Pacific Sunset

                                  "What childishness is it that while there's breath of life in our bodies,

                                    we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around?"

                                                                                                                                       Elizabeth Bishop

Don't Look Back

It was dark and I knew I shouldn't stay on the trail any longer. "Pack your things and go, straight to your car, don't look back", I told myself. But of course I looked back. Part of the photography training is you always check the opposite view. I stopped on the trail and took yet another photo (now really the last one). Then I remembered the myth of Orpheus. No doubt Eurydice would be doomed if I were Orpheus.

The Road Home

I was heading back to my car after today's photo shoot. As usual, it was almost dark and I was the only person on the trail. Far away, the passing car lights on hwy 1 were like beacons, telling me where I should be going. Suddenly, I had an urge to capture this moment, the empty trail, the long way back. Going home is often the loneliest part of a journey. 

A Day on the California Coast

Seeing Colors

The bright and saturated LCD screen of my new phone is very misleading. Photos appeared to look good often turn out to be disappointing when viewed on a laptop (the opposite is also true for my DSLR, where photos look so so can be much better when viewed on a bigger screen). Slowly I learn to adapt my eyes, but it is still a lot of hit-and-miss. 

The unexpected effect of having an overly saturated display is I start to pay more attention to colors. I go back to basics, to compose in one color, two (complimentary) colors, and a jumble of colors. Photos taken this way help me to appreciate paintings. When I noticed the mixed colors of a Japanese maple tree made a photo look like an Abstract Expressionism painting, I thought, "this is so cool"!

A Cloudy Day in Hakone Garden

Afternoon in the Hakone Garden

I arrived at Hakone Garden and found it was closed for a wedding. Disappointed, I walked back to my car and noticed the bamboo garden was visible from the parking lot. I decided to take a few snaps to have a feel of the light in case I would be back tomorrow. My cell phone was totally incapable of handle the dynamic range of the scene, yet it produced such a pleasing atmosphere.

Weekly Photo Sketches

Many artists (even composers like Beethoven) carry sketch books. They are notebooks the size of a 5"x7" card, small enough to be put inside a pocket to be carried around. My cell phone is my perfect photo sketch book. I use it to practice seeing (colors, lines, etc) and to discover and explore ideas (does the reflection of the window make it a more interesting photo). Dorothea Lange once said, "the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera". The camera which works best for this job is your cell phone.

Small Dog in a Court Yard

Hidden Beach North of Santa Cruz (Old Photos from D70 Days)

A Wonderful Photo Day

Last Light (and Why I Like Photography)

My best friend said the chair looked so lonely.

I had a great time taking photos at Point Lobos yesterday. As usual, I shot till there was only a shred of light left to pack my gear and walk back from the shore. On the trail, it was dark and I could hardly see anything. However, I noticed the chair was the only thing visible in the dark, with its wooden panel reflecting the last light of the day. Having taken a photo of it earlier (to help me seeing the quality of the afternoon light), I suddenly got curious. What would it look like now?

I was not sure if the reflected light on the chair was enough, but I didn't have a flash with me to try the "light painting" technique, so I took out a 2f stop graduated ND (my filters were ordered in such a way that I didn't have to rely on my eyes to find the right one, something I learned from experience), set up my tripod, and did a 20-second exposure at f5.6. (I had to hand held the filter since it's too dark to put the filter holder on.) 

In the end, the trail border marker was too annoying to make the photo a usable one (something I definitely didn't spot in the dark). But I learned something about the light. How the last light of a day can isolate a subject and gives it an almost mythical quality (very much like a stage light). This is why I like photography. You always learn something from your failure. A failure is not only a failure, it's also a discovery and a creativity breakthrough. It is a lesson I hope to apply to the other aspects of my life.

Point Lobos (Western Beach)

Perfect weather, but not a good photo day for me.