Was at Auction Rooms café when I grabbed this shot with my iPhone. Sometimes you just need the elements of the shot, and you can work magic on it later. Spruced this up on my iPad using the Snapseed app. Can’t wait for iOS 5 to hit so I don’t have to manually send photos back and forth to do tweaks (iPhone 4 has better camera and it’s always on me, but the editing software is on the iPad).

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It feels like I’m having a clearer picture of what I want to do in life, and the signals have constantly hit you, but you don’t realise it until much later. You see talented people living their dream and the rest of us seem to envy their good fortune or admire their hard work. Now I realise that people who are living their dream have made a plan, and they are working towards it. The plan may not be clear at first, but you slowly piece it together. As long as you are unafraid of failure, and as long as you look beyond the first step that you must take, and also to take that very first step, you can be on your way to achieving what you have dreamed of.

Heh, people tell me I take good photos. The praise encourages me to take more photos, but I don’t kid myself, I do feel the need to take even more pictures and scrutinise them even more closely. I am pushing myself in a way I haven’t done before. I take the shots, marvel them, and start to see the flaws of the photos that I have taken. I need to give myself the opportunity to do it again. I don’t want to just pump out mediocre work. There are times when I’m being playful with the camera, but there are also times that I have a vision of what I want before pressing the shutter button. I am also thinking more of the final image now, of how I’d like it to look. Colours set the mood and tone of an image, and while I like saturated colours, I want to start exploring those desaturated tones, shadows that play on the image. I want to try something different.

They say you should go through familiar territory and retake photos of the same places. You can get a fresh perspective on the place, and the new pictures may surprise you.

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I am a little anxious with the trip to Europe in terms of taking photos. Heh, like the Sydney trip, I want to enjoy the moment and not get too caught up with taking photos, but I also want to push myself creatively and see how I can put my own vision into the picture frame. It’s difficult to balance between both as taking photographs requires some consideration and being a tourist doesn’t really give you the time to work it out.

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Have a little less than a week now before I hop onto a plane. Just need to sort out things around the house so I don’t come back to a mess in August. Heh, looking forward to the decluttering.