While my boyfriend and I were out shopping today, I noticed that the moon was amazingly round and gorgeous. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until 10 pm when I got the camera and the moon was already high in the sky. The mood had changed, but I still took the photo. The photo by itself wasn’t amazing, so I decided to combine it with a photo I took during our hike 2 weeks ago, and what started as a collage ended up as an abstract piece that I actually like =)
The other day, I was downloading images from my phone and discovered 3 photos that I totally forgot I had taken, and I realized that it was perfect for this challenge. I usually love taking photos of paths partly because of the composition and partly because it is a metaphor for life. The path of life can be curvy and full of challenges, but you see a lot of beautiful things along the way, and when you get to the end of it, you feel accomplished. Sometimes, you want to pause and stand there for a while. Sometimes, you might want to retrace your steps because you had so much fun enjoying the journey.
You can join the challenge here: http://ceenphotography.com/cees-which-way-challenge/
We will be moving office locations this week, so being the sentimental person that I am, I decided to venture out and capture the beautiful floral that I often walk by on a daily basis, as I will no longer see them. Beautiful Flora, I hope you continue to flourish and bring beauty to all that behold you. Please know that you will be missed.
I found out about this challenge from Dawn’s Post and decided to join in on the fun this week. I was visiting the Phoenix area in November and decided to check out the Desert Botanical Garden. Lucky for me, there was a Chihuly in the Garden exhibit, which was spectacular. I ended up going there in the late afternoon, so I was able to see the exhibit in sunlight, sunset, twilight and darkness. I had to tinker around with my camera settings a bit. The following images are my favorite shots because it has interesting juxtaposition (man-made objects in a natural landscape). I hope you enjoy it! To join the challenge yourself, visit the Sunday Post.
In honor of Chinese New Year, I decided to post some photos I’ve taken back in my early days of college when I was walking around with my 35 mm camera experimenting with double exposures.
The sculpture of the lion and the architecture was taken at the Chinese Cultural Garden at Overfelt Gardens Park in San Jose, CA. It is a nice little spot to relax.
This next image was taken at the Pao Hua Buddhist Temple
For this week’s “A Lingering Look at Windows Challenge,” I decided to post some window images that I took at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art back in 2012. I didn’t realize how many of my photos actually contained windows in them 🙂
While sorting out the photos that I wanted to post on Facebook from my Alaska Cruise that I took last September, I came across these two gems. Maybe next week, I will be writing a poem based on these images 🙂 Hopefully, they will inspire you to write something as well. If so, please feel free to post a link on my comments section!
I love taking photos of flowers because they are beautiful elements in nature with interesting shapes, colors and contrast. Most flowers look best in color, so it takes a special flower to dazzle in black and white. For this challenge, I decided to look for the flowers with minimal color, but lots of contrast and repetition. Since I didn’t have time to take new photos, all of these are previous photos that I have taken in color, but converted to black and white in Photoshop using the Channel Mixer tool. I hope you enjoy them.
Photos taken at the New York Botanical Garden
This image is my favorite because it resembles a steel sculpture. The original leaves were green with purple streaks.
Photos taken in Phoenix, Arizona @ the Desert Botanical Garden
Windows have always fascinated me because it is an insight to another world. Depending on where the window is placed, what surrounds it and what can be seen through it, a story can be told. When I saw this topic as the Weekly Photo Challenge, I decided to post some of my favorite window images that I have done in the past (and maybe a new image, if I have the time as well). Note that many of these are fun composite images.
Composite #1: Angelic Illusion
The first photo on the left was taken at a hotel in Huade County, China when I was in the SSLP program in 2008. At that moment, the wind fluttered through the window and made the curtains billow out in an elegant manner. It gave me a sense of surreal beauty, as if nature had something to communicate. I shot the image through the open doorway, as if the viewer was seeing the moment through a secret frame. I always wanted to do more with that photo, but didn’t know what exactly. The middle photo was taken at the Global Winter Wonderland in San Jose in 2011. It was nothing special, just a nice photo of me. When I decided that I wanted a nice profile picture of me that was somewhat “inspirational” and “surreal,” I decided to put the two images together to form the third.
Composite #2: His and Her Dream
I had always wanted to incorporate “windows” into the cover of my Whisperings poetry book, as I felt it went well with my poems. When one looks outside a window, one discovers the world and how one may fit in. To me, it can symbolize soul searching,which was what a majority of my poems were about. However, I needed to find a good window. I came across one in a Bed and Breakfast near Elk Grove, CA. I initially focused on the middle photo, which is of me peering through the window, trying to “find” myself. My boyfriend took the image. We decided to snap a few more photos just for fun, so I took the same photo of him peering out the window. I eventually converted all the photos to black and white, because I like the old school look of making things more mysterious, without color being a distraction. The third photo is a composite image of the two. I like the implied story of it, as if the lovers were looking outside the window, each focusing on his or her own dream, discovering themselves together, but separately.
Composite #3: It’s a Beautiful World Outside
These two were also fun composites that I did (sorry I didn’t crop it all the way for you). I work at Shutterfly, so we have promo codes for Wall Decals. I always thought it would be really cool to have a “fake window” on my wall. With a fake window, I could pretend that I lived anywhere in the world, based on what I saw outside the window. I found a decent looking window at a club house at a park in Belmont, so I used that as a frame. The left photo contains an image from Big Sur (a trip I took in 2011). That window is actually up on my wall and I get to pretend I live in a Beach House and enjoy the ocean. The window on the right contains a view of New York City, taken from the Rockefeller Center (a trip I took in 2012). I wanted to pretend I was living in the Big Apple, but I actually haven’t put that up on my wall yet (maybe one day).
A window is a simple object, but a single window can tell so many stories. I hope you enjoyed mine.
Whisperings 