Words For My Pictures

Macro/Close Up photography is a great medium to see the little things we usually don’t pay attention to. It seems that our vision is blocked by what we think is important. We are conditioned to see only what we precisive as significant in our life. We often fail to realize what seems small and none essential has a role in our survival or distraction. If we look closely as we do in close up photography, we can see the unseen which has a place in the greater universe because every living or nonliving particle has a place. Like a jigsaw puzzle, every piece is crucial to make the bigger picture complete whatever its size is. Like the things we fail to pay attention to we might look like we are insignificant in the vast universe but we know that we are important. We believe in our uniqueness as our planet which we share with millions of living things is. We should realize we are not the sole being which has a right to live on this macro piece of the universe. We should respec...

Alfred Hichcokes's 1960 horror-thriller film is considered among the greatest films of all time. The library of congress describes the film as "Culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". I have watched this psychological horror-thriller film many times and it always fascinates me even though I know what is going to happen and how the story ends. I couldn't help watching it again but this time I am watching it through my camera's lens and I am taking pictures of scenes in the move in slow shutter speed. The outcome is a thriller by itself. Hitchcock was a genius and all the frames in  Psycho reflect that. The pictures that I took also magnified the talent of one of the greatest directors of all time. The slow shutter speed that I used gave the pictures a sense of movement and the overlapping frames in a single picture gave them double or triple exposure effect. Some pictures have two or three scenes of the movie, making them look like a scar...

Some times my pictures look like my dreams. Especially the black and white pictures. I feel most of my dreams are in Monochrome but I am sure when it is relevant to the dream I can dream in color. Dreams like my pictures are stories. Stories of my subconscious, which can be good, bad or weird. They might not be considered as real but I feel they are the reality of my subconscious. They are driven from what I think, experienced and desired. They are free from any conscious and intellectual evaluation. They are free from self-censorship and taboos. Dreams are the freer version of my thought. My free thought without any kind of inhibition. I dream without remorse or guilt. Most cultures have a tradition of interpreting dreams as most religions because dreams are considered as a way of telling the future or receiving the message of God. For me, my dreams are my consciousness and they are the reflection of who I am what I think. I don’t try to find the future (my dreams are m...

This is to celebrate the life of Adrian who I first met when I started training at Seattle Kettlebell club to become a kettlfit and sport instructor. In April 2018, Nikolai one of the co-owner of Seattle Club invited me to try the fitness classes to see if I like working out with kettlebells. It happens that I like working with Kettlebells and the Gym and its close-knit members. Adrian as one of a long time, in fact, one of the original members who had been working out with Nikolai since his early start was a permanent fixture of the gym. I remember he was one of the first long time members to welcome me into the community of kettlebell lifters. He had been always encouraging and giving me pointers to improve my lifting. Adrian can not stop talking about kettlebell sports. I learned so much about the sports from him since he talks about the in out of the sport with passion and he can talk forever if you are willing to listen which I did since Adrian's training days and my workda...

March is the month of the epidemic/ Pandemic of COVD-19 virus at least at the part of the world I reside, North West of the United States. The first epicenter in the US. I will write about the epidemic in another blog later.   Before it all started March was a designated month of Black and Photography for me. I chose March for no reason but I always wanted to experiment in Black and white photography and I chose March for taking Black and White pictures for an entire month.  Black and White pictures feel somewhat natural for me since I am from an era of Black and White photography. Yes, there were color films since the 60s but it was not widely available and the early color films didn’t have the quality to represent the real world, they were somewhat off. The black and white pictures of the time were much superior because they somewhat depict the real world even it is in monochrome. It was also what people were used too. On top of that most outstanding artistic phot...

Accidents don't happen for a reason they give you a reason. In February 2016 I thought I had it all. I was happy with my life, work and everything I do. Everything was going my way exactly the way I want it to go. I was in control. There were no surprises or misfortunes. Physically I was in good shape, I go to the gym at least three times a week, play basketball three days a week, swim almost everyday and mountain biking for two or three times a week. I juggle different responsibilities at work. My colleagues think I was working hard but I had never felt that I was working hard because everything I did was done with passion.  I was high with life, I was invincible, I was on top of everting until that cold February morning which paused everting.  On the morning of, February 16,2016  I had no plan to cycle or do some mountain biking. On the previous night, I had a good run playing basketball and it was a late-night pick-up game at the German Embassy school. S...

The Churches of Lalibela are rock-hewn churches in Lalibela Ethiopia built by king Lalibela to depict the holy land, Jerusalem. Lalibela built the churches by hewing monolithic rocks from the top to the bottom making the churches unique in the world for being the only buildings constructed from the roof to the basement, not the other way round as conventional buildings are built. Lalibela is an astonishing work of construction but what more astonishing is the advance drainage system that all the churches have.   Most of the Churches are literally carved out of stone from the top part down to the basement making them below the surrounding landscape. We all know that water drains all the time from high elevation to the lowest and if it doesn’t have access to flow to the next lowest point it will accumulate.   We all know that even in this age basements have water problems because most of the time our basements are below the surface and we have to use advanced waterproofin...