Random pictures on a dull day

Since yesterday I had no work as it is the weekend, I couldn’t post anything on my professional. So I will post on my personal life. I like to take pictures, but I feel I have a LOT to cover still before I could call myself a photographer.

Recently, I’ve been going to this website: www.chromasia.com

It’s a pay site, but it’s worth it. It helped improve my Photoshop skills and my understanding of digital files. There isn’t one single website or one single book that covers every aspect of post-processing and/or photography, so I am also combining the book of Martin Eveneing, Photoshop CS4 for photographers. Both are geared at improving the knowledge of photographers in the digital world.

As such, I decided to upload the before and after of my walk yesterday around my house. The timing was not very good to take pictures, and the overall ambience was a dull grey, so I knew I would be converting everything to black and white.

Tent, before and after

Painterly, before and after

The shore, before and after

The shore, after, is my favorite. It was difficult to take, because in Lebanon people become quite defensive when they sea a camera. This picture is a three-shot panorama, as is the house. I had to clone out the wires because they were too intrusive, and I adjusted the horizon, because of the severe distortion in my lens. The black banding is a result of the stitching software. It’s a very complicated one, and I don’t know how to use it besides the stitching, so I correct what is needed in Photoshop.

When I finished my shots, I was approached by a fisherman who questioned me, and wanted to find out why I was taking pictures. This is not the first time it’s happened to me, actually I’m getting used to it, and I try to be friendly to people, try to gain their trust (not that I’m doing something bad, or infiltrating behind enemy lines!).

Tomorrow, I am going to a coastal city called Saida to visit companies, promise them that we are going to assist them, and then go back to my office the next day, knowing very well we are incapable of assisting them. I will write more about this tomorrow.

Already I am feeling better expressing myself online, even if no one is reading this, but the thought that somebody might, or, wishful thinking, one of my supervisors is reading it, fills me with excitement.

As I write this, I listen to Le Moribond, performed by a group called Beirut (nothing to do with our capital, or Lebanon). This song was originally written by my favorite singer: Jacques Brel.

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