Nihao, Cupcake!

Best Shot Wednesday

This was taken at a nearby park in the kids' indoor play area. It costs $4+ a head but when it is freezing outside, you've ridden your bikes all over looking for a place to fly your kites and the only place you find already has too many kite fliers, you shell it out to relieve some guilt and so your kids' faces can look like they do in that photo!

In case your interested, I talk in detail about the technical side of the photo - how I captured it and what I did to improve it. If this doesn't interest you, skip the next section!

DISCUSSION OF PHOTO'S TECHNICAL DETAILS

As you can see this was a strongly backlit photo. I attempted to compensate by overriding my camera's automatic meter reading.

Let me explain in a little more detail. I was shooting in AV or A mode (aperture priority) set at around f/2.8. My first couple of shots were way underexposed since the automatic meter was adjusting for the strong back light. I used my meter compensation button (+/-) and set it to overexpose (+) by a few stops. My subjects looked better but were still underexposed.  My solution was to edit a little in Adobe Lightroom after I got home. I had a lot of information to work with because I shot in RAW.

In Lightroom, I adjusted the exposure and then used the burn/dodge tool (not sure if that is its name in Lightroom) to get rid of most of the over exposed spots in the background. Unfortunately, this photo is not at full quality. I'm considering uploading all my photos at full quality so they don't look so fuzzy. They just take longer to upload and download!

Focus

As they were zooming down the zip line, I was having trouble getting my subjects' faces in focus. My solution? As they were getting ready to go down the zipline again, I prefocused my camera on one of the yellow posts on the left and as the boys reached that yellow post, I clicked down the shutter.

To make this photo better I would have framed it a little differently. I would have allowed for more space below the toes so that you could get an idea of how high off the ground they were. I could afford to do this since I had space at the top to spare. I wouldn't be losing their hands gripping the handle bar or the buffer space above that.

THANKSGIVING

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating tomorrow! I wish I was celebrating tomorrow, but here in China it is a regular work and school day. That means my kids will be at school and my husband at work. We will celebrate instead on Saturday.

We are planning a potluck style meal with a few friends. Two American families, a British husband and dad whose a bachelor for a few months and an Italian family. We will have nine adults and nine kids in all. Not sure how we will swing that with our limited plates and chairs but we will manage some how! 

I'm hitting one of the markets on Friday morning in pursuit of some decor to make the table Thanksgiving-y. The one thing I know I can find there is fresh flowers, beyond that, I'm a little worried. Our table is so long (using leaves), I have no idea what to do for a table cloth. I'd like it to be fitting for a TG dinner party, but I may be expecting too much. Only time will tell...

Tomorrow, on Thanksgiving Day, I will be volunteering my time at one of the orphanages I have been working with for the past month or two. We usually go on Mondays but this week had to be rescheduled. I thought it appropriate that it should be on Thanksgiving. What better way to spend the day than helping those little ones without families?

Today I picked up some books for the kids at the orphanage. The books are small and were cheap. I can't stand that every time I go see them they are playing with empty paint cans (the building is under construction), or sharing a torn book between eight of them. We worry that the books will disappear (has happened before), but I figure at 50 cents (US) a piece, I can afford to bring ten books (or similar) items each time I go and the kids can play with them even for the few hours while I am there. At any rate, it will make me feel better! It's a selfish gesture actually.

On a happier note, enjoy your days of celebration and gratitude! Hug your families and enjoy your bounty of food & blessings!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

xxxx

Best Shot Wednesday - 2

Hi Again! It is Wednesday, so here I am with my best shot of the week. This is my youngest son all ready to leave for school. Our neighbor doesn't like us to keep our bikes in the hallway (most other floors keep their bikes in the hallway) so we keep them in our play room. The weather has started getting colder so we are wearing heavier coats and gloves to protect our hands from the chill on our bike. 

What I like about this photo is the morning light on his face, his expression, and a slice of our daily life.

I didn't take too many photos this week even though I got a new lens last Thursday! My faithful 50mm f/1.8 broke. It fell out of my bag (that I was sure was zipped up) and landed on my oldest son's head as I was bending over to help him get ready for school. My much more expensive wide angle lens and camera body were also in my bag, but luckily they stayed put! I only paid about $60 for the broken lens three years ago so I think I got more than my money's worth.

And as I joked with a friend back home via email - my main concern was obviously my lens NOT my son's head. My defense was that his head can heal (though no damage was done), my lens can not. Haha!

Of course this mishap gave me an excuse to upgrade my 50mm. This time I got the f/1.4. And I'm even more in love with it than I was with my f/1.8. The colors are more vibrant, the pictures crisper. And I am reminded again first hand that with lenses you get what you pay for.

Do you have a favorite lens? Why do you love it? I'm always curious to hear what lenses people are using and what they use them for.

SIMPLE THINGS

I was just visiting Rebecca's blog and I discovered her Simple Things challenge.

I thought my Best Shot Wednesday photo was perfect for it this week. I truly LOVE riding my son to school on the bike. Since moving to Beijing we are now 'city people'. We don't own a car and our two older boys take the bus to school. All that means no more 'car time' to spend with my children chatting to them while driving them to & from school, sports and other activities. When I was home this summer I realized how much I missed it. This time my youngest and I have on the bike is all I have left of my 'car time'! It is likely he will be taking the bus starting in Fall and then it's lost forever (or until we move back to the States). I'm savoring that Simple Thing every day!

PHOTO WALK

I took my two youngest boys on a photo walk early Saturday morning. It was so cold that we didn't last very long, but it was fun nonetheless. I must admit that I get shy about taking the photos I really want to take but I have no problems coaching my boys into taking some good ones.

Here are some of my favorites of the ones they took:

 My 5 year old's:

My 10 year old's:

It is shocking how quickly the hutongs and back streets of Beijing are disappearing. In this same little village area surrounded by blocks of high rises, an old lively crowded restaurant was just flattened on Tuesday. My son and I ride my bike through this area every day on the way to school. We were both shocked when one morning it was literally reduced to a pile of rubble. Just the previous day it was teeming with people. I had made a mental note to stop there one day on the way to school for some fried bread and to take a few photos. Too late now!

They are making way for new modern skyscrapers.

Me? I much prefer old Beijing. It won't be here much longer. Don't Blink!

Best Shot Wednesday & Dinner

Recently on a few peoples' blogs I have seen them feature a best shot of the week. I love this! I figure, I can commit to posting consistently at least once per week, so from now on I am making Wednesdays here on my blog - Best Shot Wednesday.

In the future, I will make sure the shot is from the previous week, but for today I am featuring a recent shot that wasn't actually taken this week. It is from my five year old son's school's family sports day. All the schools here do it. And it is a tradition in Japan as well.

Students and families gather at school one weekend day during Fall for some fun activities. Usually they are relay races. Nobody keeps track of the winners (except for some of the kids, of course!) and every student gets a medal at the end. Braden's quote of the day, 'Dad, I didn't know there were going to be medals!' 

One of the things I realized I needed to do with my photos is make them more interesting. I could capture the expression, get things in focus, meter things correctly, control the depth of field, etc, but my photos didn't always tell the whole story. They were a little stale. You didn't always know where my subjects were or what they were doing. Therefore I have been trying to include more of the surroundings in my photos.

My new wide angle lens has assisted me in doing that. I can get close to my subjects - which adds interest and intimacy - and at the same time include background and/or surroundings to help tell the story. 

The photo above wouldn't be nearly as interesting if it were just a close up of his expression or even a tight shot of his waist and above with a blurred out background. Sure you would get to see the cute expression on his face and with the framing of his waist up, you might even be able to guess that he was participating in a relay race, but with the wider shot, you get the surroundings as well. Not only can you see he is in a school yard, but you can see there are adults and kids in attendance and you can almost feel the excitement and energy.

And because I couldn't help myself. Here is another favorite from the day that also demonstrates what I was trying to do.

His older brother is his partner in the wheel barrow race.

DINNER 

Because I so often get frustrated with my choices for cooking here as well as dealing with the limitations of my kitchen, I made waffles for dinner. I bought a new waffle maker a few days ago, so I'm having fun with it. To make them a little healthier than the traditional waffle, I found this multi-grain recipe on FoodNetwork.com. They were pretty good and better yet filling. Turns out though they don't have enough fat for the kids' taste, therefore next time I will go back to my healthfied version of waffles from The Joy of Cooking. Perhaps I'll post that in on another day.

Waffles for dinner.

Thanks for stopping by! Leave me a comment if you get a chance and stop by again any time!

xxxxx 

 

Celebrating Blog Friendships

Today as part of the Blog Friendships celebration I wanted to THANK all of the friends who have stopped by my blog over this past year. Thanks so much for visiting, showing your support and especially leaving me comments.

As part of the celebration, I thought I would show you what I have been up to recently in my little corner of the Blogosphere...

During my little blog hiatus I was focusing my energies on improving my photography. I do think I have improved, however, I continue striving to do better and just when I feel happy with my progress, I realize I still have a long way to go.

I thought I would post some of my favorite images from the past few months and further down a few of my favorite scrapbook pages from October's Layout A Day. I hope you enjoy them!

(Don't forget to read all the way to the end of this post, where you will find the letter you need to collect for the puzzle to win the grand prize on Jo's blog as well as the link to the next stop on the Blog Party.)

Please let me know what you think!

Now for a few favorite scrapbook layouts I made in October:

 

TEMPLATE: Simply Tiffany Designs PAPER: Jessica Sprague BRUSH: free download from a class at Jessica Sprague

 

TEMPLATE: K Pertiet (altered by me somewhat - changed orientation of photo & moved them around as well as added white borders to each photo and shadowing) Font was also changed and I added the white outline around the page.
FONTS: Arial Narrow & Pea Steele
BACKGROUND PAPER: Jessica Sprague

  

All four layouts I did for Lain Ehmann's October Layout A Day. I hope you enjoyed them.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll come by again.

The letter you  need to collect from my blog is T.

Now it is time to head off to Deb's blog at www.debs14.blogspot.com. Deb lives in Hertfordshire, UK. I find it interesting that I have recently been given the nickname of 'Debs' because many years ago I did a six month work study program in the UK and I worked at Debenham's in Cambridge! My new friend from London found this quite funny and has called me Debs ever since. The other thing I have in common with Deb is that I love Hertfordshire! I spent a week out in the countryside there staying with my friends' grandparents in 1991 and fell in love! And now my husband's company is based out of Herts though we are currently living in Beijing, China! Small world!

Happy blog hopping & come back again!

I show up again in an ad for a photography workshop at Beijing Center of Photography

via www.beijingcp.com

I took their first Bootcamp with Stefen Chow in early May. For promotional purposes they videotaped the entire thing and took loads of photos. So, here I am again helping to promote a workshop! It's a good place and offers quality instruction, so I don't mind.

If you click on the link below the photo, you will see the ad with a few pictures of me, my window photo (appeared in an earlier post, but the one here is before post processing) and a video synopsis of the weekend. I am not in much of the video but that is OK. You still get an idea of the weekend which was lots of fun yet challenging.

Mini Book - Beijing in Color & Other Color Inspired Projects About China

SCRAP WEEKLY CHALLENGE BLOG

This week I am the challenge host over at the Scrap Weekly blog. The theme is color. The mini book below is my take on the challenge. I hope you are inspired to create a page or project and will link to it in our comments section over on the Scrap Weekly blog so we can all see what you came up with.

MINI BOOK

I live in Beijing, China and there is a nice community of expatriates living here. We are all foreigners living in a foreign land so bond quite quickly and become very close friends in a short period of time. The nature of an expat community is highly transient so we regularly have new friends moving in and unfortunately for those of us staying behind, good friends moving on to new adventures.

This week, it was time for a close friend to move on to her new adventure. Their family has been transferred to South Africa with the British Embassy. I wanted to send them off with a keepsake of their time here in Beijing, but I waited until the last minute so had to come up with something fast! Digital scrapbooking to the rescue! I decided to make a mini book using the digi template I created for a page I had published in the eBook Stretch Your Sketches.

A few months ago, I won a contest over at the Ella Publishing blog and was given the opportunity to design a page to be published in Donna Januzzi's eBook, Stretch Your Sketches. I made a digital page based on my assigned sketch titled, Beijing in Red.

Supplies: patterned paper by Crystal Wilkerson & Jessica Sprague, overlay by Katie Pertiet, Scanned Paper Cutting (Liu Ren), Ma Sexy, VT Portable Remington, You are Loved fonts

I had always wanted to do that same page in different colors. This was the perfect opportunity to do that! I decided to make those pages in different colors and turn them into a mini book.

I altered the sketch to fit a 6x6 format and then went through the library of photos I've shot since living here and found six pictures in each of the colors I wanted to use. I changed a few other minor details on the new layout, then printed out these new pages, adhered them to the pages of my 7 Gypsies chipboard 6x6 album.

On the facing page of each layout, I used a colorized scan of wrapping paper decorated with Chinese lanterns. I thought they could fill those pages with Beijing memories if they want or just leave it blank and enjoy the book as is. After these pages were adhered, I painted the edges of each page with acrylic paint, inserted the three jump rings and the album was finished!

Here is the cover, inside pages and back cover of the album:

On this last page, you can see the colorized scan that I used for the facing pages as well as the back page. It is light enough that the family can write memories of their time in Beijing on it if they decide. It is pretty enough that they can leave it just as it is and subtle enough as to not distract from the main pages.

One of the best things about making an album like this with 100% digi pages is that I now have a personal and thoughtful gift to pass on to other friends moving on to new adventures.

MORE INSPIRATION

For additional inspiration, I will share a couple of other projects I've done in the last few months.

The card I made to go with the gift (with the greeting changed to 'All the Best!' and corresponding Chinese characters using a cool stamp set I have):

The card was inspired by this scrapbook page I did in May 2009:
 

Supplies: Cardstock, Bazzil Basics; Foam Stamp, Lisa Bearnson KOTM; Ribbon, Basic Grey; Chipboard Letters, Heidi Swapp; Acrylic Paint

And finally, here is a photo rainbow page I created, strongly based on a page I 'scraplifted' from Ali Edwards:

Supplies: Cardstock, Bazzil Basics; Chipboard Letters, Heidi Swapp; Foam Stamp, Lisa Bearnson KOTM; Chipboard Circle (used upside down), Colorbok; Ink, Stampin' Up
 
Thank for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the inspiration!

Oh, and I should mention that early tomorrow morning I have been given the opportunity to take photos of singers/actors preparing for their performance in Peking Opera. I am so excited. If I get any good shots, I will be sure to post them here.

Outdoor Market - Beijing - a set on Flickr

via www.flickr.com

I went to the outdoor market a few blocks from my home yesterday for a little photo field trip. I'm typically shy about doing this, but am determined to get over it as I am doing more and more photography. I invited a friend to go with me and we had a great time. I've posted some of my favorites on Flickr. Let me know what you think!

In Focus: Tasteful Pictures (Getty Center Exhibitions)

via www.getty.edu

This looks like an interesting exhibit. I'm excited to attend when I am home this summer. So fortunate that the Getty is close to us and free! It's always a fun outing.

Searching for Inspiration

via www.soros.org

Searching for inspiration for my very first photography project since my introductory course at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, California in 1999. At the link above, I particularly like the online exhibit by Jan Banning titled Bureaucrats as part of the Moving Walls 17 Project.

The project I will shoot will be for the Documentary course starting on Friday at the Beijing Center of Photography. Lance Lee, will be leading it.

I need to come up with a topic for my project. It needs to be something close to my heart. I'm still not sure what I want to do. I have some ideas for other longer term projects that I want to begin, but I haven't come up with anything for this shorter term project.

The best part of the course is there will be a great deal of shooting and constant critiquing. Lance will be with us while we are shooting and we will get a significant amount of one one one and small group feedback. This way, we will have the opportunity to switch our strategy in the middle of our shooting if needed.

When I was having my one-on-one portfolio review with Lance this past Monday, I expressed to him that I feel like I have been 'shooting in a vacuum' for the past decade. I worry that I have been developing certain muscles using the 'wrong' form. Of course there is no right or wrong in an art like photography, however, developing my photography 'muscle' in only one direction prevents me from seeing other ways of seeing things or shooting and therefore limits my ability to develop other, perhaps more creative, ways of shooting.

When I think about doing this latest documentary project, my heart does a little leap (several times each day). I love to take photos and it is such a thrill to me to be able to finally do it with some feedback and interaction with an experienced photographer and other aspiring photographers.

 

After Years of Coveting and Months of Serious Deliberation, *IT* Has Finally Arrived!

via www.usa.canon.com

My very first fast high quality lens will be here tomorrow! I am beyond excited. I have been wanting a lens like this for a number of years now. The best part is that I finally know enough about lenses to know that this is really the lens that is right for me right now. I can hardly wait to see what kind of photos I can take with it. I hope I can live up to the potential of its capabilities.

It has come just in the nick of time for my latest photography workshop this Saturday & Sunday. This one is not as intense as the last one but I am excited to see if I can put into play what I have learned from the first one. I am also looking forward to getting guidance from yet another qualified teacher, Boris Austin.

If I like some of the stuff I get this weekend. I will be sure to post it. Sorry that I haven't been keeping up with my layout a day pages, but I have decided that I am taking a little hiatus from scrapbooking. I did so much of it over the past 18 months that it is time to put my focus on other creative pursuits like photography. Of course it is just a hiatus and I'll be back again with more pages at some point. I just don't know exactly when.

**UPDATE: As soon as I walked into the class with this lens still in its box and unopened (my husband literally walked through the door from a trip to London, handed me the lens, I got in a tax and went to the class), my teacher asked me why I bought the lens. Then he promptly told me he was going to convince me to exchange the lens for a different on! Can you believe it?? I'm so glad I did. It cost me another hundred dollars or so, but I was able to take it to the camera market in Beijing and exchange it for the lens he recommended.

The problem with the lens referenced above is that it was designed 10 years ago and needs to be updated. It is counter intuitive. When zooming out to wide angle, the lens grows longer - weird. Also if you are trying to get up close to someone, it will go in their face. It also has focusing/softenss issues. I did read mixed reviews about this lens but I wanted it so bad, I was hoping it was only a few bad lenses.

Go here to see the lens I exchanged it for. I am very happy with it and use it 60-70% of the time (but then I only have two lenses and my camera is an entry level DSLR therefore it is not full frame and the focal length of all my lenses are 1.5x their true focal length.)

Mark Edward Harris Photography

via www.markedwardharris.com

In support of my decision to pursue photography further, I have been searching for opportunities to take high quality courses. I am finding it very frustrating. If there is anything in Beijing for someone who speaks English, I am not finding it beyond a few classes here and there, and nothing comprehensive and very little NOW.

I have also been looking for something in LA during the month of July and again, it's been a dead end except for a few two hour classes at a camera store/lab. I did find a two hour lecture being given by Mark Edward Harris, however, so I will attend that. He's been to some intriguing places for sure. And I love his B&W work of the Japanese bath & in Wanderlust.

Improving My Photography

This past weekend I signed up for an intensive photography workshop. It was so awesome to challenge myself and get lots of in-person feedback. Something I have been desperately wanting for a long time.

I didn't love my photos from this weekend, but I did learn a lot and I made some decisions.

Here are my favorites:

Having a little fun exposing for the inside of the shop and letting the outside go overexposed. 

Did it again for this one. As my instructor, Stefen Chow, suggested, this would be interesting in a series.

  These next few photos are the ones I am the most proud of. We were given challenges to go out onto the streets and take interesting photos as if we were 'real' photojournalists. At first I panicked. Even though there were other times in my life when I was feeling particularly bold, and I took plenty of photo of strangers, I wasn't feeling it today, on demand.

It was the second time that day that I started psyching myself out, but then I decided to pull it together and take the advice of my instructor - just start taking pictures and get permission from my subject's body language. So, I did just that. I got yelled at a couple of times, but it's not like I haven't survived that multiple times before. Then after I got their non-verbal permission, I pushed it. I kept taking photos and got closer.

This group of construction workers allowed me to take loads of photos. So many so that I left and came back a more than once.

I know I didn't push myself as far as I could have simply because they never said 'no'. I didn't know exactly what I was trying to take photos of after a while. And my camera was frustrating me beyond belief. The Tamron lens I have was having some trouble communicating with my Canon camera. It was also having trouble focusing in the low light so I was missing many photos. And to top it all off the lens went soft just a few months after I bought it so many of my photos that were appearing in focus by the sensor were in fact completely soft & blurry. SO FRUSTRATING! It is finally time for new equipment!

This is my favorite photo of the entire weekend. Who doesn't love the frame within a frame? And I love his bright yellow hat and winning smile.

This guy has great bed head.

And I love that he is reading on site. And it goes against the stereotype of the typical Chinese migrant construction worker. You certainly wouldn't expect one of them to be reading on site. Reece is an avid reader, so readers are close to my heart.

This family just about found me. I was tired and sat down to rest my bones for a few minutes yet I kept taking photos. I think her parents couldn't resist the camera. I was half-way surprised they even noticed me.

I think she could have resisted the camera!

But she came around eventually. What a cutie!

And later we had some low light/night time photography practice. We were told to take a photo of this window and this particular photo was chosen as the best one. It was a fun and spontaneous contest amongst our classmates. Too bad I didn't realize it was mine until the next day when no body claimed it and I looked through my photos and saw that it was in fact mine!

On the final day, Stefen gave us all an individual assignment. He hand chose a person for us to photograph for the entire morning. And had arranged their permission ahead of time in exchange for copies of the photos we took.

After three hours of shooting, we were to choose our ten best photos and present them in a photo essay. I was assigned a beauty salon. Of course, I was anticipating a bustling place full of women cutting & coloring hair and gossiping. What I found when I got there was quite a different scene.

These were the boys running my salon! They were very nice and took great care of me. They loved the camera and the longer I was there instead of becoming less aware of the camera and acting more natural as time went on, they got more and more into posing for the camera. They were like peacocks.

The funniest thing was that they had only one customer all morning. The rest of the time they kept washing & styling their own hair and each others' hair.

Unfortunately, my equipment failed me for this assignment too! This was a cluttered & busy place (lots of things on the walls, mirrors everywhere) with not much light and my lenses were not good at all for the conditions. I didn't like any of my photos! My tripod even failed me. It broke and is no more!

Despite my technical problems when I presented my ten photos to the class, I got some great reactions. I am not convinced, however, that it was as much due to my photos as it was due to my subjects! I definitely got the most colorful characters to photograph.

After two hours of shooting I was getting a little sweaty due to the humidity, the intermittent blow dryers and the pressure I was under. I'm sure I looked like a million bucks! I was fiddling with my camera and thinking about what else I needed to shoot during my remaining hour when I felt something pull gently at my hair. When it happened a second time I turned a little to see what was going on. Of course it was one of the guys checking out my hair. I instinctively knew what was going on. What else would it be?  After all, I was in a hair salon! I just didn't want them to CUT my hair. I made that mistake the first month I moved to China.

Luckily, they just offered to wash my hair. I was taken aback a little. I promptly called Stefen to see if it was OK. Afterall, I was on an assignment and I was supposed to be shooting! I had to laugh because his first thought was the photo opportunity! He sent one of my fellow students over to capture the whole thing on film.

I had to put all vanity aside since the time I hate looking at myself in the mirror most is when my hair is wet, pulled away from my face and I am under the harsh lights of a beauty salon. And now I would be photographed looking my worst! Never mind! It is all in the name of art!

Here I am with my new friends. This is before they got a hold of my hair. They actually did a pretty nice job - all except for the excessive amounts of hair spray and styling gel they put on my bangs.

Overall the whole weekend was just fun! It solidified the fact that I LOVE photography! And I want to keep doing it and learning more. I want to get significantly better. Ideally, I want to get better NOW. How that will happen, I am not sure. But I have no doubt that it will. I may just have to be patient. But I know now that investing in a couple of great quality lenses will not be a waste on me. How I reach my photographic potential is unknown to me now, but what I do know is that photography will always be a part of me.

I almost don't understand the pull that it has over me. It is definitely my passion. And I want more!

The other surprise from this weekend was how much I enjoyed the people that I got to take photos of. It gave me the opportunity to enjoy China in a new way. The expat life I live is so far away from the average Chinese person. It was refreshing to be with the people that live here. It helped me be the happier person that I used to be. In all other places that I have lived abroad, I have never felt so separated from 'the locals' as I have living here. It was such a fun excuse to be with them. It feels so much more natural and authentic. It sounds so cliche but I don't know how else to describe it. What a fun way to experience China.