almost. However, with black set, the situation was drastic (specially that I didn't wipe the plastic sheet before the work) and that pushed me to work my fingers around with Photoshop again to save the situation and this time using Lens Blur for the lower part of the set, i.e. the reflections. This created a diffused reflection, almost close to reality as if some "matte" material was been used for reflections, and eliminating the dust particles that were spread all over the place. It was then a work for Layer Masks with a delicate brush to specify the areas where it should prevail and where it should be hidden. Gaussian Blur on the other hand would have made quite a mess, so it is better to avoid it in such situations.

I was lucky though with some shots that the dust was not quite spread over the place so a tiny work of cloning or spot healing was just enough to clean the image. However, since the whole process here was shot using my 100mm macro lens (from a distance), I did notice some weird softness in the images despite using high f-number (f/16 here). I'm not quite sure here, is it something has to do with the nature of the lens or indeed my lens is malfunctioning. If it is malfunctioning, then why? Is it fixable? I'm not sure. But sure thing that I have to think of my 100mm lens as my last resort when it comes to normal shooting that is. As for the images, the softness do not have a great impact since they will be used on Instagram in a small size after all, and that will suffice anyway. Now, is it the time to get proper product photography gear? Maybe... specially with this acrylic or plastic piece causing a problematic seam sometimes. I need to finish some stuff first…

Finale

Well, at the moment my mind is racing through to go through some of these projects I've described above and I'm already tired of looking for props. I've at least shot a single shot for the "Scopa" project at the time of typing this. However, I need to be faster, and I must get some proper props ASAP!
On the other hand, I was hoping of getting one image done at least from another project in my mind, inspired by another (folk) Arabic song of Sabah Fakhri [صباح فخري] which involves a globe miniature. All I need to do is shoot just a single picture, but it requires some work with the lighting I presume which would make the process long. Anyhow, I didn't find the proper place I need to shoot it so the whole thing is postponed till I can think of something or some place to do it. That's why I switched to the Scopa project instead and done at least one image from whatever prop I have available at hand.
Meanwhile, I'll keep dreaming about being outside enjoying my time away from the fuss in this mess of a country. I'm getting to the point of being cold, senseless, and careless; careless to the point of not judging my actions or what I say sometimes. We have a bit longer weekend coming by next week, let's see if I can put that to some good use... doubt it.

Scopa!

Ramadhan is here and, even though I've been fasting for a month before, it always seems like it caught me off-guard. I'm not sure really where do things go wrong in my life during Ramadhan, but exhaustion and the lack of time is always hindering me in Ramadhan. Even though I do fast in a month or two before Ramadhan (in the past 3 years) and in conditions harder than in-Ramadhan conditions, yet, it is always in Ramadhan that I do suffer sleeping hardships and the lack of time to do whatever I want. Probably it has to do with the rest of the population around me and their timing as well! Not sure...

Meanwhile, after fixing the AC in the car, the honk went off and fixed a fuse or so for that thing, and the backward sensor is now off. I didn't care much about it but the honk is important to get it fixed! But now, I've decided to drop some amount of money out of my pocket for some good cause: a new PC.

Financially, it is a burden now to have such a PC. The costs were in fact higher than fixing my car's compressor at the agency itself! But well, thinking ahead, in the month of Ramadhan I have to deduct an amount of my total sum for something called Khums (Arabic: fifth), which is due in the middle of Ramadhan. After giving that due amount I don't think I will be in for much spending afterward, thus it is better to finish this plan now at once.
The specifications are put to the extreme somehow (hence the price) and I would need time to settle down with it when I receive it. I'm trying to do a slow move from the old PC to the new one. I'm looking forward to this move, as with the specifications in the new PC I would be able to stitch bigger panoramas and doing HDR panoramas would be just a piece of cake! All what would be left is, inspiration and photography!

Scopa!

Last week, as I was working on the peeling effect with my mug, I had an idea that had been cooking in my mind since then. A shot of myself with Scopa cards; One of my favorite cards games. Too bad I don't play it now as, simply put, I have no one to play with. The first headache to be dealing with is, as always, setting up the configuration. I didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted to do really but one idea in my mind: cards, and me.

Source: B&H

Typically, the headache that got the best out of my time is using the Vello 33' cable. Even though it worked fine when I used to work with the peeling effect with my mug last week, it decided to, simply, not work this time!
Anyway, it seems that somehow I've began to realize the problem (or so I think!). At the end the cable did work and I was able to control the speedlite from the camera. The speedite was situated above my head just like I positioned it before in the peeling experiment. At this moment, I'm thinking that probably the hotshoe of the cable has a tiny alignment problems making the pins of the speedlite not touching the hotshoe properly to be connected, and only when I place the speedlite horizontally (with a lateral arm), the weight of the speedlite would help on nudging the pins in their proper places inside the hotshoe. This is what I think for the time being but I'm not sure yet. Just speculating!

Scopa!
Canon EF 50mm, f/14, 200^-1sec, ISO100.

Now, to some commentary about the images taken. Lot of shots were taken with changing distance and direction of the hair light. Hair light here, of course, points to the speedlite above my head which was fixed with a reflector and a diffuser. It was hard to decide what I really wanted (and now as I write these words, it seems to me that it was better to have a portrait orientation with half face). Anyway, Scopa! above is one image from the set that I liked because of the element of mystery in it. Careful here if you are using some old laptop (with gamma level other than 1.8) that the shadows might be lighter than they really are!

Scopa!!
Canon EF 50mm, f/11, 200^-1sec, ISO100.

There were some shots when I turned my other speedlite (430EXII) on and placed it in various positions in front of my face but probably I didn't like the results as much as I liked Scopa! shot, but Scopa!! probably was the best taken with the addition of 430EXII speedlite. Mental note: more lights, do not mean necessarily a pleasant image. Scopa!! by the way is not taken in portrait, but it became like it after the crop!

There had been an idea of a panorama still cooking but I'm not sure when I shall start with that. It is a panorama indoors, and for this I need to wait for a proper time when I can get the place clear. Also, the problems with my current PC makes me awry about stitching a panorama for the time being, but I might as well use my relatively-new laptop to do this. We shall see about this matter!

Back to Geltani

The progress on the Geltani front is going on but slowly. Specially after a hectic week like this (with some health issues) that mad me dedicate more time to my camera rather than sitting down and think about aspects of Geltani (or any other conlang). The main issue remains here about fixing the syllables and sounds yet I can say that I've developed a temporary transliteration system just to record the major outline, away from concerns about the sounds. The transliteration system would be simply in the form of: X^Y, where "Y" is the driving add-on or sound for "X". Some values for these syllables had been fixed already, for example LX is pronounced Liŋ (and originally the two are derived from a specific arrangement in between Arabic and Latin letters). However, this combination just for the time being might be written as L^x. I guess it is some of the remains of my mathematical mind from old college days still persisting on involving math in matters of conlangs and con-scripts.

Another matter had been going around is the change in the possessive articles which I've developed earlier (a month or two ago?). The articles were completely different than the regular pronouns, but then after some long thought about it I've decided to pull it back and stick to a coherent grammatical structure.
In the beginning of creating this conlang, I had a vent for some Turkic characteristic to put in this conlang; mainly the arrangements of prepositions. In most Turkic languages, prepositions come after the word (and combined with it). Example (from modern Turkish):

Ev ("the" home)

Evde (at "the" home)

Another property I'm borrowing from Turkic languages is the absence of a definitive article (like The in English or like Al in Arabic) and the introduction of an indefinite article. Example (also from modern Turkish):

Ev ("the" home)
Bir Ev (a/one home)

Anyway, back to the preposition which hold the key to the change I had in mind about the possessive articles (my, your...etc). Probably forgot to the mention that also in Turkic languages in general, the possessive articles come at the end of the words as well (in Arabic as well), thus I've decided to go along that line but simplifying the matter meant lengthening the process a bit.

The new idea of possession involves the preposition W', which stands for "for" or "to". The preposition W' (where the " ' " is a simple schwa) is attached to the pronoun after the word to make a possession statement. Better illustrated in some example:

Book: Š^CA^B

I: A^ya

My Book: Š^CA^B A^yaw'

The literal translation of the statement in Geltni for My Book would be [Book I-for]. Notice that in the transliteration process I've combined A^ya and w' as one word, but in logograms, they are not merged together.

The funny part begins actually when I change the position of the preposition. With changing word placement, the (comprehensive) meaning is changed:

Š^CA^B A^yaw' = My Book

A^ya Š^CA^Bw' = I'm for (the) Book  
(well, can be meaningless for the time being but it's not!)

A^yaw' Š^CA^B = For me, (a) book
 (here, a comma is not used in the original Geltani but I suppose it should be understood as such!).

I guess it is somehow ironic how such a small preposition can change the whole meaning of a sentence by placing it in different places. I'm not deeply into Turkic languages, but I wonder if this is the case too for them. After working for some time with Ayvarith (the original conlang for which this blog was created!), I've discovered that some words I've made up did indeed exist with exact or close meaning (and some with completely different meaning), like the word ša, which is an interrogative question beginning in Ayvarith (equal to the Arabic: Hal [هل]), but in Akkadian this word means a conjunctive "who".

Finale

Source: Amazon

I'm on the verge of finishing the last book in my queue. Still, it keeps inspiring me in the field of humanities. What I like about this book is the directionality and practicality. The fields of humanities was somehow frowned upon from my side in college days but probably this is due the educational system we have, but it is welcome when it comes in the form of such book like the The Handbook for Classical Research by David M. Schaps. I have to say I'm skipping the sources section at the end of each chapter because I'm not going deeply into the matter of such studies, but the arguments and the discussions in various fields that Schaps makes in this book provides a journey for the mind into the current world we live in through the gate of his knowledge in Greek and Roman cultures. We differ, in the east, a lot in many aspects from these two cultures but it makes someone like me realize why the west is so different, and/or why what's accepted from one side is not so on the other side. Some things got roots deep into antiquity.
With the end of this book, I'd be in, let's say, hot water. A dilemma. I have no further books to read and I'm not going to order any more soon because of the heavy purchases I've made this month; from which I need some time to recover. Probably I'm going to turn back to my very old language books and try to refresh my memory about some stuff, or maybe I'm going to spend my time at work in front of Wikipedia and amuse myself with various topics. The bad thing here is, playing with Wikipedia is completely random; Start with one topic and you might end up with a completely different field without knowing. I prefer books.
It feels like if my health is deteriorating at the current time. Bleeding nose has been a nocturnal routine in my life now. I'm not sure if this is caused by the high blood pressure or simply some injury inside that caused it all. One thing for sure though: it is giving me more stress. With the coming of Ramadhan and Mom's dialysis schedule, I wonder if I will have the time to look after myself and just go to the clinic to check. I had plans to check for my sight in general and see forward if there are any signs for retinitis pigmentosa but so far, none of these plans is achieved. Talk about living single and lonely, surrounded by people...