India Trip Part 1: The Food

I get asked a lot of questions about my India trip this past December. How was it, what did you do, where did you go?

They're all important questions, and I'll get to them, but none more important than, how was the food? Because oh man, the food is/was always amazzzzzing.

Taste is such a powerful mechanism for nostalgia and my taste buds have never failed me. Because every time I'd eat something there, I'd get powerful memories of the days I used to spend as a kid in India. I'd remember my dad treating us to guavas and other times when we used to pick up custard apples because that's all I wanted to eat one summer.

 

  
I personally like Thums Up better but to my disappointment, we had a hard time looking for it in glass bottles. There's a HUGE shift from glass to plastic bottles that is really messing with my nostalgia.

 

Green Grape Juice being poured by this gentleman at a wedding reception

All photos above were taken with the Canon G15. 

 

 And finally, the iphone photo above is from a street vendor who made us the most amazing wada pao. No joke, it's exactly how I remembered it tasting like 3 years ago, 6 years before that, and as I was a kid.

What about you? Do you like Indian food?  

Iris | Flowers & Light

These irises were purchased from a local Trader Joe's for reasons I can't remember. Now that I think of it, do we really need a reason to have flowers in the house?

Flowers and Light

The joy of seeing fresh flowers against shadowy gorgeous natural light is inexplicable.

We can never have enough of the lovely combinations, the beautifully curated bouquets, the scents, the colors, the textures, the scenes...oh man I could go on.

The beginnings of the Flowers and Light project have mostly been on my iphone while I experiment with what I want out of it. Usually it has a lot to do with little vases with small arrangements of mixed flowers combined with different elements of light including shadows and reflections.

I hope to learn a lot more about how to use light  with flowers as the subject.

A preview:

Took A Hike

You know that song by Passion Pit, Take a Walk?

I keep getting that song mixed up with "Take a Hike." Although the connotation of this means "Go away!" In my head, I really mean it in the most positive way possible.

It reminds me of the song because hiking clears up the mind. Because you have amazing conversations while partaking in this activity. Because you felt like you did something! (my calves get really sore and i love this feeling!)

Pictured below: my fiance Neel, his dog Nikki, and his fiance, Tana (me! photo taken by Neel)

3/52: Doors

I thought this week would end up just like the last: scrambling to take a photo before the deadline.

These past few days, I planned on doing something with movements of people going in and out using doors. It was a good reminder that sometimes what you imagined will definitely not be your end product.

Here are a few other "contenders":

After uploading these onto my computer, I noticed that the monitor and chairs in the background looked really messy. I tried brushing it white and erasing it but all of it looked completely unnatural. So then I decided, well if it's going to be unnatural, why don't I just make it completely unnatural and dreamlike? 

A few years ago, I was really against using Photoshop to create images. However, I really think it's a wonderful tool-- you can come up with scenes you never thought existed!

So where do you stand on using Photoshop intensively to make an image?

The Weekly Photo Challenge is an online Flickr group that takes photos on a weekly basis with various themes. We welcome you to join it at any time and participate, share, and interact with like-minded photo enthusiasts.

Snow | Triptych no. 2

Have you ever been in the dilemma where you want to stay outside but physically can't because it's freezing?

That's how I felt during our short stay in Lake Arrowhead. It was gorgeous outside with fresh white fluffy snow (dreams are made of this stuff y'know).

So my friends and I strategized. We would bundle up in layers, run outside with our cameras, snap away, and run back inside after a solid whopping FIVE minutes. Nonetheless, we were fairly content.

Below is a sprinkle of happiness right on top of my left boot.

What is a triptych? Essentially, it is a set of three artistic works intended to be appreciated together.

Mt. Baldy | Triptych No. 1

Mt. Baldy. One of my newest favorite places.