It is cartoons, abstract art, and surrealist art that boost my thinking and squeeze my creative juices to the max. It also happens when I witness psychedelic art from the 60s or if I look into the stars, planets, or sci-fi lifeforms from outer space. These abstract art forms (like a funky screensaver) let my mind soar beyond the (t)reason of worldly constraint. When experiencing such art, for a moment I feel like I am upward-gravitating; in those very moments I have clarity and superhero vision! It’s a transcending inspiration. I see what’s right and what should be. It helps me isolate from this world and focus on my inner best intentions.

For me, it’s important to keep my mind active and critical of visually splendid things. It stimulates my senses and keeps my brain jogging full speed. It can even be small math puzzles, like Mad Minute. So when I wake up I tell myself this every day: “Think, count, process, and dream a world of your own rules, Basim! Don’t let yourself accept without appreciating the world around you for exactly what it is.”

Sometimes  I have to isolate myself and meditate to my own tune. Nobody seems to understand this, and it annoys me! They think I’m depressed or somethings wrong. I have to do this because of the influx of data processing happening in my brain – complex multi-threading creates massive overheat and I have to get away to keep the supercomputer in sound function and repair. We must get back to square 1, numero uno, the unit self.

You can produce these high-contrast, nice color range, cartoon-like images with your Nikon D60! I’ll explain briefly the concept. My friend Asem actually showed me how to do this once. He does this at Little Woodrow’s bar where he is shoots low-light settings.

You set your camera’s image quality to RAW mode. Then you take a normal picture, a picture with low exposure (dark) and a picture with high exposure (light). Then you use a compositing software which I can give you that puts them together.

The effect is when you have low exposure (black looking), the white areas look more detailed. Likewise, when you have high exposure (white looking), the black areas look more detailed.

When you put it all together, you have a picture that has a nice color and contrast range.

He does this at the bar because there is poor lighting at night in certain areas but near the light or the window for example the lighting is better. This distributes things better.

Try it out. I’d love to see what fine things you come up with.