iBlog: Bol Kai Temple

My uncle Dougie Chong & I visited this temple last year. It was being reconstructed, & the painters asked Dougie for some help with the Chinese characters.

Everything turned out nicely, as we returned on a chance visit back. Other views of the temple were through those iron gates that surround the premises. We went to Marysville on a lark and arrived after the temple closed.

iBlog: Beauty in Food

These are simple cremes & sauces. So what catches your eye is not the bland colors of what you're buying, but the fruit "flowers" at the front. They beg customers to at least take a look--to consider such a delectable treat.

Notice the flowers are slightly off-center and not aligned. They are
placed if naturally falling on the creme. Are you buying the flowers?
I think not. Most will only what they came for--the creme. But the
customer will remember how good it looked with the flower.

Just like I took the picture of what I will always remember. The
flowers, even though the creme consttutes most of the frame.

iBlog: Fresh Produce

At Mi Pueblo vegetables & fruits are arranged in impecable rows & columns, within easy reach. Everything looks fresh. So much so that it's a treat when you find out prices can be darn right low.

Look at the displays below. Don't you just feel like putting something
in your cart?

iBlog: What Makes a Wonderful Grocer?

Well, the frontage is clean & nice. It exudes what this market is all about: upscale Mexican groceries.

The smoke on the left side is from the BBQ chickens, whose aroma makes one want to BUY some.

More to come. Aren't you starting to get hungry?

IBlog: Self-Portrait in Arnold

In this beautiful forest just outside Arnold, I framed myself with a DIY tripod for my iPhone. Sometimes it is cooler to use an iPhone rather than a better quality DLSR. I didn't have to position my larger tripod, which wouldn't fit on the table anyways.

This pix has been enhanced w/PhotoGene to account for white balance, exposure, & levels (contrast). I did take panos w/ dlsr, & obviously the quality was well beyond a camera phone. But I had fun w/the iPhone.

IBlog: Afternoon Spider Lilies

How petite these flowers are, surviving in near-drought conditions. We manage our water carefully to give most of our plants a chance to live.

The spider lilies do well because they gather water from the ground, as well as the air (w/their long "arms.")

......from Wei's iPhone

iBlog - Garden Flowers 2009-01

It's wonderful being in a garden before anyone else is up.

With my iPhone I can snap & send, for you to enjoy.

BTW, I finally figured out how to directly load this iBlog from my iPhone, w/o going through my desktop computer.

......from Wei's iPhone

iBlog: Delicious!

Here's the picture I promised in my iBlog, taken with my 3G iPhone.

......from Wei's iPhone

iPhone iBlog

I will start something new for WeiPhotoArts--an iBlog. You'll know it's fr my iPhone because of the word iBlog. These blogs will only have words, because iGoogle & Blogger have not yet figured out how to easily send pix to a blog that is done from both the iPhone & a Windows computer.

For the meantime, I'll send an iBlog with words, only, to be later followed by an iPhone picture. I'll be taking informal pix w/ my iPhone, so most of the quality will not be as good as my D200. But for the small pix on the blog, it may not matter. Let me know your thoughts after you view the images.

......from Wei's iPhone

Photographing a Wedding - Walk Down the Aisle from the Groom's Viewpoint

During this past week I traveled with my family to celebrate the wedding of my nephew in Honolulu. In this blog, I want to detail what I look for in a wedding as an Uncle photographing the couple, the families, and the event.

First, I try not to repeat what the pro photographers are taking. No pre-wedding bride/groom images, no altar returns, and finally, what most people don't do, no bride coming down the aisle. Now pro photographers need to focus on the bride. The wedding is all about her, and many times she or her family are paying for the tab. Bad news if the pro(s) didn't center on her--and the print/image sales would be decimated.

However, what do I concentrate on, as a family member? How about the groom, you know the "other" person who needs to wait while all the attention of the entire congregation, photographers and minister(s) focuses on the bride. There is a lot of emotion and feelings on the other end, but almost nobody notices. Except me. I've done this for quite a few weddings, and the grooms usually do not notice, until they see the pictures--and can then express what they were feeling at that time. Many grooms have complimented me that I did not ignore them.

The most important aspect for shooting the groom is the angle from which you take the shot. Trust me, nobody's going to squeeze you out of these angles. Just pick and choose. And wait. My angle was the first row of the Church on right-hand side.



In this typical wedding, the groom and his troupe came out at the beginning of the service and waited just outside the sanctuary.


This is when the full weight of the decision to marry becomes evident to him. That's when I start shooting. Oh yes, nobody's looking at him, not even the video camera & pro telephotos notice him. All the P&S cameras focus on the bride and her radiant, beaming face. So I missed her coming down the aisle--there would be 10,000 pictures of her coming down the aisle, so I figure what would be one more from me?

But for the groom, nobody took much of a picture of Steve.

As he explained right after the service, he struggled to get hold of his emotions, with his eyes swelling up, "trying not to lose it." He wiped his moist eyes multiple times, so I made sure I got at least one photo of his hand on his eyes (no hankie for him).



What do you see in the rest of the pictures, with his eyes?




Do you see the changes in his eyes as his bride reaches the santuary,



and he hurries to greet her and hold her and express his love to her by holding her hand to lead her to the altar.



Perhaps these weren't the most resplendent pictures of the wedding, but for at least Steve, he wasn't forgotten on his bride's long walk down the aisle. All in about 40 seconds.

BTW, all available light, as the Church rules specified no flashes.