This is an exciting news I want to share with you!

I have carried all posts here to the new site and I will be moving forward my journey over there from now on. On the left side of the site you can find the option to subscribe new posts via email.

The first story I just posted: Voice, embrace, and unfolding. It’s about finding my voice, embrace and unfold that part of me.

I thank all of you who have been here reading and listening. I invite you to continue visiting and following with Me along with Honeynhero Photography.

Let’s keep the conversation going, just a little hop to the new place.

See ya’ll there~

A friend of mine had me over at her house photographing her twin baby boys. This must have been such an amazing journey for them, considering all the attempts and the fact that the boys were born nine weeks short and needed some help before they could be home. The inner “mommy instinct” of me got stirred quite a bit by everything I saw and heard. Eight tiny teeny arms and legs swinging in the air, hundreds of baby faces they express, no-same-type of sound they make, and the precious hint of smile at their Mommy and Daddy, what can I say… I am so genuinely happy with everything that’s going on in their life and grateful of being part of their joy. You make great Mommy and Daddy.

I hadn’t taken the “baby thoughts” seriously before, because that wasn’t even a concept in my early twenty. Have a baby? !@#$% What’s that got to do with me? Now as I am approaching thirty (I hate saying it…), some times the thought just slip through my mind and I sometimes got a few “reminders” from my Mom over the phone. Wait, my Mom is not the “got-to-have-grandchildren” type of Mom. She worries about the timing of having a baby in my plans… if I had any…

I feel like I shouldn’t be talking about babies all by myself. When I met my husband, he had clearly implanted the no-kids thought on me. My reaction was “I don’t mind.” It is still “I don’t mind”. I think if he was the other way around on this topic, I probably wouldn’t mind having one either. (Does that also mean I am not ready for baby emotionally?) My husband had thought through the whole baby thing way ahead of me. There are strong reasons why he made up his mind, not the “cons of having a baby” selfish type of reason, but very deep thinkings. It has something to do with his childhood. I still don’t get the full picture sometime, but I sence it was hard and tough. My heart breaks every time he talks about it. Let’s not get into that part… I am glad that he let me understand and that he has gone ahead of me, so I totally hand over him the steeling wheel on this matter. A friend once said to us, “don’t try to think of it too much, just do it , and you’ll get by eventually…” My husband is not this type of man, oh no, definitely not.

This is where we are now, so you know. The words finally came out.

I would love to have a baby and I think it could be one of the most wonderful things in a marriage. But I love my husband more, so I decide to just ride with him the rest of my life.

Just one look, Elena completely stole my heart. Oh… the look of her eyes, don’t you just adore her? There’s no doubt that she will grow up to be a gorgeous girl.

I sometimes pre-visualize what I want to photograph and then talk and direct when I am shooting, but hey, she knows how to work the camera. I found myself holding breath, just clicking and clicking. All I have to say: Elena is seriously beautiful in every way. I don’t remember me looking like this in my early days… sigh… I really could photograph her all day! The best part - she is already very talented and have great personalities.

My heart gets deeply touched each time I put together photos of a family. I cry, gush, smile over images and images. Sometimes I even imagine their emotion and expression upon seeing the photos. I am graciously sharing these heartfelt images, the results of two-hour cooperation among Elena, her parents and me. It could have taken me forever working on these photos if I didn’t yell at myself to pause. I also want to thank her mommy and daddy, and I hope these moments will make you smile everyday.

From a distance, the Bay Bridge turns into a shimmering dancing sculpture after dusk. Have you spot the passing traffic, the moving clouds, and the shifting weather in the light pattern racing across the span? It’s hard for me to resist capturing this beautiful light patterns painted with 25,000 LEDs, even if it involved making a trip up to San Francisco among traffic and coming back home an hour and half past midnight.

To get it right is a bit tricky and I want share a little bit my thoughts to you if you ever want to visit the Bay Lights and have some pretty light patterns taken. It’s a different ballpark in terms of night photography. Night landscapes are usually shot with a relatively slow shutter speed accompanied with small aperture and low iso. But if I apply the normal ways of shooting night landscape, the Bay Lights would then turn into a bunch of boring white straight lines. So in order to freeze the motion of the light pattern, the key is to start with a faster shutter speed such as 1/30 to 1/20 second, still on the tripod though, then try to find a balance among the trade-offs between wide aperture and high iso (in plain words: between what’s in focus and digital noise). Fortunately, with a little post noise reduction, these pictures turned out not too bad, plus the grain looking residue noises make the black and white photo look a little vintage-ish.

When Alex told me that she would like me to photograph her parents during their visit here, aside from jumping up and down, I definitely felt the responsibility of owning a fancy camera now. What was that word? – “With great power comes with great responsibility.” Prior to our photo shoot, Alex and I talked about our worries of how we were able to take care of our parents when we are an ocean away from them. It suddenly made both of us a little sad because her parents would soon fly back and the time they will be able to spend so close to each other can be counted from now on. I am the only daughter of my parents and they are ocean away from me too so I can certainly relate. All we can do is to cherish every minute of it while we can and I am so grateful to be able to make some of the happiness and memories of those moments stay forever. The most lovely words Alex said to me, and I swear it was the most rewarding and heartfelt moment to me, was:”I think these are probably the best pictures my parents ever had in their life.” What a sweet and most loving daughter Alex is!

Although the meadow hasn’t turned green, the spring breath has melted the frozen streams of falls. This time of the year, Yosemite is a quiet and blue dreamland. I can hear only the sound of water. I loved walking along the Merced River in the rainy morning and stopped wherever spirit moved me. As I stood in front of the tunnel view, watching Bridalveil Fall and Cathedral Rocks looming through the veil of misty fog, just for a few seconds I wanted to become one of the pine trees. How could I ask for more? Nowhere is it easier to settle for the scene right in front of me. This view is going to be the most enduring memory of Yosemite for me.

 [ Sun breaks through clouds at Bryce Point ]

These orange pink “asparagus” looking rock pillars are called the Hoodoos of the Bryce Canyon. They are sculpted by million years of freezing and thawing water. Just like the name implies, these hoodoos will cast a spell on all who visit. It did on me.

[ Hoodoos lights ]

The first rays of light bring Hoodoos’ amazing formations life. These hoodoos are beautiful at any time of the day, but at sunrise the color seem to glow from within. When I arrived at the Bryce Point, the cloud covering the east was thick and I felt the sunrise won’t be as dramatic as I had imagined. However, I’ve learned to not give up on days like this with the ever changing weather in the canyonlands. The sun came up behind the thick clouds and nothing happened, but a few minutes later it broke through a stream of the cloud, hitting the top of the hoodoos in the canyon valley. The light lasted only for about a few seconds, then the rest of the day was completely overcast and later followed by a snow storm. I love when I happens, to be surprised by Nature! Bryce Canyon is a place that must be seen in person to truly gain a sense of scale and oddity.

[ Moonset over Bryce Point ]

[ Hoodoos in the snow storm ]

The story traces back to one year ago when I was shopping around for vintages stuffs for my wedding. I found Grant’s vintage ”treasure box” (the size of a garage) a year ago and ever since then, Hero has been fascinating about Grant’s collection of vintage tools and wooden crafts. It occurred to us a year later (can’t believe how time fly) that we should pay a visit to his garage again.

We have never seen anything like this before, not even in any history museums. Walking into his garage is like walking into an eye candy vintage shop or some storage place for making vintage movies. There are things back in 20′s to 50′s when people used to live and entertain with: old packaging, toys, tools, decorations, furnitures, magazines, records, lanterns, jewelry… about whatever you can think of. Everything was uniquely designed and hand crafted. Some are even one of a kind. We ooo and awed while watching Grant’s demonstrations of how people had used it back then. There was nothing heroic or dramatic behind each item, just simple wisdom and humor of the old times. He has so many collections that we never had enough time going through every single piece. In an hour a half, we picked up a Kodak camera, a Giant’s baseball bat, a hand crafted wooden plane, a couple of whistles, and decided to leave the rest for next time.

BTW, Grant is currently de-collecting his vintage collections, if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and are interested in arranging a shopping visit, feel free to contract Grant through his email: baldpate08[at]gmail[dot]com (the last 2 numbers are ”zero” “eight”, not “letter o” “eight”.)

You have to pardon me not naming each photos, because now I realized I probably should have taken notes of each item.

Filed under: Life, personal Tagged: vintage ]]> http://honeynhero.com/2013/02/08/vintage-collection-in-grants-garage/feed/ 5 Vintage Kodak camera honeynhero Vintage Kodak camera vintage kodak camera Vintage tools collections Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3355 Vintage Sale in Garage_2 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3211 Vintage Sale in Garage_1 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3156 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3185 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3160 Vintage Sale in Garage_4 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3208 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3187 Vintage Sale in Garage_3 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3193 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3324 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3196 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3200 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3225 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3221 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3240 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3247 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3241 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3268 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3265 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3320 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3313 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3270 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3345 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3349 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3282 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3302 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3305 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3311 Vintage Sale in Grant's Garage-3364 http://honeynhero.com/2013/01/25/backcountry-into-the-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/ http://honeynhero.com/2013/01/25/backcountry-into-the-monument-valley-navajo-tribal-park/#comments Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:43:37 +0000 Erika http://honeynhero.com/?p=3930 ]]>

[Monument Valley Panorama]

One of my highest anticipations of the southwest road trip was this beautiful dreamscape of red buttes and mesas, called “Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park” (I still laugh at myself when I first miss pronounced the name “navaho” as “navajo”, you know what I mean…) Had seen couple glimpse in movies and commercial ads, I had no idea how unique and remote this place is until I stood in front of the quintessential landscape. It has been preserved to keep its original look and I had been deceived to think it was not even civilized. There were still native Americans living in the vast land and communicating with their own language.

We had the luck of staying at the “The View”, the only hotel inside park where all the balconies facing the panoramic view like the one in the above picture. The dramatic light casted different hues on the surreal sandstone towers and valley floor. The colors on the mittens change from bright orange to deep dark red within the last few hours of the day.

[ Mitten's Sunset and Moonrise ]

[ Twin Mitten at dusk ]

[ Mitten's Moon ]

My tripod stood on the balcony  in the freezing cold all night and of course I didn’t sleep much either. At first I was trying to shoot star trails, but the moon was so bright and high that it lit the whole sky, so no chances of getting star trails in the midnight. Then I went to take a nap, somewhere along suddenly I thought about shooting at the darkest time which was dawn when the moon was set and the sun hadn’t yet come up. I got up before dawn and it worked, but my angle was limited on the balcony unless I went into the middle of the valley. Alright, this is the best (and the first) star trails I got. (still worth the effort I guess…)

 [ Star trail over the Monument Valley ]

After messing around the whole night, it still wasn’t the time to rest. In winter time, the sun rises from the east of the three iconic buttes in the valley, unlike the intense orange color during sunset, winter sunrise was more hushed and soft.

[ Monument Valley Sunrise ]

After the sunrise and a nice breakfast at The View, we hopped onto a blue Jeep with our private Navajo guide Gary for an unforgettable backcountry valley tour. Visiting this place during winter season was the best, although it’s cold but there was no one in the valley except us, and not to mention there’s less sand and dust on the dirt road. We book the tour because the Navajos only allow the public to see a 17-mile loop of Monument Valley but there’s a vast area with hidden wonders beyond the loop that can only be accessed by local residents. Even the 17-mile loop requires a four-wheel drive, we didn’t want to turn our white civic red…

[ Touring Monument Valley on Jeep, "three sisters" in distance ]

As we bumped along the rocky tracks all over the Navajo backcountry, we popped in and out of the Jeep, walked around while listening to Gary’s talk about history and culture, and took tons of pictures. Word couldn’t explain the awe of the wild, untrammeled place. There were certain moments I felt weak and tiny in front of the majestic environment, I felt like nothing matters compares to the nature!

[ Our native Navajo guide Gary, in front of Hogan and Totem Pole ]

[ Snow falling through The Big Hogan, backcountry in Monument Valley ]

[Dead tree and natural arch, backcountry in Monument Valley]

[Eye of the Sun, backcountry in Monument Valley]

[ Ancient ruins of cliff dwellings, Secret Valley in Navajo Nation]

[ Teardrop Arch, Secret Valley in Navajo Nation ]

I have selected a few major wonders posted above, the slideshow below has the complete interesting spots we’ve visited. Hope you enjoy!

[ "Canyon Symphony" ]

A masterpiece of water and wind’s work of art…

An incredible gallery of light, color and textures… putting me in silence…

A sandstone prism filtering sunlight down through curved sandstone walls, creating dream-like patterns and constantly changing hues…

An hour and half in the middle of the tour traffic, I grasped every minute I had to plant the tripod hoping I was doing the right thing and would get something not blurred and useful. There was no time to compose any “perfect” shots and there were my muted grumbles when some figures walked into my two-minute exposure. It was a challenging place for photographing, with the crowds, the tight times and not to mention the changing lights and shadows. A few weeks later now, I sat in front of the computer trying to find some cosmos out of the chaos. Thanks to the work of mother nature, it turned out that there wasn’t any moment that’s not very picturistic or artsy so to speak…  When I look closer I noticed that nature was very forceful but at the same time detailed when she sculpted her piece of art. Just imagine the now calm and tranquil canyon walls was once so roughly washed by flash flood. My work is merely bringing out nature’s power and delicateness: the curvatures of sandstone waves, the vertical lines left behind by water streams, the sand pocket, the twisted cracked rocks…

Meanwhile, I am having lots of fun phrasing the nature’s art with wild imaginations. How do you like these names? Feel free to share your artsy ideas with me!

These images can also be viewed with a darker background (better I think) in the slideshow at the end of the post.

 [ "Inner Fire" ]

[ "Stone Prism" ]

[ "Pink Sand" ]

[ "See Through" ]

[ "Turning Lights" ]

[ "Bracing Branch" ]

[ "Coloring Up" ]

[ "Color Holder" ]

[ "Rouge Dream" ]

[ "A Sunny Pass" ]

Hope you enjoy the show!