Photo: Blue bike (ramblings)

Bikes are a great topic for photographers, perhaps because the vehicle is connected to romantic rides along river banks, under the shadow of maple trees, or on old cobbled roads in the drizzle.

I used to scoff at people who pointed their butts at the sky and took shots of bikes from various angles, from tires to derailleur. And yet one day I found myself doing the exact same thing when an old woman walked past me with a big grin on her face. Here is the product (not a good shot with a dreamy background as described, though), with an application of high key exposure. Anyway, this shows a fact that a photographer always adopts a very bad posture, so excuse me... ;-)

In sepia tone, suggested by im'art:

Photo: Gentle touch

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Đang có hứng mà mắt líp díp, giữ mắt mở vất vả quá. Cứ đặt tạm thằng con béo ú này ở đây hẵng.

Photo: Fruit for bro G.

So this is hot! You've got a new home, a stable family lifestyle, and your first birthday cake though you ain't a one-year-old no more ! Wish you a fruitful year - just like what we had today:

Dust off

One thing led to another, and the end of the chain is still nowhere to be found.

Watched sitcom "Ugly Betty", season 1, episode 1. No laugh, not even a smile. It's so real, she's right inside. Doggedly determines to follow what she wants to, though others keep saying that it's unreasonable. Breaks down when dream shatters. Has trouble dealing with all daily financial stuff, from small to big, with no job and an unrealistic career target. What's there to laugh? There's no fresh blossom or rainbow of a color spectrum or bird song or blue sky decorated with fluffy clouds to paint quite a spring picture. It's no comedy but a real tragedy to the character, if one's experienced it for just once.

Others have been telling me the should-dos. All of them are absolutely right, yet put into my reality, it's like someone's on the edge of a cliff which pierces into the sky and telling me, who's kicking hopelessly in a swamp, over the phone to practice bungee jumping. Oh boy, it doesn't matter what I am, whether I'm special, I'm persistent, I'm really bull-headed, or my ego is huge enough or not; and I'm in no way trying to prove it. There's one thing I do gratefully extract from these conversations - I should learn how to free self, and that, I guess I can only get from "a DIY store". It's about self, isn't it?

"Is your life collecting dust?"
"No more, I'm dusting me off."

Do you ever believe in something "written in the stars", in other words, fate?

Photo: Life!

"Orange is an orange
Orange is a carrot
Orange is the color
of the beak of a parrot"
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* This shot followed an impulse buy of 20 tangerines for only one stomach. Too much of something is just as boring as nothing.

Decided

I did.

Tản mạn: On the new year's doorstep

It must be the special hustle and bustle in my city in the afternoon of a 28 Tet like today. There have been a lot of times when we don't get to enjoy the magical 29 Tet (I haven't the faintest idea about the lunar calendar, so don't ask me why); however, to me, when it comes to Tet, 28 is just about equal to 29. Once they all meant eagerness and jubilation.

Have I ever said that I hate shopping? Yet I walked around shops yesterday. Almost all places are blanketed in the festival ambiance, but in this country the ambiance is the same on any holiday - National Day, Mid-Autumn, Christmas, New Year... you name it. It is simply not Tet, despite the fact that shopping centers are decorated with red ornament (they try to make it Chinese, it looks pretty much like X'mas though), and that hundreds of queues in front of cashiers are showing myriad smiling eyes and rosy cheeks.

Around the cannot-be-any-smaller table where I'm sitting, apparently it doesn’t appear to be an extraordinary day. Out of the window, cars and buses are running, the neighbors are as reserved as they've always been, and few weak rays of sunlight are trying to pierce the falling dusk. Inside the house, time stands still.

I've been burying myself in "The Time Traveler's Wife" since early morn', and the prelude goes, "It's hard being left behind... It's hard to be the one who stays. I kept myself busy. Time goes faster that way." I'm helping myself get used to the sound of suitcases hauled off along bricked paths towards cab stands - undeniably, it's always nice to be home, and so, hard to resist thinking about it when you're alone in a big house. I used to scoff at the thought of holing up in a corner on such a big occasion; yet now I'm looking at my impractical shoes, small purses that can't even hide a folded umbrella, shrugging my shoulders, and for no reason I like the ideas of continuing to give myself a haircut while waiting for the kettle to boil, of having a simple dinner with bread, pickles, and a mug of milk, and of leaving my hair damp from washing while crawling around the house to find something to shoot with my old-fashioned camera. It sounds pathetic, but unexpectedly those are the things that can now pierce me with some excitement.

It doesn't feel like Tet at all. When something is in the air but not in your soul, it isn't what you might want to live for. I'll let my attention wander for a while, and who knows, Tet may be back soon. Very soon.