Posts Tagged Kids
China
So I spent 2 weeks in Beijing, Shanghai, Macao and Hong-Kong.
I spent another week trying to sort out the 1500 pictures and select the ones I want to post here. I came up with 10 I felt like sharing here. Here they are:
Part of my legs hanging over part of the great wall. It was freezing cold (I’m not that accustomed to snow anymore) but the clear sky offered good visibility. I visited the wall a day before they closed it down for Obama, so I didn’t miss out on one of the world’s great wonders. Following is a picture of a woman selling whatever in the Summer Palace:
From Beijing I continued to Shanghai where I met up with a friend. Slightly warmer there, but the visibility was terrible. Foggy sky throughout my stay there. Above is the best I managed to produce of the river side view that no Shanghai picture collection would be complete without. Below, a photo of a man practicing his symbols on the park’s path using water, slowly fading away:
Here we have a photo of a small alley (above) and a kid (below, even though I’m stating the obvious here), just before he offered me the gummy snake he is holding:
For the next 3 photos, I remembered to try and play a bit with some long exposure. Since I didn’t quite carry a tripod with me, I tried to place the camera each time on a table, garbage bin or anything somewhat stable and hold it steady while I take the 2 second photo. The results are actually not that bad. So here we have a Shanghai major street, the Venetian Hotel in Macao and Hong Kong’s river side view, just before the light show (which was very boring and hardly worth the wait actually) started:
I’ll conclude with another mandatory picture of Hong Kong from the Peak:
All in all, this has been an amazing vacation. This is my first visit to China. And I know I’ve only seen it’s (amazing) urban side, missing out on many things this place has to offer, but I’ve experienced a new culture – and quite liked it.
Lastly, I will use this opportunity to introduce Lucille 2 (not sure of the name yet…), my brand new Canon 50D. She was purchased on my final day in Hong Kong, so actually you still can’t see any photos taken with her. But I promise good things will be arriving soon…
Back to basics…
We finished the photo course. One of the graduates is also a skipper in his spare time, and he invited us all to a yacht sail out to sea last Saturday. Cool!
Yacht 1
Now I know I have the oldest and least capable camera compared to the others. Sure, I love my Lucille, but holding a better camera in my hands makes me want more. I also knew that everybody will bring their camera to the sail. Now was my chance to be special once more. I decided to leave Lucille at home and take my old Olympus camera with it’s underwater casing. The casing that cost me as much as the old camera did, and is the reason why I don’t throw the 3MP camera away. I wanted to take photos from the watery side of the yacht. Because I can 
Yacht 2
First thing I noticed is that the camera operated slow. Real slow. Slower than it did several years ago? Probably not. But I got used to something better, and going back is hard (which again supported my “don’t touch a new camera unless you’re buying it or you’ll regret it!”). Second thing I noticed is that just like riding a bike, I remembered all the buttons, locations, and little things about the camera (which tells me that I still don’t know Lucille as good as I should).
Yacht 3
The sail was great. Good people, good food and good alcohol make a winning combination. And the course? Really glad I took it. Now I need to see how I take this up to a higher level. My guess is I should mainly practice, practice, practice. But by judging how many photos I took recently (I can see by the time passed since my last post) I should start listening to myself and just go out with a camera in my hand, and see what comes out.
Kids in marina
Two weeks later…
Well, these last couple of weeks were hectic. Moving an apartment wasn’t simple, but it’s almost over (except for some final loose ends) and it’s proving to be a very enjoyable move.
So I didn’t have much photography time, except for a short trip up north. Most of the photos there have much more sentimental value in them than artistic value. But still, I would like to share these with you:
The first photo reminds me that I still need to acquire an external flash and/or large aperture lens. But stuff for the new apartment are in a higher priority. Well, I mean, for now at least… Again, sorry about the harsh flash
The second photo is a complete contrast to the first one. This is one of many of this amazing girl, but the only one where baby Ayala looked right at me. Most kids who see a camera know to look up and smile. She’s still not at that stage, and that makes this picture very special for me:
What a week…
Okay. So I picked up Lucille last Friday. How can I sum up the past 8 days?
 Efrat |
 Ayala |
Well, except for working, sleeping, eating and doing things I usually do, I took a pile of photos. A BIG pile of photos. Some were discarded on first sight. Most of them now gave me a hard time in selecting the elite, the chosen few, which will appear in this post. But basically I’m trying to figure out why the hell didn’t I buy a DSLR sooner?
 Efrat and Ayala |
 Hoopoe |
The camera is fast. Time from switching from “Off” to “On” until taking the first picture is instantaneous. I can take many consecutive photos in a quick burst – allowing me to “capture the moment” rather than waiting for the precise second, and potentially missing it by a milli-second. I know, it’s lazy of my behalf in some way, but if it helps achieve the desired result – I can’t really complain. In addition, image quality is amazing. Camera handles high ISOs very well and allows me to take photos at lighting conditions which proved to be impossible without a flash until now. Besides, I look very professional when I’m swapping the lens…
 White heron on deck |
 Dog on deck |
I took Lucille with me everywhere I went. The photos here are my favourites (out of 654 photos of the last 8 days). Picking them was not an easy task, to say the least. But these photos are the ones I like best for their technical parameters: image quality, exposure, DOF, successful use of white balance (most of the time). Even more than that, I like many of these photos for their sentimental values. Looking at them makes me happy. Because in the end, it’s nice to have fame and glory for outstanding photographs, but it’s nicer to re-live all the fine moments in your life. This is something I’m pleased to have remembered this past week.
 Playback show |
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 Yarkon bridge |
So I’ll stop before this will get unbearable for whoever reads this. Don’t worry, I’m still looking for my perfect photo. But I am thankful for my new camera in helping me get a step closer in the right direction.