A gift

Life has been pretty interesting recently, and I have had a couple people tell me to update my blog, so I guess today is as good a day as any.

I always like February 29th. It feels like a special day, and extra day given as a gift for us to do stuff we normally wouldn't be able to fit in to a normal February. Or something like that. But today was a pretty awesome day, many things went more smoothly than normal, a few surprised arose, and in general I was happier than usual. I guess any reason to be happy is a good one.

I've been looking towards the future a lot recently, trying to figure out what to do in the next couple years of my life. Options include graduating early and either traveling, studying abroad, or getting a job. Or I might stay in school for another 2 years, try to get a master's degree, and hopefully not get too much more in debt. Whatever I choose, I'm kinda looking forward to it, life seems pretty good right about now, and I have so many options in front of me. I'm sure I'll have an exciting few years.

So I'm a little ashamed to say it, but I haven't taken a picture in the past month, and hardly any in the past two months. No time, and little inspiration. I need to fix that. Hopefully by next time I'll have taken many more. In the absence of a personal photo, here's one from on of my favorite websites, onebigphoto.com. All the pictures are incredible. I think I may have become satisfied enough just from looking at these, that I don't feel the need to take any more. Anyway, here's one good one of many from the site - I can't embed it directly, so the link will have to suffice.

http://onebigphoto.com/sun-setting-over-the-pacific-ocean/

Enjoy!

Just listen

I guess I've been slacking a lot recently. I've been busy with projects and midterms and other assignments for my classes, along with working my two jobs and attempting to continue other aspects of my life as I used to. It's fun.

One of my favorite things to do (partially because I rarely have the time to do it) is to listen to music, without doing anything else. To just sit there, close my eyes, block out the world and any responsibilities I have, and to just listen. Over the years I've found some pretty good music, and a lot of it, I feel, was meant to be listened to in that way. And it's gotta be the whole album, from start to finish. I like a lot of music, but my favorites are the artists who write albums as a whole, not just a compilation of songs. Tool, The Mars Volta, Dredg, Radiohead, Porcupine Tree, and my most recently favorite The Dear Hunter. They recently release a compliation of 9 EPs title The Color Spectrum. Each EP presents a color (Black, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue Indigo, Violet, White) and does a fantastic job at inspecting and displaying emotions very well befitting each color. If you have two and a half hours, take a listen, it's well worth it.

Here are some recent shots taken on a trip to Yosemite.

Gotta love those autumn colors

Half dome - an incredible location for hiking (as I did this past summer), photographing, or climbing (as can be seen by the light on the face of the dome)

Yosemite is one of those places that I'll keep coming back to. It's worth it. It's one of those places everyone needs to see once in their lives. I have a big list of those places, and too many of them I haven't seen yet. I guess that means I have a lot to look forward to, right?

What do you do when the biggest thing holding you back is knowing that you'll disappoint yourself?

I know, just do it. What's the worst that could happen. I try. But still, sometimes, it paralyzes me.

Just a thought.

student

Maybe it's because I've surrounded myself by my prints tonight, but I feel like a better photography student than an engineering student. I love both, and all my engineering classes are really interesting and intriguing, but recently my photography has been making me happier than school. I guess there are obvious reasons for that  - I only have homework from the engineering side of things, among other things. And especially since I've started developing more of my black and white prints, I've started to become addicted to it. I love the whole process, using an old, completely manual OM-1, developing film and enlarging prints - it makes me feel like a real photographer. I love the tactile feel of the darkroom, it's incredible. My 6-week beginners class is ending next week, but I realized tonight that I want to keep shooting film, for at least a while. It's fun, and I feel like it takes more practice than pointing and shooting, so it's kind of like a challenge for me. I might take another class, but regardless, I'm gonna keep shooting and developing.

I shot my first wedding a little while ago - what an experience! It was incredibly tiring, but extremely fulfilling and fun. I definitely want to do more in the future, so I'm glad I had this one as practice - it was unpaid and for a friend, but I still felt like I approached it relatively professionally. A good start. I got a bunch of pictures I'm happy with, but the 3rd one here might be my favorite. There's something about kids, I love capturing their untainted innocence and joy, it makes the world seem like a much brighter place.

Over the past few weeks I've come to a realization: I love almost every aspect of my life. I say almost because not everything is where or how I want it to be, but when I look at what I have in my life, it's pretty ridiculous. I'm studying at a great school, taking really interesting (for the most part) classes, fun extra-curriculars and other activities, great people to spend my time with. I still find time to go backpacking, play cello and ping pong, and do other little things that make me happy. I keep finding new music that just clicks with me, and I'm pretty consistent with my photography. Oh, and I'm still eating vegetarian and swimming 3 times a week. So far so good. I guess you could say I'm pretty grateful to be where I am right now, and wouldn't have it any other way.

Looking toward the future, I've been looking at the possibility of studying abroad next year. It definitely seems like a possibility, and I really want to travel. Yet the more I look at programs, the more I feel like they are mostly too structured for me. Today while listening to an employee from BP try to convince some mechanical engineers to apply for a job at their program I had an idea that kinda clicked with me. Playing off of a study abroad program where you do stay with a family and help teach them english part time rather than go to school, I thought I could do something like that, but on my own and bypass the many thousands of dollars that such programs ask for.

What I want to do, and something that I see as semi-possible sometime in the future, is to travel around different countries, staying with families for a couple weeks at a time. I would spend time with them, teach conversational English if desired, and work on capturing the culture of their family, city, and country with my camera. I would move from place to place, making new friends, just living and learning and shooting. It seems kinda idealistic right now, and maybe not that possible, but it feels like the thing that I want to do most right now. Too bad I still have plenty of school left. Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to have an experience somewhat like this one day, it seems kinda fun.

During a recently backpacking trip in Stanislaus National Forest, I spent some time with my fellow hikers doing some light painting. We got a little more into it than usual - here are a couple samples:

And then I tried to do some longer shots, but it got too cold and there was too much condensation on my camera to continue, but I got this 12-minute shot out before it got too bad:

(just a side note, I didn't edit any of these, they're straight from the camera as is) 

back to the beginning

Today I had my first day of a black and white film developing class. As much experience and practice I've had with photography, almost all of it has been digital, and so for a while I've wanted to learn how to work in a darkroom with film. The class is through an art studio on campus, not part of any curriculum. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, using the enlargers and learning about developer, stop, fix, etc. I'd recommend a class like this for anyone who is into photography, it gives you different perspective to editing pictures, rather than with Adobe Lightroom. (I just noticed the play on words there...)

Anyway, I've been ridiculously busy recently. I probably don't have time to write this post, but what the hell. I've learned that I need to keep doing things that I like doing, rather than the things that I "need" to do. It helps with the stress levels and general happiness. So even though I have plenty of work to do, I've been trying to take time to practice cello, process my pictures, and other small things.

Here's one of the few black and white pictures I have (originally color with my DSLR)

another summer day in Berkeley, Ca

So it was cold and foggy today, and I'm sick, so it almost feels like wintertime, except no presents.