Trip to the outdoor shopping mall

A few days ago I walked down to the outdoor shopping mall by my dorm. It's very small, and the shops are kind of expensive (except for the QFC =) ) but I find it peaceful to just walk around, and there are a lot of families playing on the statues and play structure. It had just stopped raining before I went, so everything was a bit damp but also had the air of new beginnings. This is why I love the rain :)

This is a typical shot of a [whatever this plant is, it looks a bit like cabbage...]. But I really liked the white leaves and contrasting purple veins. I've never seen a plant like this before!

This is something like a purple version of the plant above. But the leaves were different. This one's leaves remind me of Italian parsley (I should mention that I like food, too). To make this shot a bit more interesting than just another plant, I decided to take a picture from the side, focusing on the leaves' textured edges. I like what I could get focused. Looking back, I realize that if I had everything in focus, it would have been too busy. But I think this could be cropped or something...

Lights on a tree, looking from the bottom.

I didn't notice it until I was right next to it, but there are these tiny little metal (brass?) cast frogs! They are so cute! They were positioned in pairs facing each other and interacting, next to the outdoor cafe tables. I think the frog looks a little warped or off balance in this picture, but I liked the water droplets on its back, and the differing colors it creates.

There were cacti on one of the outdoor cafe tables. I LOVE cacti (I have a jade plant named Sula--short for it's latin name Crassula Ovata), and this one was interesting, regarding color and leaf shape (they looked like hearts!)

I just saw this security guard walking by, and noticed he was carrying a bunch of the complimentary bright yellow umbrellas. I assume he was re-distributing them evenly to all the umbrella stands around the mall. Apparently that's what security guards do when they aren't fighting crime :)

Simplicity today

I'll be uploading more pictures from today. But for now, I want to share these photos which I think share the same theme of simplicity. Sometimes the little things are what help us relax and be happy. Right now, I have this quote on my bulletin board: "Let be, let go, let see, let flow." Simplicity.

Have you ever wondered what grass looks like to all the other blades? What it is like to be so small and short, and overlooked. I think that grass is unappreciated. We take the each green (is it really green? I see different shades of green and yellow) blade as a daily occurrence. But picture the world without green grass. What would we use to fill in the empty lawns? Our parks?

This crow is almost a silhouette against the blue sky. I liked that there was only blue behind him (I always assume crows are male for some reason), transitioning into the clouds on the right. Also, the light box thing he is perched on is also blue (including the light!) which helped blend in to the sky and contrast the crow and clouds.

"Il faut vivre dans le present car le present est la seul certitude" ~Albert Camus (L'Etranger)

(one must live in the present because the present is the only certainty)

photowalk on the way to class

Hello, midterms are over! I took some pictures this past week, but didn't end up liking them that much, so we'll just skip to these ones I took on my way to Chem lab... Enjoy :)

I always end up doing macro photography (photography close-ups), for some reason. This one wasn't quite as close as some others, but I was getting the lens right up in this flower's grill (yes, I just said that).

I've actually come to realize that my shots aren't really that "close" to the object. I think I might want to work on that for macro shots, or otherwise find different original approaches.

Who wouldn't like this picture?

I also like the rain dripping off.

I really like this picture. It actually surprise me when I took it. I was originally looking at the line of lights on the left, and then noticed the building behind it all lit up, and progressively, the water reflection. After I took the picture, I had this sudden realization that, Hey, it looks kind of cool!