The Journey or the Destination (NaBloPoMo Day 3)

Posted on November 3, 2017 by Helen C

What is more important: the journey or the destination?

Tainan Park Elementary School


— Picture from Tainan Park Elementary School FaceBook page.

One day when I was in the third grade, our teacher announced that we were going to take a field-trip. Every student got excited (I believe it was my first field-trip!) We couldn’t wait!

The day finally came. Everyone brought a lunchbox and proudly displayed it on the top of her desk. Everyone was in a good mood. We talked louder, we laughed harder, and we patiently waited for classes to end.

Finally, around 11 am, our teacher told us to line up outside in the hallway. “Don’t forget to bring your lunch,” she said.

We ran, giggled, and formed lines. We marched behind our teacher, passing several streets. Twenty minutes later (seemed forever) we were so tired that we could hardly lift our feet. When our teacher said that we had arrived at our destination, everyone cheered excitedly.

But our excitement didn’t last long. Something didn’t seem right. We looked at each other with question marks in our eyes. Where are we? Why this place was so familiar?

A minute later, one classmate shouted, “School!”

We turned our head in unison to where she was pointing, and saw our school buildings 30 feet away.

What? This is our field-trip destination? We felt being cheated. No longer smiling, each of us found a spot to sit and quietly ate her lunch.

After lunch, it took 3 minutes for us to get back to school.

So, what is more important: the journey or the destination? On that particular day, to be honest, nothing was more important than the lunchbox my mom had prepared for me. Our family was poor; my mom didn’t want me to look bad in front of my classmates, so the food in that lunchbox was more expensive than usual. It was one of the best lunches I had ever had.

(The name of our school is “Park Elementary School”, because it was located right next to a park. )

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Posted in Memoir | Tagged | 8 Comments

A Special Radio (NaBloPoMo Day 2)

Posted on November 2, 2017 by Helen C

My daughter loves to sing. When she was 7 or 8, whenever we took a road trip, she would sing her heart out from the backseat. Sometime she would take requests from us. I wasn’t good in remembering names of songs, and often had to go through a lengthy description to let her know what I wanted to hear. She was very patient with me.

On one trip she announced that she had turned herself into a radio. “If you want to change the station, you just tap my leg,” she said and started singing. A couple of times, I tapped her before she could finish the first sentence; we laughed hard.

The radio game continued for a couple of years. One day, to my surprise, I heard she sing “I am the great pretender”.

“I love that song,” I said.

“Yes, I know. That’s why I sing it. But, Mom, you have to change the station soon, ok? Because I only know the beginning of the song,” She said.

I didn’t want to change the station. Soon I heard, “La la la la…”

“How do I turn the radio off?” I asked.

“This is a special radio; you can’t turn it off,” she said loudly.

* * *

I miss my special radio.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Posted in Memoir, photo, Writing | Tagged | 15 Comments

NaMo and A Bike Story

Posted on November 1, 2017 by Helen C

Every year toward the end of October, I get excited, not because of Halloween, but because NaNoWriMo is around the corner.

National Novel Writing Month (often shortened to NaNoWriMo /ˈnænoʊ ˈraɪmoʊ/), is an annual, Internet-based creative writing project that takes place during the month of November. Participants attempt to write a 50,000 word manuscript between November 1 and November 30.
— Wikipedia

Every year in the past 10 (?) years, I couldn’t wait to start NaNoWriMo, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t afford the time required for the task. I watched my writer friends complete their novels; I envied them.

Again, this year, I assessed my abilities to write, and came to a conclusion that I am getting closer than before, but I’m not totally ready even though I do have a story in my head. Then, I discovered NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month (Blog every day in Nov.), and decided to give it a try.

I have to be honest with you, I am excited and scared. Doesn’t ultimate achievement always come with these feelings?

Another concern that I have: how will readers feel about my daily post for 30 days? I know we all have many blogs to read… sometime too many… (Sorry, I’m going forward anyway. I have to.)

A Bike Story

When I was in college, my friend lent me a bicycle. It was nicer than the old bike I left at home. Hadn’t had a bike for 3 years (during school year), I appreciated the opportunity, and rode it everywhere for a couple of weeks.

I thanked my friend profusely when I returned the bike, and told him all the places that I had visited, including a college campus close to where I lived.

His face turned white. “You are not supposed to go to there,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because… that’s where we found the bike.”

“Found? You mean…”

My face turned white, I am sure. (Later I was told that they’d returned the bike to where they found it.)

This incident stays in my mind all these years. I can’t help thinking what if the bike owner saw me when I was riding the bike in the campus? Would he give me a chance to talk? Would he believe what I was going to tell him? Would he jump into a conclusion before knowing the truth?

What if I were the bike owner? Would I give this person a fair chance to explain?

I learned not to quickly judge anyone, praying for the wisdom to act accordingly. And I’ve never borrowed a bike since then 😉

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Posted in Memoir, photo and thoughts, Writing | Tagged | 20 Comments

XDrive Photo Lesson 13 – Raw vs Jpg

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Helen C

This is my submission for XDrive Photo Lesson 13 – Raw vs Jpg.

As I said in my previous post, nowadays I only shoot in raw, but for this lesson, I shoot in raw and jpg. In other words when I click, two images will be recorded by the camera: one in raw, and one in jpg.

I guess many of my readers are shooting in jpg. In my post for lesson 12, even though I didn’t spell it out, I was trying to show that shooting in jpg is quite all right. I believe when Raj encouraged us to shoot in raw, he meant if we are “serious” in photographing. Not everyone is serious in photographing even though almost all of us are serious in catching moments. I wasn’t serious until two years ago.

I have two confessions: (1) I have several 20×30 photos hanging in our family room, and they were shot with a point-and-shoot camera and they were shooting in jpg. They don’t look like professional photos (I didn’t know Photoshop at the time), but they never fail to bring a smile to my face because they remind me of the good time our family had in Ireland. (2) When I first started using a DSLR, I shot in both raw and jpg; I always edited the raw photo. Many times after I had completed editing, I found out that the jpg my camera had created looked better than mine. I didn’t zoom-in to check all the details, but I liked what I saw.

With that said, moving forward… now that I am more serious in photographing, I enjoy Raj’s lessons a lot. In this lesson, he showed us, with examples, the difference between shooting in raw and jpg. I encourage you to read the lesson.

Raj was focusing on over/under exposed photos in his lesson. I like to start with a normal, neither over nor under exposed photo. In Raj’s comment for my previous post, he said, “In general, a nicely exposed picture would not show so much of difference with raw vs jpg.”

A Not Over and Not Under Exposed Photo
RAW original / RAW final

JPG original / JPG final

The jpg version is a little more colorful — on my PC, maybe not in WP (also seemed being cropped?). Still, I think camera did a pretty decent job in converting raw to jpg, don’t you agree? They look quite similar, if you ask me.

Over Exposed Photo
RAW original / RAW final

JPG original / JPG final

Clearly, jpg has lost more details (look at the leftmost tea tool in the cup).

Under Exposed Photo
RAW original / RAW final

JPG original / JPG final

I would like to point out that if you have to choose either under expose or over, choose under expose because you can recover the photo much better.

My conclusion? I will continue shooting in raw (because I want to ;-), but I will not hesitate shooting in jpg if I have to deliver photos quickly. (Fair, Raj?)

I learned a lot from this experiment, which, I am sure, wouldn’t happen if I am not taking Raj’s lesson. Thank you, Raj.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Posted in photo, photo and thoughts | Tagged | 30 Comments

Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge – Day 7

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Helen C

I was invited by Elizabeth at tea & paper to join the Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge. (Thanks, Elizabeth.)

Rules are
• Seven days.
• Seven black and white photos of your life.
• No people.
• No explanation.
• Challenge someone new each day.

Again, I would like to invite anyone who is interested in participating to do the challenge.

Posted in photo | Tagged | 8 Comments

Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge – Day 6

Posted on October 22, 2017 by Helen C

I was invited by Elizabeth at tea & paper to join the Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge. (Thanks, Elizabeth.)

Rules are
• Seven days.
• Seven black and white photos of your life.
• No people.
• No explanation.
• Challenge someone new each day.

For the rest days, I would like to invite anyone who is interested in participating to do the challenge.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Posted in photo | Tagged | 11 Comments

World Peace

Posted on October 21, 2017 by Helen C

World peace —
is it possible?

One day a month or two ago, there was a golf game scheduled to be shown on TV, which I knew my husband would enjoy watching. That morning, with a soft (and loving – I thought) voice, I said to my husband, “I will cook tonight, so you can watch your golf game. And I will use the meat in the refrigerator that you have defrosted.”

“No, you can’t,” he said with an upsetting tone. “Whenever you want to cook, you have to defrost the meat yourself!”

We have this problem: W likes to defrost meat 3 days ahead. Sometime our plan changed and we ended up throwing spoiled meat away. I, on the other hand, like to defrost meat 1 hour before cooking (maybe trying to defrost is more accurate.)

“You know what? It’s perfectly fine with me if you want to cook,” I said in a calm and soft voice (no longer “loving”, I am sure.)

I walked back to my room, feeling unjustifiable. Immediately, I asked myself why I wasn’t happy. I didn’t have to cook, did I?

I have been studying LamRim (Tibetan: “stages of the path”) for two years. I have learned that most of our troubles, distresses… come from how we focusing on “I”, “ME”, and “MYSELF”, like “my opinion has to be heard”, “my effort has to be recognized”, “I deserve more”… etc. LimRim says, “If we can emphasize less on “I”, “ME”, “MYSELF”, we will have a better chance to find happiness.”

I have been doing well since I started studying LimRim, feeling more peaceful, content, and compassionate. Still, when W didn’t respond the way “I” thought he should, everything I’ve learned, practiced and believed in wasn’t being reflected on how I felt or behaved at that moment. I was a little disappointed with myself.

And here I am, thinking world peace.

Word peace —
I will continue praying for it anyway.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Posted in photo and thoughts, random thoughts, Writing | 16 Comments

Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge – Day 5

Posted on October 21, 2017 by Helen C

I was invited by Elizabeth at tea & paper to join the Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge. (Thanks, Elizabeth.)

Rules are
• Seven days.
• Seven black and white photos of your life.
• No people.
• No explanation.
• Challenge someone new each day.

For the rest 3 days, I would like to invite anyone who is interested in participating to do the challenge.

Posted in photo | Tagged | 10 Comments

Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge – Day 4

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Helen C

I was invited by Elizabeth at tea & paper to join the Seven Day B&W Photo Challenge. (Thanks, Elizabeth.)

Rules are
• Seven days.
• Seven black and white photos of your life.
• No people.
• No explanation.
• Challenge someone new each day.

Today I would like to challenge Hien from Village Teacher – The Book and Photographs.

Posted in photo | Tagged | 14 Comments

XDrive Photo Lesson 12 – Shooting in Raw

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Helen C

This is my submission for XDrive Photo Lesson 12 – Shooting in Raw.

I have been shooting in raw since day one. In the beginning, I shot in both raw and jpeg; now I shoot in raw only. I always shoot in raw not because I knew all the benefits of shooting in raw, but because I was told to do so from the start and I didn’t even bother to find out why.

Now I know… thanks to Raj 😉

So, I learned… if you shoot in raw, your “editing program” (Photoshop in my case) is doing the conversion, converting the raw file to a jpeg file (or other file type so it can be displayed), and if you shoot in jpeg, a program in your camera is doing the conversion. And usually the PC editing program does a much better converting job (keeping more detail data of your photo) than the program in your camera.

I dug out an old photo. First, here is a jpeg photo that was created by photoshop. (It was shot in raw and I used Photoshop to convert it to jpeg. I didn’t do any editing, simply opened it in Photoshop and saved it to a jpeg file.)

Next is the jpeg photo that was created by my camera. (Shot in jpeg.)

It is clear to me that the first photo shows more details and better color. But, can Photoshop help me get some details/color back for the second photo?

Next photo is the same jpeg photo created by my camera after some editing work (By the way, I am not an expert in editing photos.)

Hmm… I know I want to continue shooting in raw, but there is an advantage to shoot in both raw and jpeg, isn’t there?

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Posted in photo | Tagged | 8 Comments