Sunday, November 18, 2012

How about getting a new dimension ?

Helios

This past couple of months were truly hard in means of coping with the new task at hand..medical internship. We have lots of obligations or is it ?? I think they make us feel that  we are responsible of something, we're only there to learn, learn from and not to teach from learning.
Long story short I've passed in Cardiology, OB/GYN, now I'm in the ER. In the ER so far I feel it like it's my element, all the time action pumped up full of adrenaline and you partially fell responsible when you diagnose a myocardial infarction or start a cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
So why I named the post Helios ? Helios was the personification of the Sun in the Greek mythology and because of this sun I have made the best shots I ever accomplished in my short experienced time. I was reviewing my photography the other day and found out how much my style has evolved into something that even I was amazed of seeing...I love the sun and the painting it does to the nature and cityscape. It's also a key element for portrait photography in the nature, as I don't own a studio I must cope with what I have and bend the rays into my favor. I also noticed a change in the complexity of the composition, I opt now for more simple composition with fewer lines and fewer focus points. I tend to make something out of nothing and tend to tell a story out of a single object. That I think is the goal of each photograph is to spot a glimpse of the story that you're trying to channel and let the imagination take over. 
Temples of Baalbeck

As you can notice in the above photograph, the sun is the key element not the temples although the caption is about the temples. It's all about the story so my story here is that I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the wrong time, why wrong because 20 minutes from the date when the picture was taken a torrential storm started falling on my head with liters of water. The photograph is edited in photoshop RAW as I made it look a bit HDRish, the foreground was black so bit by bit I somewhat made it pop out so the details of the temples can be seen as well as the rays of the sun that are painting the sky. The sun looks like it want to set itself free from the clouds'prison..this is the power of the shot, the Sun. Another example of this rays breakthrough :
Old roman market

Let's talk simple, as you can notice in the above picture my object of concern is pretty limited in this case It's more of the sun than the old market that attracts the eye at the first place. Next will share other simple compositions that made the photographs somewhat attractive :

Here again is one example of "take your camera with you wherever you go", I was eating lunch with some friends when I spotted this distant boat, I was fortunate enough to have the sun high in he sky making the waves pretty well visible, adding a great texture to the sea. That was the day when someone tried to steel my stuff ! luckily I had all my precious belongings with me and never again I wont take a Locker. (August 2012).

Here I managed to squeeze in this "what's left of the flower" behind the sun, it's shot@ f/22 so I can have the sun streaks pretty clear or to get the star burst effect, I made them appear just behind the flower. This shot does not tell a story of some sort but is a pretty cool background wallpaper that I enjoy every time it's on my desktop.

This flower was a survivor, it's straight on a track for tractors, I was with my father on a hunting trip, you can barely notice him in the background blurred by the DOF. I particularly like how the sun illuminates the flower and directly behind and in front of it there's some shadow.

This pomegranate was hanging from its tree, I spotted it from down. what's great in this photograph is the color palette : green, blue, red. The red is the contrast part and in fact the focus point and the point of interest of my photograph. I made it look like it was hanging from the sky, making it pretty surreal. Again the illumination was just perfect, illuminating just the fruit and partially illuminating its tree and the tree behind it.

This is one of my all time favorite as it really tells a story, super simple, lovely color palette and great illumination. In fact I used the fill in flash at -1.0 because this is not a wall it's the bottom part of the balcony and there's no sunlight there. At first there was nothing in particular when I was walking around the spot, I stopped to tie my shoes and when I looked up I saw this amazing little crawler lonely on the bottom of the balcony. This photograph is labeled Summer-Autumn transition, it clearly marks the boundaries between the two seasons. The  blue and the white are very pleasant to the eye even if it's stops abruptly, the eye first looks at the plant then on the hole picture, the plant looks like an intruder but the hole story is in the plant. The parallel lines and the rule of thirds are what makes the composition powerful.

Finally the Autumn has arrived dressing the nature whit all these colors, making a scene like looking through a kaleidoscope:

 This photo above was cross processed adding this shade of greenish blue to the scene contrasting with the bright red and orange and yellow of the leaves

 In this one I love the bright red..and only red, giving an extra contrast to the composition

Hope you enjoyed following, reading, contemplating my journey :)
don't forget to check my facebook page www.facebook.com/thechaddedphotography and check my portfolio at photorankr : https://www.photorankr.com/viewprofile.php?u=80
Cheers and see you again :)

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The real Africa

The next Step
evolution of my photography skills has accelerated in the past 3 months in an unprecedented way, i have 293 likes now on my page (24/06/12), i'm a top photographer @photorankr.com , . The thing is i not only upgraded my postprocessing skills with the photoshop CS6but now I have some interest in photographing people.
For now ill talk about the spark which is Zambia,
One thing for sure..I love rainbows.



sun set at Beirut's International Airport (Rafic Hariri international Airport) 02/04/12
Who knew ??? so many stuff can change in 3 months especially after my trip to africa this Easter. I had lots of fun there and came back with 30 Gibs worth of memories.

First of all i would like to thank my brother (from another mother obviously) Hashem who was my roommate for 3 years then he invited me to Zambia, the country where he works in.

Hashem in red, Me in white

So he told me I visited only 30% of the country and that i'm scheduled back to revisit, well I said hell yeah but under one conditions :
I gotta jump from the highest bungee in the world in south Africa (216 meters)because I jumped from the 2nd highest (111 meters) in Livingstone.

Signed up and ready for bungee

There's one thing I can tell for sure, African animals are not so cute as they seem like on TV. You get to risk your life, I personally signed 4 times on my life (3 safaris 1 bungee) but the point is if there's no adrenaline rush what's the point of being there at the first place.
The Zambezi Sun Hotel, see the rainbow ? well that's where the 111 meter high waterfalls are located

Beside that I strongly advice you to go there, it is not like the Europe "cliché" medieval buildings clean streets beautiful houses. You gotta change your experience and go 180 degrees into the wildest place of all! speaking of animals here goes some of them:

Orphan Baby elephant

Cheers

The bush baby

A fur like No Other ! This animal is protected !



  


say cheese



Chillin by the poolside with his friends

Sharp teeth

eye of the croc: this shot was tricky because the croc had his eye open the only way to make him open it was to for me to jump and slap the ground with all my force ( vibrations tend to annoy them :P) anyhow I spent half an hour post processing to pop out the details on its skin and eyes the end result like you see is outstanding ! I played with sharpness for the details and a little bit of vibrance here and there especially for the eye

On hi-res Screens, this wallpaper is heart stopping



Peak a booooo

Staring at the sun





Family on a walk



Zebra Crossing

The rhino kid was ,., this close to attack me
After bath


Outside the hotel room




I asked the gunner about what he would do if a rhino barged against. The answer was simple drop everything and Run for your Life



Watch the full album here: Zambia's best


THE COOLEST place was of course Livingstone where stayed at the Zambezi sun hotel (very pretty) fully booked and awesome relax. You see most of the hotels there are part of a big national park so you tend to see some giraffes antelopes zebras monkeys and crocodiles on the hotel's property. I strongly advice this hotel for newly weds! it is something that ull remember all your life and I'm sure that you would come back! 
The restaurant

The band







 








I've been there for two weeks and they passed so fast that it felt like 2 days. I really enjoyed the stay there especially the food !! ow my god you can't even imagine how good it is. See they have more than 13 kind of tomatoes ! we cooked traditional lebanese food with zambian ingredients..well those made all the difference in the world ! Fresh no Additives 
Photos from the Tuesday Market





























 to sum up I'll share the most beautiful 1.2 km stretch of falling water with you ! I loved this place ! it's like another planet ! the sound of the waterfall is so loud that for two to hear each other they must scream like on a rock concert. Moreover next to the falls it rains so much that it's like someone is poring a fire-hose directly on you. It's a breathtaking sight i have a PTAS ( Post Traumatic  Awesomeness Syndrome ). The Victoria Falls are the MOST AWESOME SIGHT I HAVE SEEN ! 111 Meters high  and 1.5 Km wide Full flow ! millions of cubic meters per second
No matter where you look You'll find a rainbow

It's almost like a Typhoon


This was the first shot to get Online Via Alina's Instagram


As close as you can get

















I couldn't possibly put here 2000 photographs so you might as well check  page under the album zambia's best and don't forget to LIKE it and Share it :D
cheers :)
more awesomeness to come ;)
sincerely yours the.chadded photography or simply Vlad 

visit: www.facebook.com/thechaddedphotography