Miss Dainty

If you look carefully at the bottom left of this photo, there's the cute and I'd say, dainty hand, the left hand obviously hold a camera and framing a shot. I don't think she was aware that she was in my pic. I wasn't aware of this fact until much later, when I reviewed my shots. 

Have you ever wondered how in street photography, most times you might never get to know the people you've captured on your film or digital camera? This is true for me. Never been much of a conversationalist. It's like asking a duck to climb a tree. That's how I feel. 

In any case, I shall call her Miss Dainty. Yes, that will be how I'll remember her in this photograph as long as I live. 

Miss Dainty!

Pigeon on the Harp

Pigeons can fly. 

I wonder what if pigeons can play the harp!

But the harp is not the pigeon's strong suite. Never was, never will. One should never estimate a pigeon by what it can't do. 

Instead, look and behold the beautiful music of the pigeon, the solos of cooing and the soaring of wings into the clouded sky! It is never wise to measure a pigeon by what you can do. The pigeon will never measure up. For likewise, if the pigeon was to measure you by your flight ...

But I'm not really thinking of the pigeon. I'm thinking about people, human beings who foolishly measure others by their own strengths. So, cherish your strengths but don't thumb down others - they are not you. And you are not them. Celebrate the strengths, gifts and talents in others. And give thanks to God for your own strengths, gifts and talents - and put them to good use for the joy and strengthening of others!

You and me, we are pigeons!

Waiting

She's waiting. 

And just maybe there's someone else who's waiting, waiting for a girl like her, someone to love. 

The one who only looks but doesn't make the move is a chicken. Just looking out from a two-dimensional picture and not daring to enter the three-dimensional world of love and relationship.

I find my thoughts drawn to the song by Foreigner -

"I've been waiting for a girl like you, to come into my life. I've been waiting for a girl like you, a love that will survive. I've been waiting for someone new, to make me feel alive. Yeah, waiting for a girl like you, to come into my life."

Most people yearn for such a love, for such a life. They wait and wait for the right one to come along.  And when the right one comes, they are frozen in time, and wait, and wait, and wait. 

May you find true love. Stop waiting. Start living. Start loving. 

The Magic of Typing

No, I don’t mean magic in the strict sense, but the feeling of typewriting on an old typewriter.

It’s nostalgic. It brings me back in time, the sense of it rather, for no one can go back in time. It’s in the mind, and the mood.

It’s clickety-clackety loud. That makes my typewriter alive!

It’s imposing. It imposes an ordering of words on the page. It stamps the author’s authority with every click and clack of the keys. It’s something you don’t get typing on an iPad.

It’s just different. It’s unique. It’s rare.

I think it cool.

Flight

Flying is a wonderful experience. The first time is always exciting, unnerving, and memorable.

But after countless flights, both short haul and long haul, the novelty washes off, like ink in the rain. You get used to it. You take things for granted. What increased your heart rate now is just a part of travel from one city to another.

We take all too many things for granted. The very notion of flying through the air at hundreds of kilometres per hour belongs to the mental asylum a century ago. It takes so many inventions and innovations, all assembled logically and precisely to become an airplane. It is mastery of technology of the highest order.

Flight. I took my first flight when I was twelve. Yes, it was magical then. And yes, right now, I’m grateful for the tremendous value of flight.

Amazing.

Contrasts

I have a love for strong colours and contrasts.

This I knew from the day I learned drawing and painting more than two decades ago. Since then the paint brushes have laid silent.

I grew up.

But I never lost the love for contrasts in art and in pictures. It was as recent as two months ago that I took a child-like delight for black and white photography. And with that, came the surge and the urge to take photos in this medium.

As I blog on, I'll be posting originals, photographs that feels special and meaningful to me, and I hope  that you will enjoy the experience too. This blog is a combination of my love for pictures and words.

Life is short. Take time to enjoy and reflect on the meaning of life. This is my journey.