Busy crowd

Leaves with Vivitar Series 1 105/2.5 Macro

Don't cut me anymore

The logo of WangFuJin, Beijing

Sin

Money, always short of money.

A real graffiti this time

Advertising billboard of ?

Sorry (do you really mean it?)

Graffiti - unknown

This is Dean, James Dean.

Give me a break.....

Graffiti - oriental beauty

Three trees

People on the street

At the Wangfujing, Beijing, the street is full of tourist from all over China. People doing different things there, the scene is so funny.

Dangerous sculpture on the street

Graffiti again

Sampan

Broken poster

There was a Chinese hand-written note saying "Do not post anything" underneath those torn posters. It's a quite ironic scene.

What are you snapping for?

This is a quick snap of my son, when he was walking in front of me. I took this image in split-second, and the image is very blur dur to handshake. This pic is technically failed, but I just like it. I don't know why, don't ask me.

Who is it?

Relfection

Is the light showing the direction?

The beauty of an old stool

Shadows

Graffiti, or is it?

VIIV

It's Roman numbers, VI = 6; IV = 4. VIIV means 64, the sensitive number for Chinese Government. I like the twist a lot!

hand dripping with... what?

handrail

3

Music symbol

Iconmainac

I love to record interesting icons and logos when I see them. Why not post them all to this photo blog?

Twisted life conceived by damaged eyes

When reality does't look good to you, you may prefer a blurred visual.

The color of withered

Withering can be beautiful. Enjoy it!

Depressed

what a colorful world

It's a wonderful world, beauty is everywhere. All you need is just to open up your eyes.

Processing: vignetting

Tears in my eyes

Sometimes, out-of-focus will have special effects... and meanings.

Processing: vignetting

People

Everyone are so busy. Except me.

Processing: Vignetting

Withering leave

Withered life is not sad: those withered don't have the strength to feel sad. Withering, however, is very sad.

Processing: Vignetting

Entangled sky

At time, everything in life was entangled. Let alone the sky.

Processing: vignetting, level

The Wall

When I hit the wall with the viewfinder, all I saw was notices of moving your home or repair services. Ain't that inspiring?

Processing: toy camera effect

Aperture vs Lightroom

I'd been using Aperture for 2 years, and I like the image quality processed by it it and the simple but powerful user interface. However, I found it's very slow and I thought it was because of the below standard spec of my Macbook (2GB ram on board), until one of my friend on Facebook suggested Lightroom to me.

I have big hesitation switching to Lightroom, because I have over 70K images stored on an external HDD. I can import all the master images, but I cannot transfer the keywords and alternations I did with Aperture. Nevertheless, the Aperture just hung too much and I decided to import all image with Lightroom first, and see how it goes.

Surprisingly, the Lightroom import the images much faster than Aperture. Trying out LR for a few hours, I found it's much faster than Aperture in ALL operations. The only thing I missed in Aperture 3 is the preset color tuning such as toy camera... but I can save my own sets of processing as user presets, so not a big deal.

I would miss Aperture anymore.

A corner of Forbidden City, Beijing

Red vs green, old vs new... I like the contrast.

By the way, are historical buildings really have to be THAT old?

Post processing: vignetting

Another snap of symmetry

B/W treatment on Aperture, curve, vignetting.

One lonely lamp post

I have no idea why I like to photo lamp-post. Let you know when I figure this out.

Processing: Toy camera effect on Aperture

A downward arrow

Please stop pointing downward... I want UP!!

Processing: grey scale with yellow filter setting on Aperture

The blue sky

When the sun is shining, lamps are probably useless.

Processing: Toy camera effect in Aperture

Extreme low light @ 64 memorial night

I participated at the 64 memorial night almost every year, primary for remembering the national grief happened 21 years ago. It was extreme dark there, as candles are the only light sources in most situation. Thanks to the ISO 6400 of the K20D; together with the large aperture of my Limited lens, I can take photos with easy. I used to choose b/w photos in the past. But with the new Aperture 3, I find the 'Toy Camera' effect suits the mood of the event very nicely, so I use it in this set.

In the first photo, I deliberately cornered the Chinese word "64" by massive black color. This is to echo the Chinese Government's intention to fade out the noises of the 64 issue in Mainland, and all reference to 64 is blocked. Good we still have freedom of speech in Hong Kong.



In this second photo, the words say for itself. It'd a very difficult shot because the hands are waving in front of me. I was using around 1/15s and very large aperture in this shot, and I have more than 10 unsuccessful shots with this. Glad that I was using digital!


This shot is a very standard candle shot. I like the perfect bokeh by the fa77.


This last shot is also obvious: withered flowers by the side of "CHINA RIGHTS FORUM", let me think about the victims in China pressing for human rights.


After a re-visit to my own photos, I found that I included a lot of words in my photos. Perhaps the visual alone cannot say that much, so I use words to enhance my message unconsciously.