Good news, I got the photo editor position in Ubyssey news paper. After all, this is the thing that makes me proud of myself.
I can't believe that it's already the end of March. April is coming.
final exams, moving, travelling, birthday, concert...Vancouver, Calgary, London.....ennn.........what a tempting month.
I was editing my photos from these days while Trista worked on her presentation. Click here to join our journey in Canmore, Banff and Lake Louis.
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Trista likes this one more than others : ) So, enjoy!
Today's weather is pretty good in Calgary. We walked along the 17th Ave in the downtown area. It's a lovely street filled with fashion stores, Greek restaurants and pubs.
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By chance, we saw a small pub which had this Saturday special of PEI mussel for only $4.99. We entered and ordered a cup of beer to share, an order of mussel in the garlic and white wine souse and a pound of BBQ chicken wings. It's fantastic!
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Somehow, I like Calgary more and more!
However, 20 minutes before landing, when I woke up from my dream, I was shocked by the scene outside the window. Land was still covered by snow. You could barely see a green tree..... No matter what, here I come, Calgary!
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Trista picked me up from the airport with her lovely volvo s70. It's damn cold and windy here. Streets, cars and buildings in Calgary were not as clean as in Vancouver. They were all covered by snow and dust.
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Maybe people couldn't get used of all this at very first moment. However, after frew hours driving, my feeling changed. To an extent, I felt cars looked great when they were covered by the dust. They were wild and natural. Civic or BMW, no matter what they are, they all looked same.
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Calgary is a city in the RAW format, which you have to spend some time to taste its true color. It's a city where you could see more Subaru than Civic. It's different from Vancouver, very different. Somehow, I like the difference.
Tomorrow, we will drive into Rocky Mt. and have fun with these snow mountains. Let's get back to mother nature.
Since I finished my ECON paper earlier than I thought, I had some time walking on the street in this lovely weather. Trista's sony P7 was with me and I got chance to shoot some street scene. This is the skytrain station in downtown.
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An unknown lady read her book beside the wall. I like this picture but Trista doesn't like it at all. #_#!!
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These are the stuffs that I carried everyday lately. A Seiko watch, a cd player, a wonderful book by Jack Kerouac and cds from Madeleine Peyroux. The "I love my penis" is a box of fruit chewing gum I bought from Vrigins.
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I like sunny day, walking on the street with a cup of coffee while listening the music I love, watching all kinds of people and shooting the interesting scene. Nothing could be more comfortable. Thinking about the days in Calgary with Trista, I know it will be sweet. Plus I can't wait for the end of April, when I could go to London with her. For sure, I will hold her hand, walking in this lovely little area, called Notting Hill.
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Why proud? Shouldn't I? I self-learning photogrpahy from Jan. 2004 and tried really hard. Reading books and all kind of articles, practicing and practicing. I shoot over 18,000 pictures in one year. And now, I could see the result of all my effort. My efford in an area which was totally new and unfarmiliar to me.
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The interview was at the top floor in the SUB. We had free food and drinks. Each candidate need to sit in the center of the round table. Beside answer 4 standars questions, you need answer all kinds of questions from different staffs and your editor.
Nic( the photo editor), Ania ( the culture editor), Eric (the sports editor) and Dan ( the news editor).
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Well, Nic gave me 11+ questions to answer. The hardest one was like "if you are running a story about left handed desk in classroom and how there is not enough of them. what are your ideas for a photo like this?" .... #_#!!! ... damn.
I know the payment of this job wasn't high. But so what? To me, 5000 bucks per month is same with 2000 bucks per month. 20,000 per month will be different. I am happy with myself that I could try something new. At least, I could push myself into a position where I didn't belong to, no like applying a computer related job which I was training for it for 4 years.
Anyway, it's an unforgettable day to me.
I wish you could be happy for me as well! The most important thing to me is seeing your smile and knowing that you are proud of me.
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Mom photographied it in the afternoon on our balcony.
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I went to Ncix this morning and found out that the problem was on the power supply. So, I bought this Enermax FMA EG465 with 460w, due fans and manual fan speed adjust buttom. Before I installed it, Muffin jumped on the table and check out the new stuff.
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After an hour, my computer was alive again. #__#!!!
In the afternoon, I went out to take picture for UBC's baseball team. First time to shoot baseball, it's pretty interesting. There was no need to use the wild angle lens. All you need is a nice tele-zoom lens like 70 - 300m. Pity that the weather sucks. It's raining, wet and super cold.
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Since the rain was too heavy, the game was stoped after 4 sets and will be rescheduled.
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Good luck T-bird!
Next monday, there will be the interview and Q/A part. All Ubyssey's staff will sit around the round table together with the AMS dirctor to interview the candidate. They will ask you question and then judge you from the answer. At the end of the meeting, all these staff will vote. So, I gonna try my best.
I was talking with Trista last night. She told me that there will be an international conferrence on environmental issues of China, in London, UK, at the end of April. Yup, Londong, UK, not the London, Ontario. The meeting will be hold for 2 days. So, We were dicussed that whether we should all go to London. Since my final will be ended around 23rd Apr, we could leave at 24th and going back on 30th. Then we will not miss Maroon 5's concert on 1st of May. :P
I checked the air tickets today in travel cut and the price is reasonable. I will do more research later on. Yup, London baby.
Let's pack our stuff and leave to London.
Today, when Nic asked me whether I am available to take profile picture for a cs department scholarship winner, I told him that i'd love to try.
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I spent a while with this grad. student and asked him about where he could feel more comfortable. Then I started my work. I have to admit one thing that taking profile picture need more creativity than sport/conferrence pictures. You have to think hard about the background and what kind of pose you need from the interviewer plus you need keep communicating with each other.
I am glad that I finished this mission and I wish my editor could like the picture. It's my first try, though it's not a impressive photo at all.
I will work more on it in the future.
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I found a picture taken by dad a week ago when Muffin jumped onto my table, watching me coding.
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10th March, 2004 1.3 Sec at F/22 with 30mm focal length and ISO-400
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Instead of bring the 10D, I brought my previous Digital Rebel with exactly the same lens I used last year. Driving down to Stanley park, I found the same spot I stood a year agao. Setting up the tripod, I started my work.
10th March, 2005 2.5sec at F/16 with 34mm focal length and ISO-800
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Comparing these two pictures, I couldn't say how much improvement I've had. However, I could feel that I am more relax and more comfortable when shooting images. Maybe This is the biggest improvement to me. Plus, I have better ability to post-processing my picture.
To me, to enjoy the moment when I pressed the shutter is the most important thing. I will never compare my work with others, since I know that there are tons of people out there who are better than me no matter in artistic way or on the camera skill. All I want is to enjoy my moment and share my pleasure with people I love.
After a year's practicing, after shooting almost 20,000 pictures in 365 days, after going through all these frustrations, I could now have a better and deeper understanding of photography.
I was on the 99B line this morning, heading to UBC. There was an old Chinese lady with a 21 months old child on the bus. She was on her way to Chinese Embassy but she couldn't speak any English and couldn't figure out where she should get off the bus. Then, she asked all people around her in Chinese who could speak Chinese and who could help her find out the stop. There were two guys who definitely could speak Chinese (I heard them speaking Chinese at the bus stop) but just pretending they could only speak English and resisted to help this old lady. Man, damn those boys! I went to the front bus, talked with the lady and told her to get off at Granville street.
I was kind of disappointed. What's wrong with those people? Where are the manner and respect?
I just saw something interesting from internet. Somewhere in Switzerland, the temperature dropped to -30c in one night. When people woke up on the next day, the street was looked exactly like the movie "The day after tomorrow". It's was in the middle of Jan 2005.
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Trista always told me that scenes like "the day after tomorrow" will come to true someday. It's real, not just a movie script. Well, it's scared!!!
I read about this camera lot of times from dpreview.com. I know it's a great professional camera, but not untill today, I wasn't get into this camera too much. I felt it's more or less the same with my 10D. However, after trying it, I was shocked. Totally shocked. It's built like a tank, heavy but sophisticated.
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Someday in the future, if I need upgrad my 10D, I will buy this camera for sure.
Well, let's forget about 1D MarkII for second. I bought myself a vertical grip. I've been looking for this stuff for long time and finally, I got it. It fits well on 10D' body
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Summer is coming, photo time!
For the past week, I was struggling to survive from getting allergy of pollen. And I failed. My eyes were burning out whenever I went outdoor and my nose and throat are super itchy. I felt my whole face was swollen. Yesterday, I finally got time to see the doctor. After taking the anti-allergy pill, I was alive again. The pill worked so well that my eyes stoped itchy right away.
Thank you Dr. Wong. You saved my life.
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The sky is blurred in the background and makes this image look good.
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I also saw a girl reading book on a cherry tree in UBC's village. She looked so comfortable. By asking for her permission, I photographied her as well.
later today, I went to Ubyssey's office to learn paper production. Nic, my photo editor, taught me some photoshop tricks and processed some pictures with me. It's pretty interesting to learn how to make news paper, like how to make pictures ready to print, how to frame each page and how to work on the image's resolution. It's a whole new area to me. Talking with Nic during the break, knowing that he will work in New York City in the summer for a fashion magazine. It's a great news and I wish he could have a good time there.
Though the weather was a bit cloudy, we had lot of fun. Gastown is a interesting place where you need look very carefully. Otherwise, you will miss all these small, but lovely scenes.
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click here to see more pictures during this trip. I like these images, specially the one with a couple inside buying flower on the street.
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I grabed my camera and put a 50mm standar lens, setting the aperture to F1.8 and pushing ISO up to 1600. So, I could photography muffin in this low light condition with 1/20 second for the shutter speed.
Well, F1.8 could give me the fastest speed, but, I gonna lose big amount of depth of field, which means, beside the focused point, all other area will be blurred. So, I manually focused on muffin's left eye and shoot.
I know that muffin was waiting for Trista. They fall in love with each other!
I was reading a poem called "lonely woman". It's beautiful.
What do you see? lonely woman,share with you
Sitting there in your flimsy plastic chair,
Looking out into such a night as this;
It must seem violently silent to you.
How do you see? lovely woman,
Beyond your glassy orbs-in truth, blind-
Is there not some wild, untasted flame
Whose burning hands grasp fast your fate?
Surely,
You take my blackened hand,
I paint pictures of your eyes,
And love begins to whistle her mournful tunes.
Who do you see? lofty woman,
Your wearied gaze must harbor memories
Of pain long past, blue hope forgotten.
How could anyone not fall a little in love with you?
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Tonight from MSN, he sent them over. Since it was pretty dark inside the restaurant, the photo is kind of blurred. However, I love these B/W photos.
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Hapa Izakaya is a nice restaurant. Good environment with nice food quanlity. You can see from Trista's face. She was holding a cup of hot Sake.
Thank you Eric for these nice pictures.
Suddenly, my life became quiet again...... On the way home, I just couldn't stop thinking about her and I don't know why the song "she will be loved" by Maroon 5 was repeating in my head again and again. Maybe because she likes it alot lately.
I went to Virgin and bought myself a CD by Keith Jarrett. A wonderful Jazz CD. When I got home, my parents were swimming downstair. So I got 20 mins alone at home. I opened the album and put the cd into my cd player. With all lights off, with no interruption, with this cold feeling when someone you love left, with a peaceful music around, I couldn't help myself crying beside the desk.
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All these days, I was busy on family stuff, doing this for dad, doing that for mom, talking with dad about my future, arguing with Trista about my past. When I finally got this 20 minutes alone with the music I like, with all the feeling about Trista, I just couldn't stop my tear anymore.
Sometime, you are in the middle of nowhere. All the sudden, you found out your weakness, finding out you need make choice and live with the consequence....... But no matter what, I will never leave her. NEVER!
photo reserved & copyright @ april28th.com Yinan Wang