The Human Planet

Only one creature has carved the life for itself in every habitat on earth.  That creature is us.  All over the world, we still use our ingenuity to survive in the wild places, far from the city lights -- face to face with raw nature.  This is the Human Planet.

Human Planet by BBC

April 2011

My little Michelle introduced this show to me.  It took me several months to finally get to it... and I was deeply touched by it.  Watch it if you can.  It gives you a profound sense of how massive the world is and how harsh the conditions are in some of those remote places!!  Only when we see how those people struggle for the most basic things in life will we finally realize how lucky we are and how much we've taken for granted...

I thanked my little Michelle for bringing the Human Planet to me, as I thoroughly enjoyed it!

My Weekend

March 23, 2014

I am in San Francisco for a meeting this week, so I spent the weekend with nature, which was wonderful!  Believe it or not, I still have many unprocessed pictures from my Mongolia and Hawaii trips last year... I don't know where time went and why I am so overwhelmingly busy all the time!!!  I hope some day I can just wander around doing nothing AND NOT feel guilty about it!

So, I spent 2 days at the Point Reyes National Seashore this weekend.  It was just beautiful... Life was pretty rough out there.  Only 1 little deli in the whole area and there is no gas station around unless you're willing to drive out 15+ miles.  The deli is totally outside of the national park, so if you go in, you better bring your own supplies.  As usual, I was there on the beach late yesterday and went back to the beach before sunrise this morning.  Again, it feels so pure and original to be out there with nothing but the ocean, cliffs, birds and cattle...  You can breathe the freshness of everything and smell the ocean and grass!!

On my flight to California yesterday, the lady sitting next to me was on her way to Hawaii.  She was born and raised in IL, went to Urbana Champaign and got 2 degrees -- Music and Psychology.  She spent 10+ years in Hawaii and raised 2 kids there.  Tried to move back to IL last year, but she said her heart was telling her to go back to Hawaii.  So, yesterday, she was flying back to Hawaii to check things out.

I LOVE those people's free spirits.  I wish some day I could follow my heart.  I wish some day I could just get up and start a whole new career -- doesn't have to be fancy or exotic, as long as it offers the opportunity for me to better experience life.  I have always wanted to live in Alaska for 6 months to fully explore that amazing place, live in Hawaii for 6 months to get closer to the lava and volcanoes and the ocean, move to Iceland for 1 year to explore Northern Europe, especially Iceland and Norway...  I hope to do all this when I am still young and energetic.

Yeah, when can I set my heart free?  When can I completely simplify my life to a point where I could just get up and leave and go anywhere and everywhere as I wish?  Yeah, when?

Life has it's limitations, but manage and minimize them when possible.

My Little Cabin

I feel the need to share with you the little cabin I stayed in last weekend.  Again, it's not about photography or anything glamorous, it's about experiencing and documenting life at a deeper level -- life is there to be touched, experienced and remembered!!

Of course, this was the first time I had ever stayed in a little cabin like this in -25C weather.  I still get chills just to think about it, and that in itself is worth documenting :-)

My next goal is to camp out in the desert to photograph the nightly skies when it gets warmer...

Ice Caves, Wisconsin

February 22, 2014

Ice Caves

If anything, it was a great experience - the experience of enduring nature's hardships, managing disappointments, taking necessary and calculated risks, and exploring the unknown with eyes wide-open!!

It was an 1006.4 miles and 18 hours driving ordeal over the weekend through treacherous weather and road conditions.  At one point, I really started to question my decision to drive so far to chase ice...  It was also the first time I ever stayed at a cabin in -25C weather (because all hotels were sold out for the weekend), and the wind was about to blow away my little cabin in the middle of the night! 

Nonetheless, I saw what I've never seen in my life, and to me, that's made all the suffering worthwhile... 

Cherish and experience life thoroughly!

Ice Caves, Wisconsin

February 22, 2014

Polar Vortex 2014

The drama today was to wake up at 5:09 AM thinking that I needed to go to Lake Michigan to chase the 2014 polar vortex...

Yes, it was windy, cold, painful and dangerous...  but that's usually when nature's beauty smiles at me :-) 

Lake Michigan, Chicago

February 2, 2014

What does wind chills below -31C look like?

Let's not talk about how it feels like... especially if you have to stand outside in 29 KPH winds for 20 minutes to take pictures!!!  I only stayed there for 20 minutes during lunch today because that's ALL I can do without losing my life :-)

Here is what it LOOKS like!

Lake Michigan, Chicago

January 27, 2014

Let there be color...

January 20, 2014

It has become increasingly difficult to catch up with image selection and processing from each of my trips...  I miss the days when I could just come home, focus on getting all the pictures processed and then write good stories about my trips.  It's been so busy lately, and I still have not had a chance to complete my Hawaii trip journals.

The truth is -- I still try to take some short trips during the weekends to enjoy life as much as I can; I still try to capture the beauty of our nature, although it hasn't been successful lately; I still try very hard to be as thorough and diligent as possible when it comes to photography; I still try to get up early and go to bed late just to catch the best possible light...

As usual, these images involved getting up at 5:30 in the morning, driving to the pre-selected location and waiting in the dark for 30+ minutes; hiking up to the mountain top in icy trails and standing in -20C high winds to catch the first light of the day!  They may be viewed as "sugar-water images" by "real" photographers, but oh well, I love them!  Just close your eyes and imagine how much better the images would be had there been snow on the rocks...  I am going back next year when there IS more snow!!!

Life is great, enjoy it thoroughly when you can!

January 19, 2014
Bryce Canyon National Park