Photography – Page 5 – Life In Limbo

Photo Walk: Red

July 16, 2014

There’s a lot I love about going on photo walks in the summertime. The weather is great, the lighting is perfect, and all the wildlife is in full bloom. When it’s too hot to go for a run but too beautiful of a day to stay indoors, a photo walk is an excellent compromise. I usually meander around with a theme in mind, snapping pictures while listening to music or (more likely) a podcast. I’m wondering if it counts as moving meditation, though I doubt it because of the listening-to-a-podcast part. Either way, it feels kind of meditative, because I’m not thinking, I’m just looking for something and then taking its picture.

I’m hoping to do a rainbow of photo walks over the course of the next several months, so it was only natural to start with red. While each individual photo isn’t overly special, I absolutely love them together as a set. I feel like making a mosaic out of them!

This is a really fun way to practice my photography and get inspired. I love walking out into the world and noticing things I never had before, just because they’re a certain colour or pattern. It’s like by focusing on just one little thing, I’m able to see so much more than I might otherwise.

You can see all my other photo walks here.

The Life In Limbo Shop!

July 14, 2014

I’m so excited to share the news that I’ve opened a photography shop online! It’s brand new, and I’m sure I’ll be working out the kinks for a long time to come, but the important thing is that it’s up and running. Opening a shop has been something I’ve been daydreaming about for a while, and so I’m very thrilled to finally be able to share it with you.

So far my Etsy shop, named Life In Limbo, is selling travel photography from my time in Europe. I chose my favourite photos from France and Italy, the most colourful and travel-inspiring ones I could find. You can see all the available photos here. Currently, they’re available as digital downloads for you to print at home. I chose the digital download route because of the logistics of living in another country and needing to print and ship. Happily, printing photos these days is very cheap (I got an 11 x 15 printed today for $3.00 and an 8 x 10 for $1.50) and straightforward (especially if you live in a country where you speak the language, ha!).

I tried to choose photos that I truly thought you would like and that might inspire wanderlust in you or in someone you love. I didn’t choose any that I myself wouldn’t purchase to hang on my own walls, but of course as the photographer I’m biased! I’m so excited and curious to see what you think, and I would love to hear any and all suggestions you have.

Thank you, as always, for your support and for reading. You can find my photography shop right here!

Ps. You can see more of my travel photography in my city guides here and you can download free wallpapers featuring some of my photography here.

Summer 2014

July 9, 2014

It’s hard to explain how happy I am that I decided to do this video project again (the last time was in 2012) for my year in Korea. It makes me happy at almost every stage of the process: while filming funny snippets of life and my friends, while listening to music and auditioning it in my head, while editing together the videos and laughing all over again at some of the moments I captured, and of course, while beaming as I watch the finished product. It makes me so happy to know that I’m documenting my life in a way that I find beautiful and funny, and I know that I’ll be so excited to look back on these videos and remember what life looked and felt like in 2014, in Korea.

It’s starting to feel more okay knowing that I won’t be able to capture everything, and that my video is sometimes shaky. I’m doing this project for myself, and for my friends, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s perfectly imperfect! One of my favourite quotes is “I want to feel my life while I’m in it”, and making these videos, every step of the way, reminds me to pay attention and appreciate all the beauty and fun and humour I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by.

So here’s part one of summertime in Korea (May to early July), just in case you’re curious as to what my life looks like here. I had too much footage already to make just one summer video, so there will be another (yay!), probably in a few months’ time. I’m roughly dividing these by season because it’s a less stressful, more fun way for me to produce them (as opposed to every month). In the last few months we spent a lot of time outside, on rooftops and on the beach, on beautiful islands and on boats and on coastal trails. We found a trampoline, we did a lot of tumbling on the sand, we explored temples, we went to a music festival, and we climbed a dormant volcano. Even though some of the moments might have not been perfect or ideal at the time, looking back on this video I only feel blessed and grateful.

Photo Walk: Pattern

June 11, 2014

Looking back on the post, it feels like forever ago that I did my first pattern photo walk. But while I was walking around with my eyes peeled for patterns, the process felt very familiar, like I’d done it only last week – in fact, I often notice beautiful patterns on my walks, whether or not I photograph them. There’s something very soothing about having a small, easy task to mindlessly complete. It gives my hands something to do while I listen to a podcast and try and get out of my head for a few minutes. And after the news I got on Monday, my walk today was especially helpful.

Whenever I do photo walks or photo projects (like Steph Loves Today or Project 365, for example) I tend to be hard on myself and get discouraged about each individual photo. It’s only when I see the photos all grouped together that I can fully appreciate them and am reminded that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is a good reminder for life too, I think: individual days might feel underwhelming or stagnant, but when you look at them strung together, it’s easier to see the beauty of all the ordinary moments. Or the days might feel overwhelming and the problems they hold insurmountable, but a few months later they’ll blur together and make more sense. I’m trying to remember that this week.

These photos were taken on an hour-long walk from my apartment to Haeundae beach and back, at around 11AM on a cloudy day. I used my 35mm f1.8 lens and shot in manual mode.