Camera doesn't matter

As long as you know what your camera can do and cannot do, a crappy camera from a cell phone cal take great shots. The camera on the iPhone is by no means crappy though.

Boston in Spring

La vie en rose

Des yeux qui font baisser les miens,
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche—
Voilà le portrait sans retouche
De l’homme auquel j’appartiens.

Quand il me prend dans ses bras,
Il me parle tout bas,
Je vois la vie en rose.
Il me dit des mots d’amour,
Des mots de tous les jours,
Et ça me fait quelque chose.
Il est entré dans mon cœur,
Une part de bonheur
Dont je connais la cause.
C’est lui pour moi,
Moi pour lui dans la vie,
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie.
Et dès que je l’aperçois,
Alors je sens en moi
Mon cœur qui bat.

Des nuits d’amour à plus finir,
Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place,
Les ennuis, les chagrins s’effacent,
Heureux, heureux à en mourir.

Quand il me prend dans ses bras,
Il me parle tout bas,
Je vois la vie en rose.
Il me dit des mots d’amour,
Des mots de tous les jours,
Et ça me fait quelque chose.
Il est entré dans mon cœur,
Une part de bonheur
Dont je connais la cause.
C’est lui pour moi,
Moi pour lui dans la vie,
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie.
Et dès que je l’aperçois,
Alors je sens en moi
Mon cœur qui bat.

English translation

Eyes that gaze into mine,
A smile that is lost on his lips—
That is the unretouched portrait
Of the man to whom I belong.

When he takes me in his arms
And speaks softly to me,
I see life in rosy hues.
He tells me words of love,
Words of every day,
And in them I become something.
He has entered my heart,
A part of happiness
Whereof I understand the reason.
It’s he for me and I for him, throughout life,
He has told me, he has sworn to me, for life.
And from the things that I sense,
Now I can feel within me
My heart that beats.

In endless nights of love,
A great delight that comes about,
The pains and bothers are banished,
Happy, happy to die of love.

When he takes me in his arms
And speaks softly to me,
I see life in rosy hues.
He tells me words of love,
Words of every day,
And in them I become something.
He has entered my heart,
A part of happiness
Whereof I understand the reason.
It’s he for me and I for him, throughout life,
He has told me, he has sworn to me, for life.
And from the things that I sense,
Now I can feel within me
My heart that beats.

Translated by Thomas Keyes

Home is where my heart resides

Thank you my dear Sue for giving me a home. I love you.

Why it is always so difficult for me?

I guess it is a sign that I should treasure what I have achieved after I get it done.

2009 Nobel Prize

This year's Nobel winners come so close to me.

I had a brief collaboration with Thomas Steitz but the project didn't go anywhere; I had seriously considered applying for a post-doc opening at Elizabeth Blackburn's lab for telemere research back in 2000; and of course, Charles Gao was the vice-chancellor of my university when I was an undergraduate. Weird.

U2 360 Tour Boston

Awesome music, awesome set, awesome video editing. Freaking awesome show. Only that I spent 6 hours on the road, one of them being inside the parking lot when I tried to get out.

You are always on my mind

Salisbury Cove

We stayed in a cabin near Bar Harbor for two nights. We arrived just before sunset and I braved the mosquitoes to take a few shots across the bay. I got over 10 stings but gladly a few nice shots. They were taken by my 50 years-old Rolleiflex on expired Kodak Portra 160VC.

Jason Mraz in Boston

We picked the good one of the two nights for Jason Mraz's show. The other night had a worse weather. I had been here before for Diana Krall's show. I like the venue in that is half outdoor.

It came as a great surprise when he and his drummer appeared on a small stage in the middle of the cheaper seating area after a few songs on the main stage. That put us only ~50 feet from him and everyone was standing on their chairs to get a better look. We had a great time.

Bar Harbor and Acadia

We went on to Bar Harbor and Acadia. Acadia is no comparison to Yosemite, but with Sue along, everything gets better. We strolled by the coast, amazed by how many people amazed by the Thunder Hole, picked wild blueberries, Cadillac Mountain (only ~1300 feet tall), the huge motel room, the little cabin, popovers at Jordon Pond, the hidden restaurant by the bay, the whale watch cruise, the little sailboat and the lobster traps. I love you Sue.

Best of this summer

It started at NYC. I picked Sue up at JFK and spent a day at NYC. We only planned to go to the ship graveyard at Staten Island and the Guggenheim Museum.

The ship graveyard is now not letting people take photos since someone fell and got hurt. Sue managed to snatch a few before the guy who worked there discovered us and escorted us out.

The ship graveyard of Staten Island, NY

The Guggenheim Museum is having a special exhibit of Frank Lloyd Wright's work for their 50th anniversary. FLW is the architect who designed the museum among other great buildings. The exhibit and the museum itself are impressive, and it made me think about an alternate universe where I got into an architecture school and became an architect. The regular exhibit of this Guggenheim is simply dwarfed by the neighboring MoMA and the Met.

The glass dome of Guggenheim Museum NYC on a redscale Fujifilm Superia 400 film

Between the ship graveyard and Guggenheim we walked the Central Park a little on our way from the subway to the museum. The cloud was gathering and as Ansel Adams had said the sky is most interesting before a thunderstorm. Unfortunately we were caught by the storm when we came out of the Museum.

Central Park West as seen across the reservoir on a redscale Fujifilm Superia 400 film

Freddie lost a baby

Freddie comes back with only one chick these days. She must have lost one to the foxes. Stay close to mom my dear.

Camera: Olympus 35RC; film: Arista Premium 400

Freddie and her babies

Freddie is a wild turkey who loved to perch in our porch in the last two summers. This year, she came back with two babies. I picked up my camera and adjusted the focus by the distance before I approached the window. I shot out of the window through the bug net. I didn't have time to meter and the exposure was way off.

They were so vigilant as soon as I made one more step toward the screen door, they walked away.

Two days later Freddie only came with one baby. I am afraid the other was eaten by the foxes..

ADOX CHS

I tried this ADOX CHS 100 with my Olypmus 35RC with a dysfunct light meter recently. This film is awesome. It is a black and white film manufactured in Germany. It has an old-school single layer emulsion dated back to the 1950's. As quoted from the manufacturer's website (with some editing):

These films were introduced by ADOX in the 1950's and quickly became the preferrd films for reporters. In those times when lightmeters were inaccurate or very expensive they preferred the wide exposure latitude of the 50 and 100 ASA fims.

The film has an ultra high silver content enabling it to produce rhichest grey scales and many tonal differences between black and white.

If developed in sharp working developers such as ADOX APH 09 the film develops a visible edge effect and very detail depth.

Because of its low diffusion single layer technology the film is ultra sharp compared to modern multilayer films where the light will be diffused when penetrating through the different layers.

Here is one of my shoots. It was scanned by CanoScan 8800F as RGB to give the dark sepia tone.

More on my flickr.

Boston at night

Boston Public Garden

Cherry blossom in Boston

Run of the Charles

This is the second year I do the race. Our company does the race every year. We don't have enough women for a women's team, so we only have a men's team and a mixed team. I do the same leg I did last year, which is famous for its half mile (800 m) portage - run with the boat - in addition to the 2 miles paddling down the river. The weather was warm so as the water. It was a great time.

Paddling on Ipswich River

Spring is still reluctant to come. But we have to get prepared for the canoe race. It is only 2 weeks away. Dan and I went to Ipswich River and paddled a bit. I needed to practice my steering also.

At one point we came across a couple of nesting ducks. Dan said we would get killed if we ran into their territory. We drifted slowly by them, but the male duck didn't take a chance and flew at us and yelled at us (literally), trying to chase us away.

Dan also spotted beavers twice. Freaking sharp eyes.

I brought my underwater camera Nikonos-V along and took a few photos on the boat. This camera is truly a tank. It also has some funky orange color rubber on its body for practical reason. It is just beautiful.