Photo of The Day – San Francisco Stay

San Francisco Stay a photo by Thomas Hawk on Flickr.

Well, I finally found the willpower to do another one of these! I think I’ll go back to my standard Newsspot and photo scheme from today onward. I’ll have to go back and review how exactly I did it though…

Anyway, today’s photo comes from another one of my contacts (American, this time) called Thomas Hawk who’s real name is Andrew Peterson!

I’ve always loved photos like this one, with the ‘miniature’ effect due to the DOF and focal length (or simulated via application). The vivid colors on this photo make it stand out, too, with it’s contrasting whites, reds, and array of colors. Of course, the ‘stay’ sign sticks out the most, with it being the only noticeable words in the photo, and the item with the most color, and I like that. It gives a viewer some definite thing to focus on in a cityscape-like photo, which can be very rare these days.

Nice job Andrew!

Photo Of The Day – 藍色靈魂

藍色靈魂 a photo by samyaoo 山姆搖 on Flickr.

All jokes aside, I really do love Sam’s photos. Honestly. Especially his night time shots, too. You see, where I live, we don’t usually see stars, and so it always amazes me to see how many there really are just hiding in plain sight. That, and sam captures the moments perfectly, every time. The angle, the exposure, everything.

Awesome work Sam!

亞歷克斯的！

The Most Exciting Week Of May

Ah, I was supposed to update you guys on Monday…or at least somewhere around that time, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, eh?

Well, just to ease your minds on where I have been, I’ve been at Prayer Warriors 2012 in Alton. Alton Castle, to be precise.

It was a real eye opener in many fields, and a great experience. The plenary sessions were the most informative, and the deepest parts of the weekend. I managed to get down quite a few notes and recordings, too. Prayer Warriors 2012 – Notes. It’s had to explain it all in words, so I’ll just let the notes here and pictures at the end of this post explain it all If you want to see all of the pictures, head over to Flickr or add me on Facebook!

The rest of my week has been fairly standard though, apart from the bus ride back home today, and the iMovie trailer that I managed to develop, that is.

The trailer was to be developed for next week’s AY session, in which we would have a panel of ‘expert’ challenging our seven core beliefs on which we grounded our faith. It’s going to be a big thing, so I was asked to put together a promotion trailer…not that I’d had much experience in that area, of course. Fortunately, the new iMovie for iPhone update came along with the iMovie ’11 feature: Trailers! It was just a matter of choosing the theme, recording the clips, adding in some pan and zoom photos, and making sure the battery didn’t die during recording. It took from around 5 till 8 to complete to a standard that I was mildly ok with before we showed it to all those who were there at the time, and to my surprise…it was a big success! Now, I haven’t quite got permission to upload it yet, but hopefully by Tuesday everything will be sorted for the final public export.

Now then, on to today. You see, I ended up going to Karen’s house to help cut her front lawn grass with her son after pathfinders, and that went all well. Especially with us pretending to be hard-core westerners from back in the 1700′s. Especially.

Anyway, it was soon coming 5:00 by the time we’d finished, so I decided to head on home and catch the bus. That was all good, but it was the route and time the bus took to get home that got to me. You see, the ride home to my house usually takes 15 minutes maximum, not 1:30 hours. So when I saw that I was going away from my house, I was a little bit worried, needless to say. Turns out though that it was the ‘normal’ route now…not that I necessarily agreed with the driver, but I went along with it, and found myself back at the bus station an hour and fifteen minutes later. Now that was annoying. I did, however, gain hope when the bus driver seemed to finally find his bearings and go towards where the sign on the bus said: Low Hill. It was an agonizing 15 minutes before I finally arrived home at 6:30, exactly an hour and a half after leaving my starting point.

I was home at last.

And that’s where I pick up my life story now! I decided to finally do a post before I got through the door, and now I’m doing it, I feel much better. I’m back on my schedule now, so things should roll a lot smoother, but until then…

亞歷克斯的！

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Chinese Quarters, Barry Steakfries, and Procrastination

Hello there!

Yeah, it’s been a little bit of a while since I’ve done a post like this. ARME threw me off my routine that I’d gotten into, but that’s no excuse for not getting back into it sooner than I have.

Anyway, this past week and a bit has been fairly uneventful, but the events that have been going on have been pretty exciting…for me.

The first was that for the past few weeks, I’ve been eyeing Halfbrick‘s app entitled ‘Age Of Zombies: Anniversary’ on the App Store. I got it. It features their very own mascot ‘Barry Steakfries’ in a Zombie obliterating fast-paced game that I just can’t seem to put down. It’s become such a hobby that I’ve found myself climbing the Game Center leader-boards in the survival levels at a relatively slow, but assuring, rate. It’s well worth the price, and retina enabled, too. I suggest you buy it…like, now.

Second is that I’ve, as stated in my earlier post, become quite attached and interested in ‘bokeh’. So much so that I spent quite a few hours trolling though, favouriting, and downloading photos from Flickr to a special ‘Bokeh‘ folder that I use simply as wallpapers for my devices. So far the count is 254, but I hope to expand on it soon. I may need a bigger hard drive at this rate, come to think of it.

Lastly, I managed to get over to Birmingham yesterday, and not just any part of Birmingham. The Chinese Quarter part of Birmingham! It’s most easily my favorite part of the city, not that I’m exactly sure why. Maybe it’s the buildings, the writing that I can’t make sense of…or just the all over oriental feeling of it, I really don’t know. Of course there’s always that reminder that you’re in the UK. You know, the blatant prescience of native English people, the view of the 80′s flats in the distance, and the lack of blaring lights that the dense cities like Tokyo sport. It was more of a taster I guess, but it was enough to make my day. I took quite a few photos, too. Some of which will be at the end of this post. If you want all of them , then just check out my Flickr photo stream. The link should be in the sidebar.

Anyway, I’m off. Chores to do, a day to finish, Spiral Knights to play. You know the drill. Oh, by the way, just forgot to mention earlier, I’ll be away from Friday 5PM till Monday…sometime. No, I won’t tell y’all where I’m off to right now, I think I’ll leave you hanging on that one till I get back.

Chao!

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Photo Of The Day – 台中港路文心路

台中港路文心路 a photo by JDHuang on Flickr.

It’s that time of day again!

Mind you, I don’t actually set a specific time for these things do I? So I can’t really get away with the first line, can I? *sigh* I thought not.

Anyway, today’s photo just had to be taken from JDHuang on Flickr, because…well, look for yourself! I’ve seen many a light stream photo in traffic, but this one tops all previous! The color tone, paths of light, and photo ratio make this a ‘golden’ photo, if you will. I love the color tones especially. Not to hot, nor too cold. Just right.

Amazing shot, JD!