Europe Trip

Musee du Louvre, Paris

Seeing many people vacationing in Europe these few weeks made me miss our Europe vacation 2 years ago.  I want to go back again.  

Grand place, Brussels, Belgium

Amsterdam Canals at night, Netherlands

Zaanse Schans windmills, Netherlands

Backup process

My photos and backing up process have gone out of control since my baby arrived. I took tons of frames to make one picture perfect. Most of the time, I didn't get a chance to cull through all of those.

Now that it's time to back up, there are lots of un-culled photos to sort out. I was going though the old photos to delete as much as I can to sort out. I found it very hard to delete anything, even for almost identical photos with just a twitch of baby's mouth different. It's all because those little baby faces are gone now. I'm having a hard time to let go of unfocused ones just because her expression was slightly different from other similar 20 pictures of the same pose. Ahhh. So difficult. Being sentimental makes my job harder.

Lies

Pinterest lies. Facebook lies. People on Facebook lie. Photographers lie. And I lie.

This post is for my dear friend, Ivy, who had been planning cake smash photoshoot for her 1 year old since the baby was like 6months. We failed. Baby was totally not into the cake, and we were like "Christopher, smash the cake, smash the cake! Dig in! Yum Yum". Nope. He just didn't want anything to do with the cake. All the cake smash photos look so good in the pictures. All babies look like they are having a ton of fun, smashing those pretty cute cakes. In reality, they might not be having as much fun as we thought.  I figure maybe it's us grown-ups who would love to smash the cake and make a mess and think it's fun. As babies, they are already making a mess out of everything anyway; sand, water, food, etc etc. Cake? More of the same. At the end of the photoshoot, cake was intact, but baby had lots of tears.

Baby had an early morning, and he was tired and cranky already.

Many of my friends said I have the best family photos, looking so fun and natural etc etc. In reality, I spent hours and hours for many days to make one "perfect" photo. And as a perfectionist, I'll try it again and again till I get it close enough.

People have fun, babies have fun. We are a fun family. But not necessarily when the pictures are being taken. It's stressful to be in front of the camera, and to make good photos. There are lots of faking and acting involved. I assume fun cake smash photos on Pinterest would be of the same. Are they really having fun smashing the cake?  All in all, who needs to know? It's all behind the scene, right?

It's not what we envisioned. But I hope when we look at these photos a few years from now, it will give us a few laughs of how things evolve on their own when it comes to kids. And that it was a reality.

Seattle trip again

This time we really stayed in Seattle for two nights. Our last trip to Seattle a few years ago was  actually a stop-over to Vancouver, so I didn't get to see Seattle much.

For foodies:
Lowell's in pike place market has "the best breakfast in town".

Coming full circle

This is my first photography family coming back, with another baby!  They were my first guinea pigs 3 years ago when I just started thinking about doing photography business. And look where we are all at almost 3 years later. They have a new baby, I have launched my photography business and gone through many clients, and I have my own baby. It only makes sense that I'm reflecting on my photography journey after hearing from the mom, asking me to take photos of her new baby. In honor of upcoming thanksgiving, I'm thankful for this family.

home-made baby food

This is my baby's food at the moment; frozen pureed vegetables; purple yam, carrots, yellow/red lentils are frozen. Avocado and bananas are no-brainer, ready to eat any-time, anywhere in already pureed form. Sorry, there is no green in the picture because we finished them. Asparagus, collard greens etc.

This book 'The amazing make-ahead baby food book' I borrowed from library inspired me to make these frozen pureed foods. I picked it up just because the beautiful food pictures in the book caught my attention. I love this book. I'm not reading it at all. I just flipped it now and then when I ran out of ideas for what to feed my baby.

If you are not into food and cooking like me, don't read the book in all details. It has some serious weekly meal planning and recipes and stuff that stress me out. I just looked at food photos to get the idea. :D

I was all pro-table-food because I started feeding her because our pediatrician made it sound so simple and easy. "You just over-boil an asparagus, she will pick it up and eat it herself. No need to puree, no spoon-feeding etc". Well, I tried so hard to make that asparagus work. And carrot. Finally feeding puree is easier and quicker for now. And I can't boil asparagus every time I need to feed her. So taking the inspiration from the book, I (actually my mom) made lots of puree and freeze them. Before each meal time, just microwave a few cubes. Easy peasy.

Revamp

I need to revamp my personal photography. Things have changed after my baby. Luckily, my dedicated dear clients kept me on my toes with baby photography, and made sure I kept up with my photography business.
On personal photography, I haven't taken out my camera since the baby arrived. Wait wait. I haven't taken myself and the baby out much, let alone with the big-girl camera with us too.

Waimea Canyon outlook

Even on our last trip to Kauai, Hawaii, I ended up taking most of the photos with my iPhone rather than my big camera :-(  I definitely miss my big camera, but with my hands so full with the baby, it's too much to handle. 

Now that I think about it, I miss it. I miss good pictures from my big camera. iPhone can only go so far. :-(  

Before Kauai trip, I didn't even think hard on which lens to bring along. I just grab my camera bag with portrait lens I use for client shoots. Guess what, I miss all those good shots of Waimea canyon, and all scenic lookouts because my portrait lens is just not wide enough obviously. I kept blaming myself for how careless I was! I  gave it a couple seconds of thought though, but it was too difficult to think, so I just winged it. LOL. And got just a handful of photos on it.

Cave on north side of Kauai

Poipu, Kauai

So, I'll try to keep up with my blog again.

The incredible India

I'm feeling nostalgic, and missing our travel days. So I'm doing a spring cleaning of my travel photos.

First, India!!  India is in one word, LOUD. In baby terminology, it's over-stimulating all the time, even when you are asleep. Yes, I meant it. Our first night in Old Delhi, we had to sleep over constant honks and street chatter throughout the whole night!  

Mathura, our most "memorable" time in India, because of the rough experience

A former Haveli (mansion) in the middle of Old Delhi. A chaos now, but yes, people still live there.  

Spice Bazaar. Bags of chili is not new to me. It was my parents' and grandparents business after all, so I grew up seeing similar scene. But there are LOTS of spice in spice bazaar. 

This is one of the reasons why many people asked us 'why would you want to travel to India?'

Our hotel. It is a Haveli (mansion). The owners still live in some part of this mansion. It's their home still.  

Hyderabad, near Charminar bazaar

Southern India (Kerela) is tropic and very lush

After our independent travel to India just by the two of us, my husband and me, we consider ourselves graduated in traveling experience. Nothing scared us anymore for any other trips since then. 

Overall, it's a hell of an experience. But we love India. Will definitely go back there some day.