Capture your 365 : 11/08 - 11/17

11/08 Interesting light - My wife hates to have her photo taken. Thus, the best subject for portraits in the household are the dogs. We were having coffee on the deck this warm morning, and the lights were just perfect.

11/09 Perspective - I have always been an ocean guy .. my dad was a fishmonger, and I grew up associating my dad with that fishy smell. There are always at least one fish tank in the house. There is always fish at dinner. So, from my perspective, the best days always end with a slow sailing back home at sunset.

11/10 New adventures - My wife and I have been diving for many years, and we have been very active in technical diving as well. However, recently, I started to try my hands on underwater photography - new adventures. As you can see, I am far from being familiar with the camera and underwater housing. My wife would shake her head at me when I said I need a few more *not cheap items such as strobes, wide angle lens etc for the photographs to turn out nice! 

11/11 Interesting displays - My wife has her ear-rings and necklaces displayed on a "dead branch" mounted on a wooden base. This is the first time I tried using the flash from the camera. Don't really know whether I like or dislike the effect from the flash.

11/12 A hand to hold - My wife and I... image is a bit small and resolution is not very good because I used a camera phone (not the new iphone!.. still living in the older smart phone era!), but it was a nice representation of today's theme.

11/13 The memories - My wife had put up pictures along the stairs - her concept was that these photos make the house a home. My argument was why do we need so many photo frames? Couldn't we do with just one of those digital photo frames that changes pictures? Either way, I think it is a way of us holding on to the memories.

11/14 Quiet times - I am not a religious person, but a revered monk (my teacher) gave me this Buddha statue years ago when I was venturing out on my own. Now it serves as a reminder that everyone needs some quiet time for our mind and heart.

11/15 The beauty in nature - The sky looks like it is on fire this evening! No matter how much I try it seems that I could not capture the real beauty in mother nature through the lens.

11/16 Home cookin' - Home cooking starts from digging for cockles on the mud flat during low tide! It is fun, dirty and always end up with way too much cockles than we can eat. The end product - delicious spicy chilly cockles.

11/17 Comfort - I love rainy days - love the sound of rain spattering on the glass windows and tin roofs. What I love most is the refreshing air after the rain. The air is still, the surrounding is quiet, and the surroundings are clean. And it is amazing to see the changes from the comfort of home.

Capture your 365 : 10/16- 10/19

I mentioned in the previous post I missed out on the Capture your 365 photo challenge. However, I actually did manage to post 4 photos! :)

It has been more than a week since the last upload of the 365challenge photo. Life just sneak up on me and it was craziness for the last week or so! I hate it that I missed my commitments but at the same time, I have to remind myself - it is supposed to be FUN. Today's challenge is actually quite hard for me as I hated the color "yellow"! I have these horrible migraines which makes me sensitive to the color. Fortunately, after running around the house for about 30mins, I found a pleasantly blooming yellow orchid. It was cloudy, and I waited for the sun to be out. However, things never go according to my plan, and it started raining! Good thing I took a quick shot before it started pouring.

Work has definitely been accumulating, especially when the end of the school semester is approaching. Papers to review, mark etc... and more data to analyse, papers to write, presentations to prepare. Having fun definitely taking a backseat now, and work has just moved right "to the front" of the line! However, no one says you can't enjoy a bit of view 

Hard to imagine that there was a huge storm last night with the sun shining so bright today! Found a spiderweb lingering around the grapevine, hanging on to a few threads.

Summer is approaching, and the grapevine is about to return to its full glory soon!

Capture your 365 : 9/27 - 10/3

I decided to sign up for this website - Capture your 365 to improve my photography skills. After all, we have a couple of great cameras in the cabinet, and it seems a waste only to use them during vacations. The website/ community will send me a prompt everyday, and I am supposed to take a photo which I think suits that word/ phrase best. Instead of posting the same photo here everyday, I am only going to compile and put up the photos that I submitted here once a week.

Here are the first week photos and the captions.

9/27: A Friendly Face - Not exactly what you call the most friendly face to wake you up in the morning. However, I wouldn't ask for anything more than sloppy kisses from doggies to start the day.

9/28: Fairyland - Rain clouds are rolling in and it is going to be another wet weekend. The tide is receding, and it makes this weird color palette in the bay. Magical moment when a full rainbow forms across the bay! Such a perfect set-up - maybe at the end of the rainbow is Fairyland.

9/29: Prominent - Don't really know anyone who is prominent or famous. The nearest I came to knowing someone that is important (which I still wonders why is he important) is the bronze statue of a security guard on our campus. Set against the backdrop of remnants of an old concrete wall, the statue looks very majestic. It is very real-life like, even complete with the big belly which was spotted on a number of security guards

9/30: Late - Summer is around the corner very soon (in the Southern hemisphere), and it is finally getting warmer out this time of the night. Hannah (my wife) had just put up the colorful christmas lights on the deck. The bright city lights in the backdrop forms a nice contrast to the quiet and peaceful life we are enjoying at our home late in the night.

10/1: Signs of Fall - Living in the Southern hemisphere, spring is approaching, so today's theme is a bit hard to achieve. I was hunting around the house for something that was left over from last Fall. A branch of manuka tree was still waiting to get its spring leaves. I guess this is the closest to Fall I can get at the moment.

10/2: Lines - Hannah (my wife) loves old furnitures. She picked up this old, beat-up looking cabinet at a store for the price of a new cabinet. I was rolling my eyes, but she said I wouldn't understand. It was literally a cabinet that was pieced together with planks of woods.... I guess it have nice lines.

10/3: Out of Focus - Our neighbour is a botanist, and he just gave us a bunch of succulent. One of them is call Buddha's tummy. It drops its leaves in the winter, and now its leaves are starting to come back. Trying out the macro, adding some color to the back with the bright red cactus.