Motion&Emotion--20/30D'C

   Last time I used two photos of Nancy to show how structure and colour  in my work. This time, I want to talk about the roles motion and emotion play in photography. 

   What is motion? The trace that runners rushing on the field? Or the skinny arrow fly through an apple? Almost everything is kinetic in the world. As Chemistry teachers always say: “All matter consists of tiny particles that are in constant motion. ” Then, how can we show the motion of the subject or person in a photo? Sometimes, when a subject is moving, we can easily figure out its trace base on our own life experiences. For example, if a bottle of water is hanging in the air, you know it is gonna drop down to the ground in the next second. So, look at this photo now. 

   My friend Bella was playing tennis. I took this photos while she was throwing the ball in to the air. She looked up to the ball, and raised her tennis racket. Her left arm still kept the position of throwing. This is a regular position of serving a ball. All of these vivid movements rebuild that exciting moment to you. As an audience, you may also feel Bella’s mood in this photo. You can tell from her neutral motions that she was pretty relaxed instead of nervous. Also, the way she looked at the ball shows us she might be considering about how to hit it or when it was gonna fall down. See, a good photo with sufficient motions can bring you many useful information, and the more you receive from the photo, the more realistic the photo would seem to be. However, motion’s function is not only about conveying a lively moment, but also expressing the emotion.

   A photo with enough motional details can usually lead the audiences to the emotional stage. Like I have mentioned above, the protagonist’s face and body are able to reveal the mental condition. But how to decorate photos with the dynamic elements? How to make my photos as real as the videos? Here is a little tip: sometimes the blurry objects are exactly what you need.

    Tell me how do you feel about this photo? Can you feel if she was sad, happy, excited or sorrowful? Of course! This is a girl who was wearing her new dress before the prom night. She put on the high heels and make up to show her friends. I pressed the shutter when she was expanding the dress. You can see the bottom half of the dress is vague and burry, because the speed of the shutter was slower than the speed of her movements. Nonetheless, the top half of the photo is so clear that you can even count the amount of her hair. In this situation, the photo is successful because it expressed all the necessary elements. The clear part ensured the basic quality and details, and the blurry part increased the motional style. Moreover, while you look at it, the combination of stillness and motion can usually remind you of the dynamic scenes appeared in the real world, such as the high speed cars and flying birds. This kind of connection would establish a three dimensional figure in your brain, and trigger the emotion that hide behind those moments themselves. 

    If you want to take a static photo as the first one, just turn up the shutter speed; apparently, for the second dynamic photo, all you need to do is choose a super slow shutter speed and hold your camera steadily. I am learning from my everyday practice. Why don’t you pick up your camera and improve your skills with me? 

How to take a good photo--18/30D'C

Someone asked me:" What is the most important part of Photography?" Most of time, I would answer them:" Color and structure." Indeed, these elements are the main sides of the quality of a picture. Today, I want to talk more about them, and how I communicate with them in my photos.

Like I have mentioned before, my roommate Nancy would probably show up in my blog a lot.  This time, I am going to use the photos I took for her to show you the difference between color and structure.

Look at this one. What do you see in this photo? Slides of pizza? A girl? The baby behind her? Or the black chairs? When I saw this photo first a few days ago, the only thing caught my eyes was how wrong the color was! The temperature of this photo is abnormally warm, and many parts of it such as plates and windows were overexposed. "This can not be right." I told myself," It looks exactly like the photos come out of the filters on my cell photo!" I understand many people at my age like those filters on the smart phone because I am also one of them. When you take a selfie or photos of landscape, you want your photo to be artistic, and you add some philosophical words under it, then post on social media. However, all of these is far away from my requirements of photos in the real camera. As my point of view, a good photo in camera should first be natural. Again, look at this one, the yellowish red light in the dark environment had already laid a foundational color for me before me picked up my camera. I was annoyed, so that I increased the exposure value and try to make Nancy's face as clear as it could be, but I did not notice those light colors made the photo so distorted.

Now, focus on this one. The temperature is much darker in this photo, but most of the details were recorded. You can see the shadows on the plate and light changed gradually from the window along the wall.  Under this circumstance, although the color was still warmer than the reality, the whole photo kept all the valuable elements. You can even feel the motion of the character in the right color. Whenever I look into my photos, some of them can always bring me back to the moment I pressed the shutter. 

Besides the color, structure also plays an extremely crucial role. Both of the photos above were portraits. I  chose to make Nancy the protagonist and put her in the middle of the photos. By setting a big aperture value, I blurred the background in order to emphasis the focus. I like to take photos with big aperture value for people and still life. It is because that is how we look at things in the real life. When we stare at a small flower near the road, our eyes would automatically focus on the flower and reduce the interaction from the surroundings. Simply, the main point of taking a photo to me is catching up with the reality. Good photos are those can provide people the feeling of reading an old book or watching a fantastic movie. If photographers are the translators who translate life in their own views, then structure and color are the best storytellers. They can show you the world even beyond your eyes.

Although these skills of Photography can help me present my moments better, there is another pair of partners who are able to decide the spirit of the photos. Next time, I show you my adventures with them on this 30-Day road. Have a nice week!

Saw--16/30D'C

I opened my eyes, and saw the whole summer unfolded itself under the most brilliant light; I saw wind danced through the gate of garden and hide under shadows; I saw birds’ feathers painted on the canvas of sky; I saw the river flow all the way from yesterday; and myself in the pond, a tiny pale jasmine. I grown up near the bush—the most interesting neighbour in the world. You can’t really distinguish their differences, but they were all talkative. They had lots of friends and knew lots of stories. There were two thousands and eighty three leaves in the bush, and they told one story one night. Most of the stories were from ants, birds, and the new flowers. 

Two weeks after my birthday, I left my old branch and bush to start my own adventure. One of the oldest leaves secretly told me that only wind can bring me to a bigger world. That was gonna be a new world beyond my imagination. I could fly and sing as much as I want. “Before you die in the mud, you are free to leave all the time.” He stared at me like the mud that provided us nutrition can swallow us at any minute. 

That was a restless night at the end of May. I kissed good-bye with my siblings and shake myself over and over again. I was waiting, for the wind. I did not remember how long I had been waiting in the dark, but I can still clearly recall the moment I got rid of the branch and flew up to sky. I was floating with millions of gas molecules, and I heard them murmured near my ears. They said I was the bravest jasmine they had ever seen and promised to stay with me all the time. I thought I was going to explode. Every petal of mine were yelling with the stars. I looked down to the garden that nurtured all of my friends and family gradually disappeared at the end of valley, but that old leave still stared at me, with his exciting and nervous eyes. “Nothing can stop me now.”   

I flew over a small village and saw a woman with her lovely young boy playing near the lake.  The boy was seeking for flowers to make a garland for his mom; I saw a fisher siting on the boat and sang an old rhythm; I saw teenage girls lying under the locust trees and looking for flyers like me. They found me and shown me their smiles. I knew they were praying deep in the hearts. I saw sweaty workers running through the factory and eating under the sunlight; I saw infants were delivered by soft and thick hands. I saw dancers dancing under the moon, stretching out their elegant necks, and raising up red ballet shoes; I saw brides walking into the church and grooms wearing the suits. I kept flying with the wind and seeking for my bigger world. 

I hoped time could stop while I flying in my adventure, but I started to feel my withering. One of my smallest petals disappeared without saying a word. I turned back and looked for it, but the water in my body were also evaporating. I knew I could not last longer. My gas molecule friends held me approached the ground. Ten meters, five meters, three meters…Oh my dear ground. I could even smell its familiar sweet odour. “ I am back.” After witnessing so many people and lives, I finally came back to my comfortable mud. Instead of hanging on the top of branch, I lay near the root of an unknown willow. One of its twigs passed by from the sky and brought me its blessings. Everything was breathing, and hearts were beating. Beetles had already slept, but cicadas were still crying. “What a beautiful world.” I felt so satisfied. Before I closed my eyes for good, the old leave’s voice appeared in my head again: “ Before you die in the mud, you are free to leave all the time.” 

“But if you don’t, it is not mud that will swallow you.”

I suddenly opened my eyes. The old leave was staring at me like yesterday and the day before yesterday. I saw a woman with basket walking toward me; I saw her bent down and reached out her hands; I saw her picked me up from the branch that I haven’t had the chance to leave yet; I saw her put me into the basket and drive the car away; I saw my whole plain life, and myself in the tea cup, a tiny pale jasmine.

“ It is always you, who is meant to swallow yourself.”

In the next days, I can only take a "boring"  photo and add my imagination into it. For example, I can make up a interesting story about a ordinary leaf. Cool stories can always be created from the plain life! Or, I can find the specific that my photo gives me, and seek for something comparable, such as music or paintings. Then I can connect them and jump out the box of limitation. Moreover, I have taken many photos  for my friends, and I usually sent them the photos. Maybe I can also write about their reactions and advices about the photos.

I am excited about the Summer vacation.
This trip is so exciting!
I was inspired by those art works.
That book is pretty inspiring to me.

Two years have ___since the last time I met her.

In the ___ few day, I have been working on my project.

I can always learn something from the ___.

I just ___ my math test.

My ___ reminds me of something bad.

I just wasted the ___three hours.

Mr.Tree And Hat--13/30D'C

   Things start to change with the arrival of spring. After several rainy days, I surprisingly found out that flowers constantly emerged out from the wet mud, and the plants who have already stood near people through the whole winter raised their new buds. Spring is a season of rebirth; people get off their thick winter cloths and began to dream about the enthusiasm of summer. In this energised season, beauty seems like a eternal topic. 

   There is a tree near the road in front of Stop&Shop. Actually, there are almost hundreds of similar trees on that road, but I only chose that one as my protagonist. The first time I noticed him was a windy day in last week. I went to S&S to buy my favourite food and snackers. Suddenly, I just stopped walking and stared at an ordinary white plastic bag. She was floating, or flying. She came all the way from Marshall, sometimes danced up, and sometimes fell down, but never touched the ground. I was curious when she was gonna reach its destination. My eyes followed her steps to a bald unknown tree. The tree seemed so cold because of the wind. He was shaking near those passing car with roaring engine, and poured out its sadness. But the plastic bag came. She jumped on the top of the tree and voluntarily became his hat. 

   Yes, an old tree and a shabby hat, and I was standing right behind them looking at those two pathetic characters. When everything woke up from their hibernations, they still sunk in their deep dreams of winter. The most unnoticeable grass under them had already bought their shining costume, but Mr.Tree only had a single hat as lonely as himself. You know what? I felt bad for them, but this scene, the combination of melancholy and vitality, was also beautiful to me as a photographer. I know you may think I was either so bored or crazy that would like to waste my time on observing and mourning for a tree. The truth is, it was neither the tree nor the plastic bag stopped me from approaching my favourite food, it was my feeling of revealing this picture, reminded me of a scene existed years ago… 

   It was a spring in 2013. I went to a park with my parents. Beijing was much warmer than Connecticut in April, and all the magnolia and sakura blossomed with their charming fragrance. I took pictures with my parents among those brilliant trees as usual, but when we were about to leave, my was attracted by a typical sharp voice. I turned around; there was a middle age woman standing with her little daughter. The girl was about ten years old. She leaned on one of the sakura trees with a weird gesture, and lowered her head to avoid eye contact with her mom. The woman kept yelling: “ You need to learn the beauty of nature! The aesthetics you know?! You are a girl. Why you just can't find a single elegant pose to take photos?! Look at yourself! ” She was angry, furiously angry. I looked around and found out I was not the only one watching them. Obviously, the woman was not affected by strangers’ stares at all. She walked closer to the girl and put her right hand under her chin to make her seem like smelling flowers. Then, she went backwards for two meters and finally pressed the shutter. 

   “ That is ridiculous.” I was glad my parent never did that to me. The girl was like a stiff robot all the time; she was indifferent and reluctant. I could not help wondering how the girl herself want to express before the camera. Since that, I started to keep thinking about the prototype hided in most of people. Why we can usually  be agreeable to what is beautiful? Do we really know what is the best?Or is that someone else imposed on us? The moment I looked toward to tree, those questions suddenly jumped out with that girl’s figure from two years ago. If I say that poor tree and its hat are beautiful, you probably not gonna agree with me, but if I say the flowers in front of Horton Hall are beautiful, I may immediately receive many approved voices. Apparently, you are free to choose anything you like. However, the point is: do not just deny the value of something disobeys your own wish while being the majority. To the girl, or to the tree, they were beautiful the way they were, and if they want, it is the fact that needs no approval.

   Everything exists for a reason, and they grow with the orbit they were born with. I have seen many artists’ pictures and photos that have their original styles. So, be confident, even if you are only an old tree with a plastic hat.

The Film--11/30 D'C

The close contact with camera in last two weeks reminded me of one of my old friends--film. Before the digital camera, people still used film to take photos in early 21st century. You had to make sure everything was just fine with the film box, or all of your photos would be like dusts. Started from the film, I jumped into the photography world.

I remember when my family came back from picnics or travels, my dad always sat before his professional desk and fiddled with the old and ugly camera. Compare to that, my dolls seemed much more attractive. However, there was one thing that I could never ignore from his machines--the film roll. I liked to stare at those brown strips when my dad came back from the camera store. He went to print the colourful photos that he was so proud of, but the only thing I cared about was the dull film. The film was light, I used to raised them up near the lamp, and see through the thin plastics. I could see there were tiny people on the film doing exactly what they did a few hours ago. To me, the world within the film rolls was the real photography; that was the moment that was actually recorded by technology, not something had been adjusted by the computer or printed in the dark room. You know what? after film faded from the staged for more than ten years, I still kept most of my dad's film rolls in my little drawer. I am not a person who is able to throw things away easily; I cherish them as the history.

Of course, after film disappeared, I was not willing to accept the crazy new digital camera at first. However, you have to catch up the speed of the world, or you will only be left behind. After I prove my words to "protect" film with actions for the whole two months, I started to stick with my dad again and play his new cameras. At that time, I thought everything with brilliant digital screens were angels that sent by God--television, computer, the old and stupid telephone...generally, just everything I could not stay with more than an hour.When I finally got to see photos on camera itself, I felt like looking trough a magic mirror that had the ability to stop time and store it. Although I was only a little girl when digital cameras were born, I enjoy taking photos. The good news was that I would not waste my dad's film any more, but the sad one was: I could barely stop. When my dad took me to his favourite photography park, he can hardly get the chance to touch his precious camera. He was so worried and bored to see a little me ran all over the world with a huge camera. Fortunately, I grown up quickly. But at the same time, the cameras were also growing. My dad bought countless different lens, tripods, and cameras. As for me, I took care of them whenever they were abandoned by him.

Now, people can hardly buy film in the market, and only some photographers and film makers would choose to use it in seek of high quality. As time passes, I became good at accepting all the new generations of cameras. However, those irreplaceable brown plastic strips would always stay in my drawer, and be remembered.

I put the apple in the box.

There is a bug on my table.

He has to wait at the conner.

I haven't seen her since middle school.

I can only wait until seven.

She comes from New York.

I like the flavor of the new ice cream.

My dad just bought a present for me.

I will go there by taxi.

I went to a cinema with my friends. 

It has been more than ten days since I started the 30-day challenge two weeks ago. I remember when I knew about this program first in class, I was super excited about the coming photos and blogs because I could finally have my own world in the blog like many professional bloggers. I chose to take five photos with my camera for thirty days. The first weekend was excellent. I went to a new restaurant, Stop&Shop with my friends. There were lots of thing to be written about during that weekend. I posted my first blog with four photos I took, and adjusted the arrangement carefully. However, things started to changed after that. I could even hardly find anything to fill my camera, and the blog posts were like traffic jam. I was bored. I tried to trace back the feeling I had in the first weekend, but the fact just kept telling me:" This is your boring life, and there is nothing much in it." Unfortunately, no matter how I was not willing to continue, I had to submit my homework. Therefore, I insisted taking the photos in the next days. Sometimes they were about food, and sometimes they were about homework. When I opened the computer and check the photos, there were all little stuffs that filled my daily life. I gradually found out maybe they were actually all I need--the ordinary moments. For now, I do not want to complain any more. Just keep up and finish it! 

Behind Daily Life--9/30 D'C

    I swear this is the first time I feel writing blog is something relaxing. I am going through a tough Saturday right now. Today, I have to finish a full lab, a history presentation, a bunch of Math questions, Chemistry preview, and this little blog. I just got over with the lab and Math questions, and now, before I rush toward the boring history presentation, I decided to open my blog and have a rest. This time, I want to talk about the school work and last week's college fair during my 30-day challenge.

    Why sometimes all the annoying things just come together? Every time I came up with this meaningless question, I can always get the same answer--This is a process, and everything is gonna be fine. Seriously, no one wants to hear that cliche, but we can only accept it and keep fighting. Look at the photo on the right side. This is a college fair few days ago. There were about 144 colleges and even more students. Everyone seemed ambitious. We waited in the line and asked questions; we know how to mention our virtues "inadvertently", and observe the admission officers' mood. No one felt tired because that was what we meant to do for the future. Students can never forget their responsibilities; most of time, they are just not willing to start. For example, 30-day challenge has always been like a huge signal that hung in my head and reminded me to pick up my camera. However, no matter how many photos I have left, I would never bring my camera all the time because that seems silly. After I walked around for twenty minutes in the college fair, I felt boring and started to work on my challenge job. I like to take photos for people, especially in the crowd. It is because I could always catch different emotions on people's faces, and that gave me a feeling of reading lots of stories.
                                                                                     
    You know what was interesting? When admission officers saw me lingered with camera, they started to talk about it with me. I told them about my 30-day challenge and how much I love photography. They introduced their art, photography and filmmaking majors to me, and told me about their movie programs and clubs. I was pretty excited of the effect my camera brought me. I suddenly had so much to talk with them. Maybe that was why people said:" Interests can always lead you to the gate."
When you fall in love with something, you do not need anyone to push you, and everything would just happen naturally. On the other hand, if you keep forcing yourself for what other people imposed on you, your world would not be as colorful as it should be. You must have heard some of your friends say they want to be banker or lawyer because their parents want them to make money. Can they succeed? No one knows. But will they be happy?

    For now, I haven't found out what I want to choose for major yet, and I even don't know what I really like. But I do know, I will gradually uncover the cloud above my brilliant life, and my 30-day challenge has already given me more than I thought before. 

About the dorm -- 6/30 D'C

     What would you look for when you are about to apply a school? Environment? Academic support? Or security? For me, that would be dormitories. Dorm might be the place where you spend most of time in school, but of course, except you have some intensive infatuation with study and sleep in the library.  Therefore, today I want to talk about my dorm with both my photos and words.

     Firstly, I admit one of the most important reason of talking about my dorm is that I did not have much time to take photos at somewhere else after school. This two days are busy and boring, but dorms are not. I am sure someone sits behind the screen has the same interest in dorms as I do. When I applied to Cheshire Academy at the beginning, I thought every dorm would be like Motter and Markin with beautiful white walls and little lawn in front of the gate. However, nothing from the dorm that I was assigned filled my expectation at first. I live in Hurley--the oldest and the smallest one.  Look at the photo, you can see how the color of bricks faded through hundreds of year. Sometimes during the windy day, I was afraid we would all fly over the campus with our grandma dorm. Everyone lives in Hurley has heard some ghost stories. They are about the ghost in white dress, the ghost did not sleep in the middle of the night, or the ghost who went to bathroom in the dark. Apparently, we all know there are no ghosts at all, and all of those funny stories were led by Hurley's oldess and and creaked floor. That was also why I chose to take the picture on the steps. I specially put both the wall and steps into my photo to express its ages.

     I was sad and worried the first time standing in my own room. "This is ridiculous. How can I live in this small space!" I stood in the middle of my room and thought. Beds,desks, and drawers, and that's all. Nancy and I even bought our own wardrobes. However, things are always changing, include attitude. I don't know when exactly I started to accept my little room. Maybe it was when the sunshine poured through windows in the afternoon, and golden everything with quietness, or maybe it was when I made lots of good friends in the dorm and talked together as family. Suddenly, I found myself less complaining, and start to like this old building.  Yesterday, when the light came in again and shown me my favourite scene of the day, I picked up my camera and turned to the window. You can see I put my orange jam on the windowsill, and near it is the food can I brought from home. Hurley is a small dorm, but just because of that, it shortened the distance between us. We live together on a single floor and got use to everyone's habits. Now, we are getting close to the end of the year. I don't know if I am gonna miss this period of time, but I do want to keep these meaningful moments with my cameras, as a part of my irreplaceable memories.

     My friend has told me: "The most interesting part of getting to a new place is not about how great it is. It is about who it is going to lead you to, and what you are going to get through." I think that is true, and you know what else I just found out? When I look into the camera lens, everything seems memorial.

As Time Passes--4/30 D'C

     This blog post is about everyday from April 10th to April 13th. If you ask me which part of my life passes the fastest, as a student, I would definitely say--weekend. Weekends start from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. I usually felt exhausted first, then excited, relaxed, anxious, and sorrowful at last. No matter how long I have been lying on my bad and watching movies, the whole weekend still seem like twenty minutes of the math class.

Thai

     Friday afternoon, I went to the new Thai restaurant with my friend and camera. We were dying to eat something "un-dining hall&dragon buffet". The weather was pretty good, although the wind at six still felt chilly. Sitting on leather sofa in a whole Thai environment, I automatically forgot everything about school. Pineapple fired rice, basil, and Tom Yam Gong soup became the leaders of my empty stomach and soul. Of course, dinner is much more than eating itself. We talked a lot during the endless chewing, about college, troubles, stars, and the impending summer vacation. The exoticness of this Thai restaurant became a wonderful land to hold all my tiredness. When the food was served, I opened my camera instead of the phone, and stuffed that peaceful moment into infinity.

Roommate

      This girl in the photo is my beloved roommate Nancy. She was doing her Biology homework on Saturday morning. You can see the basic structure of our room. There is a bed behind her, and my part is symmetrical with hers about the door. What a narrow room! We can barely walk around. Anyway, the point of taking this picture is to show you the most regular day of my school life. Our room would be like this during every study hall, displaying the "silent brain storming" picture. By the way, be prepare to see lovely Nancy appears a lot in the next days, in case I don't feel like walking out and take photos. One of the biggest challenges of taking photos of your friends is learning how to hide. I must act quickly to record their nature appearances without attention. However, I still need their agreements to post the photos. 

Flowers

     The most interesting part of photography is tracing back. For example, a girl in China took one photo with her father each year since she was born. They stood together with the same gesture after the girl was capable of standing independently. Now, the little girl is a thirty-year-old mother and her father has already become a old man with white hair, but they never stop taking their routine photos. Last year, the girl combined all the photos together and posted them on the Internet. You can see how time changed people over years. The sweet little baby grew up to a gorgeous lady, and the handsome young man changed to the gracious grandfather. Time just never give you a single chance to find out when it secretly lift the former layer of yourself. When you trace back, with gratefulness and yearning, all the memories would emerge from the dust, and that is what attracts me the most about Photography. The fragrant flowers I encountered in the S&S claimed the arrival of spring. They suddenly reminded me of a poetry I recited years ago in home: "Year after year the blossoms look alike, while people never remain the same. " Then, I picked up the camera again, in memory of those fragile but eternal blossoms.

Froyo!

     To be honest, I am pretty satisfied with my first four days of challenge, but I also found a little potential problem. I have always been a lazy person. I may have the freshness to take photos all over the campus in the first few days, but as time passes, I am afraid I would be tired of it. As a student who goes to classes and does the homework, what can I record without repetition? My life is repetitive! By now, although I am still frustrated by the vague future of my challenges, I am still trying my best to find the new elements. Maybe I need to calm down and enjoy every possible second might be in the camera. Just try to mix the challenge into your life, as people always say: "Leave the future to the future."

My thirty days challenge started on Friday. I chose to take five pictures a day, and it went well for the first three days. On Friday, I took a picture of my lunch at dinning hall, a little white flower near the road, tiny slippers of my roommate, my Cheshire coffee cup, and the moment when my friend turned around. I saved my photos in the camera and left them. This morning, i was quite excited when I looked my them. They helped my recalled my life a few days ago. I could remember the every minute behind those colorful and vivid pictures. Then, I realized that the true power of photography exists in its eternal probability of lasting. If I form it as my own habit in this thirty days, maybe after ten years I would be surprised by how time passes and the every moments I keep in the computer or the frame. For now, taking five photos is not a heavy job. However, I guess maybe after two weeks I might be annoyed about finding elements. All in all, no matter what, I will not give up on this, because I enjoy sinking into my world of photos and memories.  

I always like photography. I like to record my life by a magical machine as well as I like painting. I like the feeling of recalling back the old days through hundreds of amazing pictures, and I like make my own singular memory by adjusting the aperture and shutter. However, my camera has laid in the drawer all the time because I do not have much chance to go out and take pictures. I wanted to change it whenever I saw my lovely camera bag with a layer of dust. Therefore, when I knew about the thirty days challenge, I decided I am going to start the change I have always planed. Maybe I neither need to climb the magnificent mountains, nor play on the charming beach to find to opportunity to use my camera; maybe I can just excavate beauty from my ordinary life. I can take five pictures each day of someone or something looks special. If my computer has enough space, I might import the pictures into PhotoShop and make some adjustments. It is gonna be fun after thirty days’ recording when I look back what happened during this period of time.

About My Lovely Camera and Thirty Days Challenge

Someone has told me challenges can always bring us surprises. After a whole year running challenges you might find yourself start to have the strength to work all day without a rest; after a summer’s breakfast plan you might be excited about how regular your life can be; after two months’s reading practice, the difficult essays and fictions could suddenly change to a joyful brook and flow into your mind. After you finishing the challenges, your life is still ordinary, and you are still the person who goes to school or rush to work everyday. However, nothing can replace the delightfulness that your insistence and that special period of time have brought to you and maybe, the small undeniable change of yourself.

What can I do in thirty days? I don’t like running, eating breakfast, or reading complicated research essays. Thus, I decided to pick my old interests again—photography. My dad is a amateur photographer, and a big fan of Cannon. As I remember, he always took his huge cameras with him, and pointing the lenses on me and my siblings. I liked to fiddle with the cameras around him when I was little. After I grew up, he started to take me to his “secret garden”. He knows where and when the most gorgeous tree would blossom and bear fruits in which small park; he taught me how to control the white balance in sunny, rainy and cloudy days; he introduced me aperture, shutter, iso, and raw format. However, I have lost them, for years. I took my little black camera with me across the pacific ocean, and buried it in the deepest part of my drawer. I felt sorry for it, but I always consoled myself that I did not have the time to play with it anymore. “Cameras were born for holidays and Disney Lands.” I said this whenever I saw my dirty camera bag, although I knew I was wrong.

I thought about my camera the first time I saw the thirty days challenge. I need a step to lead me back to the “secret garden” my dad opened. Therefore, I made a plan for myself. I will be taking five pictures a day for thirty days. It sounds easy, but to achieve it, I must take my camera with me all the time, since what I want to record is the beauty of life in stead of my crazy little room. Photos can be everything. They can be a smile on my friend’s face, a bunch of boring newspaper, or the way basketball is dropped on the ground and rebounded up. For the most important, they are memories as well as treasures.

It’s gonna be fun to look back my one hundred and fifty photos after the next thirty days. I may even photoshop them if my computer is glad to provide me enough space. People always say you can form a habit in twenty one days. I hope my thirty days could help me strengthen the habit even firmer. So, I may wander over the campus, and linger around the bushes with my camera from now. I would probably explore my own “garden”, and never put my little machine down. Let’s see. 

Do exercise 

Taking photos 

Read for thirty minutes

No social media

No junk food

No TV show

They are many kinds of challenges. In thirty days, you can read for twenty minutes in the morning; you can paint a  picture, finish the workout, or say hallo to everyone passes you. All of them are meaningful things if you have the strength to keep up, and after the thirty days, you might have already changed. For my own thirty days challenges, I decide to take five pictures each day with my camera. I want to take pictures of somewhere or someone appears beautiful to me, and record them a the symbol of a period of unforgettable time.

Revision

The Witch

I was woken up by a kind of weird sound in my room. It was one o'clock in the morning. I sat up on my bed, and checked if my roommates heard the sound. Unfortunately, all of them were as quiet as  sleeping infants.

 “What is that?” I suddenly noticed an enormous black object on my desk. I moved slowly toward the corner, and stuck my back to the hard concrete wall. My heart beat rapidly, and sweat oozed from the centre of my palms. Huddling up in the warmth of my quilt, I stared at the black object again. The wrinkles composed a familiar outline. I moved left a bit to change the direction.

 “Oh my God!” I muffled my mouth to keep myself from shouting out loud. “ That's a face!” I was screaming deep in my head. “Why there is a huge face on my desk!” All of a sudden, my brain cells stopped working.

I was frozen.

The blurry face reminded me of a witch in Medieval times. Wind roared outside the windows. Hundreds of jagged shadows were reflected on the white curtain by the chilly moon. I did not even dare to breathe. Five minutes passed; my roommates—who still knew nothing about all of this—were still sinking in their sweet dreams. “ How can you guys be so insensitive?” I desperately hoped there could be a sharp fire alarm to wake all them up. “She is going to kill us with her brutal ancient sorcery!”

My body was immobilized with fear. I was like a scraggy rabbit facing a pack of wolves. Staring at her, staring, and staring…until the first sunlight drove the darkness on a pile of coats away.

I focused on fourth paragraph for the third draft. My fourth paragraph is about some ethic questions that led by the surveillance cameras.  In my first and second draft, I did not mentioned much my opinions about the questions I found. For the third draft, I added some of my opinions behind each of the questions to show the readers my point of view and persuade them my thesis. Moreover, I made my topic sentence more specific, but I think I still need to work on later, because that paragraph is not similar with two others. I will ask for more opinions on my question paragraph.