Newborn Portraits

Went for a workshop yesterday organized by two great photographers in Pittsburgh, David Burke and Heather Lahtinen on photographing newborns. While the basics of good photography are what make a shot, the details count a lot as well, from equipment to the actual shoot, props, getting baby comfy... to the post-processing. Heather is really a post-processing whiz, and is an accredited Adobe Expert! I thought that was pretty amazing...I'm very inspired to speed up my digital workflow haha. David has a different approach to shooting, which balanced out the course in a really cool way. The workshop was held in David's home, talk about working from home! I liked that both photographers have a balanced and passionate perpective of life, valuing their family and faith in inspiring ways. Very cool day. Still working on shots, but here is the first one, the baby model looks very angelic to begin with...

Taiwan Times Part 6

my Home for a few days

Neighborhood sights

Taiwan Times Part 5

Lots of good food, snacks and nice tea houses...

Taiwan Times Part 4

poor spider dog... too many dogs with too many clothes in taiwan

Great evening at a seaside town Jiu Fen

Lots of different snacks at this place

Got to ride on the back of A's scooter to get around taiwan :)

Taiwan Times Part 3

How could I go to Taiwan and not watch a concert? A. got tickets to watch Jay chou, where we stood in a sports stadium (on the field) with 1000s of screaming teenage fans. We even bought glow-in-the-dark bangles so we would fit in. As much as it was hard to see Jay chou, it was even harder (for me) to understand what he said. My friend translated that he was not feeling well but he would try to perform anyway.

Angela decided to take a photo of me and Jay chou.. this is as close as it gets

Taiwan Times PArt 2

more cool shops- Birkenstock- where you have to take off your shoes to go in

Best mango dessert ever

Some cool underground bookstore

Spotting singer Jeff Chang

Taiwan Times Part 1

cool shops

Cool shop pet

Busy City

Great snacks!

Taiwan 101 Building and New York New York Shopping Centre

These photos are from a few years ago, when I visited Taipei, Taiwan and stayed with a good friend. It was a lot of fun and very memorable, the experiences are pretty fresh in my mind, almost magical. A large part of what made it so special was having A. around, and a small part of it is probably the timing of the trip in a phase of my life that made it just right!

Dewey

Today I read a book about a cat who lived in a library in Iowa, in a small city called Spencer. The book has a great cover photo, and as with most pet books I read, I started with the last chapter.
These books are usually written after the aforementioned pet has died, and so they usually end with the very sad but timely death of this pet... so to get the worst part over with, I read the end first...then I feel like I can enjoy the rest of the book more.

This was a pretty good read, I finished it in a couple of hours and came away with a slightly bigger impression of Iowa as a major corn producer and also small town / farm life as was described in this book as a backdrop to this cat story. The non-cat elements take up about 65% of the book, and include stories about the author's struggles with poverty, illness and family.

Yes, I do like animals and recently I was chatting with my husband about funeral/death arrangements, and he said quite earnestly and lovingly, "I will bury you in a pet cemetery."

Penguins

The resident hockey team of Pittsburgh are the Penguins, and we are in the midst of the ice hockey season.
Yesterday, the Penguins played a crucial match against the Detroit Red Wings, and with each goal or near-goal, I heard yells from around the neighborhood as fans cheered and booed passionately at their television screens, breaking the usual silence of the night. Then I realised there was a familiar yell coming from just below the room I was in- it was my husband, who has become an ice hockey convert, specifically to Penguins team.
I guess its about time, since we have been here close to three years!
The Penguins will be playing the Red Wings in 2 days, if they win, they win the Championship!
Go Pens!