June Monsoon

It rains for weeks on end every June in Shanghai and yet I still forget. Everything gets humid and water logged, clothes don't dry, dry clothes seem wet...but the rain generally keeps the temperature below 80F so I choose not to complain. The following are not my best pics but they are completely indicative of the past month (even though I took them all on the same day).

Night Portraits

It's the beautiful early days of summer here when heat and humidity give way to breezy cool days interchanged with rain. Chinese men walk around with their shirts folded up over their chests to cool off their bellies, people start eating and sleeping outside, and everything feels sticky. We took these pictures on one such evening.

 

Panning

Oh I've taken so many pictures since last I posted; however, I have hardly edited a one of them. Ai ya. My return to the motherland is fast approaching and I'm trying to soak up as much of my adopted (maybe that's a strong word) country as I can. So here is a picture I meant to post a long time ago from my trip to Nanjing  (yes that long ago).

I read about panning shots right before my trip. Panning is when you follow a moving object with your camera creating a blurry background but (hopefully) preserving the moving object, mostly in focus. My first picture is below and let me tell you, this is one gratifying camera trick.

The Burning House

Luca Cavallaro. I like that his baby is in the picture.

I came across a fascinating blog yesterday called The Burning House. A bunch of people submitted a list and photo of the things they would take with them if their house was on fire. Almost all of them have a camera and at least one Apple product (as you can see from their stuff they're all artsy types).

It's an interesting concept and although somewhat less artsy, it reminds me of the rom-com Leap Year in which the main character realizes if her house was burning she wouldn't want anything in it. Anyway, what would you take with you?

I'd take a pair of socks my grandmother knit me, my Bible (the one with the notes in it), my ideas book that I've been working on for 4 years, little bag o' jewelry--none of it expensive but collected piece by piece, my computer cause they're so expensive to replace and my pictures on it (in a pinch I'd just bring my external hard drive where it's all backed up, probably a camera, and if I was in America the quilt my mom and grandmother made for me.