Sunny 16 rule

This rule will hep you use Aperture mode on you camera very effectively, i is copied from wikiped, here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16

Aperture Lighting Conditions Shadow Detail

f/16 Sunny Distinct
f/11 Slight Overcast Soft around edges
f/8 Overcast Barely visible
f/5.6 Heavy Overcast No shadows
f/4 Sunset

good luck photographing,
Parallax1 ;()

The day I almost

Did I tell you about the day photography almost put me in jail?

Well let me tell you then, I was in London, after a long day of walking and photographing I went back to the hotel, it was night time by then, I saw a cool car parked, I liked it, so I too 2 photos of it, that when I heard some one calling me, it was the police, they asked if that car was mine (I wish), so said no, "then why are you taking photos of it?" they asked, I said that I liked it and I wanted to take some photos of it, then they said "there are a lot car theft at night happening these days and photographing cars at night is not allowed, so they have to check on my identity and if I had any criminal records!!!!!! damn! I was thinking, so they checked and I was clear, so they told me to delete these photos and to have a good night :)

so what does that have to do with the photo above? well it happened to me again there, in Mecca, I took my camera with me from Kuwait to take some photos there, so I went early in the morning since there will not be much of people to bother me (staring) but I guess I was wrong! any way I had a feeling that it was not allowed but another part of me wanted to continue so I did, and guess what a guy called me from behind he was civilian and said it was not allowed, I played dumb and said "I oh I thought it was allowed out side the Haram" he said it is but only from out side the white ring, so I thanked him, I took some more shot, went to the other side and another guy called me, he was Pakistani, he said, be careful, it is not allowed, if police catch you, they will take your idea and hold your camera and take you the police station! what!!!! I took my camera and left with a fast steps back to the hotel, and to make things worse a police man was in my face, I had to think of some thing very fast since I can't hide my camera, so I approached and said, salam he replied with a smile, I asked him with a dumb look "is it allowed to take photos here?" he replied "no is it not allowed, sorry" I said "ah Thats OK, thanks" and that was it.

I was lucky, be careful were you take photographs, it is not a joke, author wise enjoy photography as much as you can.

London Eye Night

I planed to go to the London eye from Kuwait, second day after I arrived at London, I've set my gear (my bag, camera and my tripod) and went out at around 1 PM so spend some time at the parliament and the Big Ben, took a lot of photos the which I'll post later on my flickr, then when to the London eye, got my ticket, thankfully not to many people were there, the lines were not longer than 5 min wait or less, any way they took my tripod before interring the capsule, they said what they always say "You are not allowed to use a tripod" so I left it with them and enjoyed my 30 min "Flight" (thats what they call the ride) up 135 meter, when I came down it was around 3 PM, so I went for a coffee break after this long walk, and reviewed my photos, I was already full on my 2 GB memory card so I had to delete the ones I don't like, later it was dark and I was ready to use my tripod, and guess what? another guy came to me and said the same "You can't use your tripod on privet property, you have to get permeation" so I went to get that permeation they told me I had to email the responsible person, and I left really upset, I carried my tripod for 4 hours for nothing!

I was ready to leave, went over the west minister bridge, an thats when I saw a chines guy standing with his tripod taking photos, I thought some one will come to him now, the police came by him and no one said a thing! I rushed to my tripod and took so many photos, but it was not that easy, another tripod enemy was there, the strong wind, I could not hold my camera steady, any way I did my best hiding behind things and holding my camera and tripod and came out with some good shots, hope you like them, make sure you visit my flickr to check them out.

peace to the tripod.

Eat With Style

The chances are that there are thousand of restaurant in a place near you, they all serve breakfast, they all have eegs, salads and bread, they all will almost have the same taste, so the question is how do you choose which one?

Most often its the small thing, you could love the coffee that this restaurant have, or a blueberry muffin that you can feel its taste in your mouth right now (oh! I better get some food very soon) but with all these small things I always look for style first, a good restaurant environment, great decoration, the presentation of the food, the way they right the names of the food and display it, all these thing and lots of small things makes a different for me.

always eat with style :)

The photo above was taken by me, this is my favorite restaurant for breakfast.

عيدكم مبارك

هاقد مضو ٣٠ يوما من رمضان و نحن الأن في أيام العيد، أرجو في هذا اليوم الكريم أن يعيننا الله أن تكون أيامنا كلها رمضان و أعياد، وأن لا ننسا الله ،و نحفظ ديننا دائما و أبدا، و أرجوا أن نحسن معاملة بعضنا البعض، فوالله لا خير في هذه الحياة الدنيا وما بعدها إلا الحساب و دار الأخره فالنعمل من أجلها

تقبل الله منا و منكم صالح الأعمال. وعيدكم مبارك.

إصنع شيء من لا شيء

الكثير يبحن عن مواضيع للتصوير مثل أبراج الكويت المباني التجارية و أماكن أخرى معروفة، ولكن ليست هذه كل المواضيع، فالننظر من حولنا فهناك جماليات في كل شيء ولكن المختلف في الأمر هو نظرة كل شخص، ولنطبق على الصوره الأتية




ماذا ترى هنا، هل هناك ما يعجبك، البعض يقور هذا مجرد باص و لا يوجد هناك أي صوره جماليه، ولكن أصحاب العين الفوتوغرافيه يسجدون ألف صورة و صورة جميلة للباص، فلنبدأ

أول مايلفت الإنتباه هي علامة ستوب الحمراء الكبيره، بالنسبه لي كانت هذه العلامه ما نسميه بمفتاح الصور فهناك زوايا كثيرة يمكنك إختيارها لها، والشيء الثاني هو الخط الأحمر الطويل الممتد من أول الباص إلى أخره و المعروف عن اللون الأحمر أنه سريع الإنتشار أي، يلفت النظر بسرعه و الشيء الثالث هي الكتابه الموجود بالغه الإنجليزيه في أسفل الباص.

الأن وقد حددنا مفاتيح الصور بقي الزوايا، وهنا تظهر موهبة المصور في إختيار الزوايا الصحيحه، ليست صعبه ولاسحر فكل ما تحتاجه مخيله بسيطه، فمن أهم الأمور قبل إلتقاط الصوره هو أن يكون المصور متخيل الصوره النهائيه فيثبت الكاميرا على مخيلته و من ثمن سينتهي بصوره جميله

الأمر الثالث و ما يسمى "مابعد الصورة، بوست فوتو، وهو تظبيط الصوره بالكمبيوتر، وهذا أمر أخر، سنتداوله في يوم ثاني إن شاء الله

لنرى التطبيق الأن على الصور



أرجوا أن تعم الفائده علنا و عليكم، و أرحب بأسإلتكم

للمزيد من الصور زوروا موقعي
http://www.flickr.com/photos/parallax1/

ولكم جزيل الشكر
Parallax1

Photoshop Lightroom

From this:



To this:



Yes ladies and gentlemen this is the power of Photoshop, of-coarse you can't just say the magic word and your photos will true like that, it need lots and lots of practice, the great thing in PS (Photoshop) is the fact that it can be used on every individual needs, like for e.g.. I use it for photography, to make some adjustment to my photos, whether small changes like adjusting some colors or big changes like the one above, others use it to build web sites graphic and so on.

PS has become a vital element in photography, lots of PS "wana be" software are in the market now, others are targeting photographers only, like Aperture from Apple (which I don't like by the way) and Lightroom from Adobe, Lightroom is a manipulated software from PS, they even call it "Photoshop Lightroom" it's still in Beta version, you can down load it from Adobe web sit and try it, in my humble opinion I think this software was a very bright future, it has all the tools a photographer need in one place, one of the best features they added recently in public Beta 4, is the Photoshop Lightroom Gallery. You cant't adjust the photos as you can in PS like the one above, but it gives you better RAW support for your photos and better color management, exposure, noise level, sharpen, lens correction and lots and lots of other features over your JPEG's.

bottom line if you are a photographer and use PS, then you must try Lightroom.

here is the link: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

Give your photo a dramatic look

This is to help you give your photo a dramatic look with Photoshop, fast and easy. Just like the image on the top.

Fist open the photo you want to adjust, then go to Image-Adjusment-curves..

you'll see this:


Now go to channel and chose red, the insert 2 dots to make the curve you see below:



your image should look like that now, then chose blue from the same channel drop down menu and insert 2 dots to make the curve you see below:



That's it your done, enjoy and good luck.

Me Against The World

Long time before digital photography was introduced people used film cameras, some still do, we all need that once you hit the shutter button with these kind of cameras, thats it, what you had in your view finder will be printed, for ever, you have no influence over it, so you had to be real good to take a great shot, you had to be at the right pace at the right time, every single time, and that takes a lot of time and effort.

Now we are in the new age, we use digital photography and photoshop, they are great, they help a lot, you can take a photo mid afternoon and make it look like you woke up very early in the morning and took it during sun rise, that saves time, you can remove unwanted subjects from the photo instead of going into very danger's spots to take the same shot.

Old school guys refuse new age technology, they say It's not "real" photography, WHAT!, the problem here is the human nature, change is very difficult for us, human, and any new idea will get rejection instantly, there were the excuses come from, they don't realize that you need to learn the whole concept of photography, the same way they did, plus photoshop or any other photo editing software (for real old schoolers they need to learn first how turn the computer on) or they actually do realize that but don't wont to, so they make these things up.

I guess this matter will always exist until all these people distinguish, ya I know it's bad but that's only a thought.

Water Towers

I wanted to take a photo of them long time ago but they were too dirty and dusty, few months ago I noticed one of the towers was half painted, so I thought what is going on! they were painting them all, is it my luck or what, I waited till they finished and guess what? they did after few weeks, and I did not go there to take a photo of them, they actually started painting another set of water towers in another area and I'm not photographing any of them, yesterday I went in search of some good places to shot for a photography contest, and went by these water towers by chance, so I drove my car there and finally got this decent shots and this is one of them, I like it and I hope you do to.

Mac Shitty!

I had a very bad experience that I'm really sorry to share with you mac lovers and haters, I have a problem with my desktop fire wire, I have a G4 iMac flat-panel, and the fire wire is just out, it does not recognize that there is a fire wire port, so I took my iMac to the bet there is (not) Mac City, first thing is this Egyptian guy, whose suppose to e tech-support, I told him the problem and to add my desk top does not go to sleep mode, he said "eeh?" I repeated my self, he said "ya3neeh eeh ana mish fahem!" I said forget about it jut fix the fire wire. he said " OK there it could be one of there.. (some how I new he would say FORMAT) one we have to format it (here we go) two the fire wire port could be damaged, three the mouther board, so first we have to format it, I said I already tried that and it did not work, he said no we have to do it, I said OK, when will you tell me what wrong? he said within 4 to 5 days, after that of-coarse no one called, so I did, another Egyptian guy answer me and I asked about my computer he said what is your computer? I said it's an iMac G4 flat-panel, What do you think that idiot said to me, check this out he said "ya3nee eeh daah power book laptop willaa eehh ya3nee?" If that guy was standing if front of me at that time I swear I would have ether killed him or killed my self!!!!!!!!!!!!!! any how, he said later that it was the mother board, and they have sent an email to Dubai but they still did not answer them back, 10 days later, I go there to take my "power book laptop iMac G4" and it is still without a fire wire.

Another thing is the very hight prices, I wanted to order a Mac Pro, on the specs that I have ordered it was around $3450 US Dollars, which is approximately KD1100 plus taxes it should be around KD1200, they said It would coast me (with less specs than I wanted) KD1450, that is way too much, there 23" cinema display is $1000 they sell it KD500+ (should be KD300) wala 7aramiya.

so we conclude that they should call there store from Mac City to Mac Shitty.

Practice makes perfect

You probably have noticed that most of my photos are day time photos, I don't take much of night photos, they require different kind of techniques, I'm still not comfortable with using the ISO, I think I have to practice more with that.

Do you have any techniques your self?
Practice makes perfect

Flickr again and again

Why not join every flickr pool? most of them are open any one can join, well, this is what is actually happening, every one is in every pool, which means you will see the same photos over and over again, thats bad, relay bad.

what's my solution? Ill tell you, ether make the pool a privet pool, or choose what ever subject you like, say buldins photos only, dogs photos, cars, flowers... what ever but not open to every single subject, I don't want to point at pools here but just do a search under Kuwait groups and you'll see what I mean.

It's not the number of members that counts it's the contents.

God bless every and good luck posting.

Parallax

The Definition: Parallax, or more accurately motion parallax (Greek: παραλλαγή (parallagé) = alteration) is the change of angular position of two stationary points relative to each other as seen by an observer, due to the motion of an observer. Simply put, it is the apparent shift of an object against a background due to a change in observer position.

Now, lets put in into photography: With a lens-shutter camera, parallax is the difference between what the viewfinder sees and what the camera records, especially at close distances. This is caused by the separation between the viewfinder and the picture-taking lens. There is no parallax with single-lens-reflex cameras because when you look through the viewfinder, you are viewing the subject through the picture-taking lens.

So thats me.

For more info click here<>

In London

In London
Originally uploaded by Parallax1.

Hi and welcome to my blog, why I have this and a flickr account, I'll tell you, some times I want to talk about a place I took some shots of and flickr is just not the place for that, and some other times I want to talk about photography (a specific subject) and flickr is also not the right place for it, when ever you start a subject in a flickr site people don't notice it, so by having my blog people who are interested in my "stuff" can ask Q's and talk about pure photography.

I have started with one of my favorite photos here, I have edited it with Photoshop to change the tunes, and I think it looks better that way.