Today I read this book “The World’s Top Photographers and the stories behind their greatest image - Landscape”. It’s a book that I requested from the library. WOW, what an extremely great book! I saw some of the coolest, prettiest landscape photographs I’ve ever seen. It’s a book with photographers from 38 of world’s top landscape photographers. I actually read through every single page of the book (which is quite rare) as there was so much to see. Each photo is paired with a description from the actual photographer, about where and how the photograph was taken. I felt like I’ve learned a LOT reading them. I realized that timing is very important, with sunrise/sunset being the best time for photo taking - almost 80-90% of all the shots in the book were taken either during dawn or dusk! Also a lot of the coolest pictures were taken before/after a storm or heavy rainfall, where the waves and cloud formation were in the most interesting forms.

Some of the photographs I liked the most are from these pros: Michael Frye, Yousef Khanfar, Colin Prior, John Shephard, Michael Fatali. Putting the links to their sites here for future reference.

I also saw quite a few pictures that was taken in the national parks in Utah and Arizona where I’ve also been to - I guess I have no choice but to revisit these parks sometime in the future, to capture whatever that I missed during my last visit..! Apart from Utah, some of the places that I must go sooner or later are: Yosemite National Park (beautiful mountains/waters everywhere), Yellowstone National Park (to see the colorful geysers, and the White Dome Geyser which erupts every 15 min!), Mono Lake in California (very interesting stone formation in the lake), Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (to see the crazy lava flows next to the shoreline), and Deadvlei in Namibia (dead trees thousand years old standing in a white desert).

Recently I’ve acquired the Cokin filter adapter, two Hi-Tech ND Gradual filters, and s Hi-Tech Star 4 filter from 2filters.com (They’re quite pricey, whole package came to about $200 USD). Actually not until very recently did I get to read about these ND gradual filters and their usages. They turned out to be the missing piece of my photography puzzle! I’ve always been wondering how people take these amazing “surreal” kind of landscape/waterscape pictures and these filters turned out to be the thing that make it all possible. They basically work by darkening the sky (without darkening the ground) so that longer exposure can be used during daytime. So far I’ve tested them out twice, with pretty good result. I’m very stoked about owning them and I’ll make sure to keep them handy wherever I go…

Today I went to the Iona Beach in Richmond to try out the filter with Wendy. I figured that the best time to make the best use of the filters is at around 9:30pm which is about 10 minutes after the sun has fully gone down. The 1.2 ND filter gave me the best result, as it gets darker, the 0.6 ND filter will do the trick.

Did a lot these few days, not sure where to start…I went to Alice’s place to BBQ and I had some best lamp chop I’ve ever eaten, and some really tasty grilled portobello. I sold my Canon SD1000 digicam for $100. I bought a camera bag at London Drugs for my new Panasonic ZS3 digicam, the same bag that I bought for the SD1000 but a bigger version of it since I like how it has a clip at the back and also the magnetic cover. I finished the last demo for my client today, no more demos at least in this month! I bought two SLR cameras and two Olympus OM lenses (did I already talk about it in my last post?) and they were delivered today but I’ll have to drive to Point Roberts to pick them up, maybe tomorrow. I installed a flower basket at the window of the basement and planted some really cool flowers there…

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms / ???? ??? was a war drama shown in Japan in 2007. I usually don’t watch war/history movies and I almost stopped watching at about 10 minutes in when I realized the film was about some war history, I was glad that I didn’t. It wasn’t subbed so it was a great opportunity for me to try to understand the story listening to pure Japanese.

There are two parts to the story. Part one began with a 22-23 year-old girl Minami (performed by Kumiko Maso / ?????) who was a victim of the Hiroshima atomic bomb incident in year 1945. She had scars on her arm from the fire at the incident. The story talked about how Minami lost her younger sister and her father in the incident, and her post-war life living with her mother and younger brother, Asahi. Minami got sick for no reason and had been coughing blood. She died from radiation poisoning (just my guess) at 26. Coping with the tragedy, her brother continued to live and get married with a girl who was living in the same village as he did.

Part two of the story began with Nanami (performed by Rena Tanaka / ????), the daughter of Asahi (Minami’s younger brother), one day realized that her father was acting strange at home and left home without saying a word, so she followed him out secretly. Her father ended up taking a bus to Hiroshima (from Tokyo where they lived) and Nanami followed him onto the bus. At Hiroshima, Nanami saw her father meeting with a couple old people, going to his older sister’s (Minami) tomb, and revisiting the area where it used to be the village he lived in. Nanami there learned about his father’s past and the story behind her hair pin, which was worn by Minami before. Nanami also recalled how her mother died on the floor while she was couging out blood, and she wondered if she would end up having the same fate as her mother - as a post-war victim that was highly susceptable to death by radiation poisoning.

The movie was very beautifully sculpted, with great settings, scenery, and most importantly the great symphonic soundtrack. I liked how they talked in I believe Hiroshima dialect in the old days. It made it 3 times more difficult for me to understand but I felt great when I seemed to understand most of what they said. The story-telling was awesome, like since there were different time periods involved, flash backs were used to introduce different time frames, mood and colors were also used pretty effectively such that you wouldn’t be confused what setting the current scene was in. Some people may get bored watching this movie I would think, even though I truely enjoyed it (thus bothered to write this review). I liked it and in my opinion it is a highly recommended!

To close up here’s a synopsis from nhatkyviet.com:

Adapted from Kono Fumiyo’s award-winning manga, Yunagi no Machi Sakura no Kuni (a.k.a. Yunagi City, Sakura Country) is the story of two young women living in different times, and the unforgettable historical memory that connects them. Director Sasabe Kiyoshi follows up his WWII drama Sea Without Exit with a sensitive portrayal of postwar life under the shadow of the war experience and the atomic bomb. Divided into two sections - “Town of Evening Calm” and “Country of Cherry Blossom” - the film alternates between 1955 Hiroshima and the present-day with Tanaka Rena (Waiting in the Dark) and Hochi Film Award Best Actress Aso Kumiko (Kairo) in the leading roles.

Atomic bomb survivor Hirano Minami (Aso Kumiko) knows all too well life’s bitter brevity. She lost her father and sisters to the bomb and radiation poisoning, and has not seen her brother since he was evacuated years ago. She takes hesitant steps toward first love with her coworker (Yoshizawa Yu, Night of the Shooting Stars), but happiness and normalcy are elusive in the atmosphere of postwar Hiroshima. Decades later, Ishikawa Nanami (Tanaka Rena) travels to Hiroshima to find out the reason by her father’s frequent mysterious trips to the city. There she slowly retraces the story of a young woman whose life has affected hers in more ways than she realized.

Just finished watching this amazing drama. It was extremely touching! One of the reasons I watched it was because Han Ga In XD. The plot reflects our daily life situation, and also the value of morality of the South Korean culture. Parents should try their best to listen to their children and should not force them upon their own decisions. Childrens should listen to and respect their parents. Husband and wife should respect, comfort, understand each other especially in the time of despair, fear, grief, and sadness. They should forgive past mistakes & unhappy memories. The drama is superb, I highly recommend anyone watching it despite it is a bit long (70 episodes).

Below is an in-depth synopsis extracted from www.spcnet.tv :

This drama shows how devastating and hurtful it can be for a woman to live with a boyfriend before marriage and not end up tying a knot with him. Korea has the second highest divorce rate in the world as more and more families become ruined — mainly because one of the spouses cheats. To make things worse, the mass media continues to champion premarital cohabitation as a choice that unmarried couples are free to make. Terms of Endearment depicts today’s harsh reality and once again reminds us of the sacred meaning of marriage and the importance of family.

Casting

Chae Si-ra Date of birth: June 25, 1968Starred in: Terms Of Endearment (KBS, 2004) The King And The Queen (KBS, 1998) The Neon Sunset (1995) Keum-pa’s married life is quite enviable on the surface: her husband is a lawyer, and they have a child. But in reality, she is one of the unhappiest women. Her husband cheats on her with his female coworker, and Keum-pa doesn’t have courage to divorce him even though she knows about her husband’s betrayal. One day, she runs into her elementary school boyfriend, her first love, through online chatting. The two become close, and Keum-pa even finds spiritual consolation in him. But eventually Keum-pa’s husband learns about their precarious relationship, and Keum-pa ends up divorcing her husband.   Lee Jong-won Love an Ambition Eun-pa is a protagonist of a tragic life. Since childhood, she has been treated coldly by her mother, who always compared her with her older sisters. While in college, Eun-pa falls in love with Jun-sung, who was very popular with girls. Eventually, Jun-sung moves in with Eun-pa, who lies to her mother that she will live with one of her college friends. Although she is scared that her family may find out that she is living with a boyfriend, Eun-pa’s firmly believes that Jun-sung will marry her one day, and does her best to become a caring girlfriend to him.   Han Ka-in Date of birth: February 2, 1982Starred in: Terms Of Endearment (KBS, 2004) Yellow Handkerchief (KBS, 2003) Maljuk School (movie) (2003)Awards: Best New Actress (KBS Drama Awards, 2003) Eun-pa is a protagonist of a tragic life. Since childhood, she has been treated coldly by her mother, who always compared her with her older sisters. While in college, Eun-pa falls in love with Jun-sung, who was very popular with girls. Eventually, Jun-sung moves in with Eun-pa, who lies to her mother that she will live with one of her college friends. Although she is scared that her family may find out that she is living with a boyfriend, Eun-pa’s firmly believes that Jun-sung will marry her one day, and does her best to become a caring girlfriend to him.   Ji Sung Whistling Princess(2002) Yun-taek once dreamed of becoming an ethics teacher. He had to take a leave from college because he didn’t have money, and went to the army. He is vibrant and witty, and has a good sense of humor, but on the other hand he is also very prudent, gentle and warm-hearted. As soon as he becomes discharged from the army, he embarks on looking for Eun-pa, his first love, but to no avail. One day, he suddenly meets Eun-pa at a nightclub where he works as a waiter in order to earn money and go back to college.

Have been watching this Korean drama “Gung” (? in Chinese, ? in Korean) these days. Starred by Yun Eun Hea (??? / ???) as the “princess”, Joo Ji Hoon (??? / ???) as the “prince”, and Kim Jeong Hoon (??? / ???) as the “2nd prince”. Yun Eun Hea looks pretty cute overall IMO but not as cute as some other Korean stars like Han Ga In (??? / ???) and Han Chae Young (??? / ???)

Anyway, the story was based on a manga with the same name “Gung”, about a love story happened among couple youngsters under an emperorial monarchy. The prince’s grandfather had promised in his testament that the prince will be married with this girl whose father had helped him a lot when he was alive, so the royal staff started searching for this girl. The girl is born in a poor family. Being in financial hardship, one day she suddenly received a letter from the royal palace about the fact that she has been appointed to be married to the prince. In order to help her parents out to pay off debts…etc she accepted the offer and started her life in the palace. The prince apparently does not like the girl but they had to get married anyway because it was his grandfather’s request in the testament and due to the rules they must carry out the deed. There is this other girl that the prince liked, but the girl refused his proposal. So not too long after when she heard the news of that the prince getting married to this other girl she started to regret / jealous. There you go, this love triangle started to develop when the prince started liking this girl from the poor family instead of the girl he’s been after for a long time.

Now I’m on the 5th episode out of 24, pretty interesting and enjoyable so far, I think I will keep watching.

Have been watching these Japanese drama everyday since half a year ago but it’s been a really long time since I last watched any Korean ones. Lately I downloaded a couple new Korean dramas and I think I’ve started developing this uncontrollable craving for them… Usually I get addicted to nice dramas really quickly and oh my god it’s happening again…! This Korean drama “????” (or “????” in Chinese, “Witch Yoo-Hee” in English) really rocks! Needless to say it’s got some really pretty faces in it, like the main girl ???(???) has this really cute /attractive face, and this other guy in the movie Dennis Oh(???·?) was even named the coolest looking guy in the Korean history (yea man he IS handsome)!

The story’s about this poor guy riding on a bike rear-ended this girl’s BMW, and how the girl wouldn’t let go unless he pays her $40,000,000 (Korean $) for fixing up the car. The poor guy of course has no way of paying that off so the girl asks him to be her “household assistant” which basically means being a slave and he has to obey to her orders like doing chores, groceries…etc. You might have already guessed, as they started living with each other they get closer and eventually developed into an relationship. It is fun to watch, as the girl has a really bitchy, cocky temper (that’s where the title of the movie come from) and her co-workers all call her “the witch” in her back. It’s so fun to see how the girl harasses the guy telling him to do all sorts of fun stuff, and eventually falling for him.

This drama is highly recommended, in fact I’ve watched only up to the 6th episode and of course I got to go now for more!