ThisIsJoe

“When you reach your limits, you might not have reached your goals, but sometimes, the goals you find within these limits are much more satisfying & fulfilling… at that precise moment you realize that what you considered a failure of yours was actually your greatest success."

Some people say that being an optimist is being unrealistic & therefor you are easily broken & disappointed… just be grateful that you are alive because staying alive is absolutely your biggest success.

The Raven is one of my favorite poems by E.A.P. A poem portraying the effects of lost love on a person leading him into the abyss of madness.

I dedicate this blog post to this amazing piece of art by Edgar Allan Poe, by showing a few of tributes, illustrations & works of art by people depicting their conceptions, adaptations & understandings of this poem.

First, John Tenniel's illustration of the setting of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

Second, a short film by Rolly Zsigmond who transformed this conversational writing into a conceptual piece of visual art.

Next, is a conceptual photo by Mario Grobenski titled: Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore"

Fourth, is a dark & moody digital art/photomanipulation enterpritation by Eric titled "Poe's Classic Raven"

Finally, a Wordle of the poem:

If you don't know the poem, then, you can find it here.

What do you think?

The first thing I would like to remind everyone of is to think how amazing, magical & simply perfect this world is to have the honor & privialge to live in. It doesn't matter what a person thinks s/he is, we are all humans and we should understand that we are all EXCACTLY equal.

The Environment;

I used to be a very pro-environment, pro-green & pro-sustainability, I still am, but the way I think of the whole subject changed; I do think that we, humans, need to work harder on sustaining a green & healthy environment, but I gave in to the idea, that if we don't then, the environment or Mother Nature can take care of itself, even if it was by natural disasters that could lead to the extinction of humanity or all sorts of life-form on earth.. in the end, nature will win, no matter what & I have made my peace with that, it's nature's absolute right, I mean.. after all, it HAS been here AGES before we have.

The Jordan "Revolution";

I do not agree of the term Revolution! It's a just a call for reform supported by a few peaceful demonstrations.. nothing radical there. I don't agree with the protests that are taking place these days, especially the #March24 movement, because I'm opposed to the idea of them happening right now, with everything that is going on all over the world & especially the Middle East, people will be easily manipulated & their anger would easily be multiplied & escalated into disorder & riots. After all, we ARE a "Me too" culture.

Lebanon & the whole Arab world/Middle East;

Don't get me started.

 I'll leave you with this amazing Time-Lapse video:

 and the photo that came out of stacking the frames of the video into one image:

I've been waiting for these things for, what felt to me to be like, AGES. (Ages is equal to or less than a couple of weeks)

The first thing that came to my mind when I knew that my uncle is coming from the US is SHOPPING (after the thought that I DO miss him & want to see him, of course) & since I'm not really into fashion or clothes & madly into photography, I decided I would ask him to be my dedicated Aramex Shop&Ship and bring me some photo equipment that I would buy online.. and to my lack-of-surprise, he accepted, being the really cool person that he is.

So, without further ado, my most recent addition to my photoraphy bag (the bag that my uncle also brought with him):

1) The piece I've been dreaming about, a flash, but not any flash.. I got the "LumoPro LP160 Quad Sync" flash with GN 140FT @ ISO 100.

2) "Lowepro Flipside 200" back pack that would fit most, if not all of my current equipment.

4) Extra generic camera battery & travel/car camera-battery charger.

5) Op/Tech 18" SLR Rainsleeve for protecting my camera while shooting in rainy, misty and foggy weather.

I got so excited last night when I saw all of these items, that I kept messing around & playing with them for about an hour and a half or two hours after I came back from work at 12 at night.

What's next on the list?

Well, I need/want to get a Battery grip, for easier handling and long usage durations, a remote trigger/shutter release cable & Tripod for those long exposure photos, an eye-cup, because I lost mine, don't ask me how because I don't even know & last but not least.. an assortment of ND, Graduated ND & Circular Polarizer filters.

Lastly, I would like to thank my uncle for being so awesome & for being my dedicated shop&ship account, Adorama.com, Amazon.com & Mpex.com for their accuracy, their helpful staff & fast transactions. Also, I would like to thank my other uncle, in-advance, who is also coming from the US in a month or so, and whom I'm gonna ask to bring me the other stuff with him when he comes to Jordan.

Deforestation is one of the major issues the world is going through right now, leading to the extinction of several species of animals, plants and other organisms, in addition to sever climate change and droughts. I found this video called "Unchopping a Tree" that gives some information about deforestation, made by the well-known artist Maya Lin for the What Is Missing? foundation.

Lately I've been thinking about photography and how much I need to work on it; I need to take new photos, even if they're ugly ones, even if they're just mere snapshots, but I haven't been able to just grab the camera and shoot. I don't use the term "Lack of inspiration" because, well.. that would either be a lie or - bluntly - that would be mere stupidity. I believe that inspiration is all around whether be it life, people, the sky, music or sometimes, even, a grain of sand.

A while back I was talking to a friend of mine, who used to work for Greyscale/Aramram as a videographer, about the differences & similarities between videography & photography and about which one of those two is harder. As anyone might have guessed, there are a lot of things in common between film and photography, maybe even less than the differences between the two, since they're both based on film/sensor, optics and light, and since, well.. uhm uhm, videography was derived from photography. (owned) But to my shock, my friend thought that photography is much harder than videography which was the exact apposite to my own ideas.

The point that my friend was trying to pass was that in photography you have to capture a whole story or emotion in an exposure or two and sometimes a bit more, while in film, you can just press record and get the whole thing in a minute or two, which, based on my calculations - where a second is composed of 24 frames - is equal to 1440 exposures/min, which makes it easier for him to deliver the story to his audience. My response was that with film you have to take care of the technical, creative and compositional aspects for the entire time the camera is rolling, where in photography you just do that while working on an exposure and then you're done & start looking for another angle or scene to photograph.

Needless to say, we both weren't convinced with the other person's point (3agel zbaleh :P ) and we carried on drinking our coffee.

With the newer models of SLR cameras, you don't have to choose whether you want to go into video or still, since they're boosting Gazillion MPix photo sensors and FullHD video capabilities with full manual control.

What do you think?

When you add someone as a friend on some of the social websites, they ask you: "How well do you know this person?" or "Do you trust this person?" Well.. my question here is: "How well do you know yourself? And whether you trust yourself, or not?"

Most, if not all, of the people would say: "No one knows me better than I do." & "If I don't trust myself, who would I trust?" You know something, that's not completely true, now, is it?

Think about it, when someone asks you an unexpected question, you stop for a few seconds & sometimes even a minute or two to think about it to find the answer that, you think, is true. But is it?

Sometimes we behave in ways that are shocking, even to us. I'm not sure if that means that we don't know ourselves, but it does imply it, doesn't it? We might understand what did and why we did it later on, but it does mean that at that precise moment of time, we didn't understand or know ourselves as much as we thought we did.

Knowing more about yourself, in my opinion, helps you becoming a better person, because, well.. we would know our negatives, our objectives, our motivations.. etc. and we would trying harder on working out ways to enhance the good stuff and reduce the bad ones, and by doing that, we'll be more ourself than someone else and trust ourselves more.

ايش بالنسبه للإنتخبات امبارح؟ مصادر رسميه أكدت إنو عملية الإنتخابات سارت، بمعنى أو باخر، بدون أي حوادث تذكر، بس كيف؟

طول امبارح ونحن عم نسمع فلان وعلتان انطخو وأكمن واحد إندعسو وأكمن واحد إنطعنو والنائب الفولاني هجم عليه شبيبة النائب الثاني. أكمن واحد ماتو وجماعة بالمستشفيات وتانيين بالسجون؟ كل هاد و "لا حوادث تذكر" بس بدي أفهم كيف؟ آه وفي أعمال الشغب إلي صرت بوادي السير.

هاللهق فالنفترض إنو شباب المرشح علتان هجموا على شباب المرشح فلان، وانسجنو، بعدين المرشح علتان نجح بالإنتخبات، وحضرته صار نائب، يعني، أنا مستحيل أصدق إنو النائب علتان مش راح يعطيهم جرعة "فيتامين و" و يطلعهم منالسجن بكل اريحيه وسهوله!

لاحظت بهالإنتخبات إنو في مرشحين إعتمدو على سمعت "أهاليهم" ليكسب ثقة وتقدير "الجماهير" ولا كيف؟

أنا ما انتخبت، لأنه ما اقتنعت بأي من المرشحين للنيابه. لش؟ مين شاف الإعلانات وال-Banners إلي بالشوارع بالإضافه لحملاتهم  الإعلانيه وخيمهم أو مقراتهم الانتخابيه؟ كل مرشح دفع عشرات أو مئات الآلاف وحتى اشك إنه بعض المرشحين وصلت المبالغ إلي دفعوها لملايين الدنانير! بدك تقنعني إنو كل هدول المصاري إندفعو لأن هاد/هذي الشخص ما بدو أي منفعة شخصيه وأهدافه بس مساعدة المواطن؟ تخيل المبالغ يلي اندفعت وتخيل هاد إلبنئادم إلي دفعها كم متوقع يطلع من وراها!!

بعض العالم اقترحت إقتراع الورقة البيضاء، بس ليش؟ وأنا بقدر بس إنو ما انتخب وخلص خلصت؟

شو رأيكم يا جماعة؟ شو رأيكم راح يصير هلأ؟ What now?

اقترح متابعة الهاش تاغ #ReformJo على تويتر لمعرفة آراء الشعب عن كيفية إعادة الاصلاح والسبل المقترحة للنواب الجدد!

Jofeh Community Rehabilitation Center "Beit Saleem" is a center providing development services for disadvantaged people in the area of Jofeh in the Shuneh district, 5km north of the Dead Sea, through the encouragement and training of people to take action and volunteer in helping & enabling persons with disabilities for inclusion and participation in their families and societies through free-of-charge vocational training and community-based rehabilitation & employment programs & workshops designed to help these people (including  visually, hearing, physically & mobility impaired individuals in addition to people with intellectual impairments and mental illness) to incorporate into the society around them and to contribute as productive and self-reliant individuals.

This is where Project Jofeh comes in. Project Jofeh was started by my friend Lara (Sleepless in Amman) & her friend Nadeen to support the "Beit Saleem" project by organizing a "community" to support the center by raising toys, food and clothes for the community through several fundraising activities & by getting more people involved in understanding the "Handicapable", as they put it.

This Saturday a team from Project Jofeh will be heading to the center to be able to meet and interact with the people benefiting from the center & to officially kickstart the project.

If you're interested in helping, here's more information:

• Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Jofeh/168217406537127
• Project Jofeh on Sleepless In Amman: http://sleeplessinamman.com/project-jofeh/
• Follow the Twitter hashtag #ProjectJofeh for live updates.

I haven't written a blog post in a very long while, now. I tried to go back to blogging a few times since I stopped, back in 2007 (or was it 2006?) but I always had the "Blogger's block". I used to write about everything, but ever since I joined facebook and got introduced to the amazing world of facebook statuses, I just stopped blogging because I thought "Hey, why post multi-sentence, multi-paragraph and, sometimes even, multi-page blog posts when I can just sum them up in a condensed one-or-two-sentences statuses that would explain everything I want to share." But even so, I always felt that something is missing, something is changing.. I have a bigger urge or need to write everything I wanted to say or anything I wanted to share in more than one sentence, hence, the 2 or 3 times I tried to go back to blogging.

The other day I remembered one of my blog posts (to which I will NOT be linking), which I wrote when I was about 18 or 19 y/o, stating my future plans and dreams I went back to my old blog to read it and I noticed that my dreams have changed drastically. I have to admit that some have stayed the same but others have been transformed into, what seems to me right now, better & more happiness-inducing - if you may- plans.

Bare with me, here, but I'm gonna list some of the points that have changed and others that haven't:

1. Drive ermm nope, OWN a Ferrari F340, and A Bugatti Veyron - I don't care about that anymore.
2. Get my driver’s license - DONE
3. Advance into Graphic design and photo-manipulation/editing - I grew out of that phase, now I believe that photography is too pure to be manipulated.
4. Own a dSLR camera/ Learn photography- DONE / You can't learn photography, photography can never be mastered.. photography masters the person.
5. Buy a helicopter / Have my own private Jet - They're way too harmful for the environment.
6. Become a famous person / Become a RICH person - It has evolved to becoming an understanding & generally giving person / Money doesn't provide happiness.
7. Visit France / LIVE IN LEBANON! - It's the other way around, now; Living in France & visiting Lebanon from time to time
8. Design electronic boards - OUTSOURCING
9. Start a heart Disease and Cancer research center - I still dream of being able to do that.
10. Have a PhD in journalism - No need, journalism is not about the degrees, it's about the passion
11. Have my own company (television and\or radio station and\or newspaper) - This has evolved to become "Starting an NPO" Ref. to #9

I understand that up till now this post is way too personal and, some might say, BORING, but hey, I needed a place to start and I think that this is a good subject to start with.

Ever since blogging has become a very "professional" and sometimes even "formal" platform I felt that it's not a place for me anymore, since I can't just post about certain places or certain events with very specific subjects & ideas, though I do predict that most of my posts are gonna be about photography, music, art & culture but from time to time, you will find some general incoherent ramblings about life in general and I will be going against the current of formality.

Last words.. Friends, start following my blog, because if I ever start talking about a subject I blogged about & find that you have no idea what I'm talking about, It's gonna be pure hell to you, believe you me! As for other readers, thanks for reading & ROCK ON!