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Model: Floofie
NW Glamour Photography ( www.meetup.com/NWGlamour/ ) photo shoot at RBE Studio, Vancouver, WA.
Strobist Info:
Two White Lightning X1600 lighting white backdrop (camera left and right)
One Alien Bee 1600 with 47-inch Octobox (camera right)
All triggered using Pocket Wizards.
The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hooded cape/cloak (in Perrault's fairytale) or simple cap (in the Grimms' version called Little Red-Cap) she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sickly grandmother (grape juice and banana bread, or wine and cake depending on the translation). In the Grimms' version at least, she had the order from her mother to stay strictly on the path.
A mean wolf wants to eat the girl and the food in the basket. He secretly stalks her behind trees and bushes and shrubs and patches of little grass and patches of tall grass. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood and she naïvely tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole (in some stories, he locks her in the closet) and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandma.
When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red then says, "What a deep voice you have!" ("The better to greet you with"), "Goodness, what big eyes you have!" ("The better to see you with"), "And what big hands you have!" ("The better to hug/grab you with"), and lastly, "What a big mouth you have" ("The better to eat you with!"), at which point the wolf jumps out of bed, and swallows her up too. Then he falls asleep. In Charles Perrault's written version, the first written version at all, the story comes to an end right here, only followed by a good deal of moralizing, (see below).
A lumberjack (with the Brothers Grimm, and always in German tradition, a hunter), however, comes to the rescue and with his axe cuts open the sleeping wolf. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and tries to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die. (Sanitized versions of the story have the grandmother shut in the closet instead of eaten, and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the lumberjack as the wolf advances on her, rather than after she is eaten.
"Little Red Riding Hood" illustration by Arthur Rackham.
The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are essentially medieval, though no written versions are as old as that. Specifically, the tale parallels how an innocent victim can be taken in and controlled by a criminal mentality, therefore, facilitating further subjection of a crime or harm against a vulnerable victim through mischievous criminal intent by removing the victim from a familiar or "safe" public location — facilitating the crime in an effort to isolate the victim by drawing her to another location "away from the public eye" where the criminal entity has complete control over the victim.
It also warns about the dangers of not obeying the mother (at least in the Grimms' version).
Relationship to other tales[edit]
The theme of the ravening wolf and of the creature released unharmed from its belly is also reflected in the Russian tale Peter and the Wolf, and the other Grimm tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, but its general theme of restoration is at least as old as Jonah and the Whale. The theme also appears in the story of the life of Saint Margaret, where the saint emerges unharmed from the belly of a dragon, and in the epic "The Red Path" by Jim C. Hines.
The dialogue between the mean wolf and Little Red Riding Hood has its analogies to the Norse Þrymskviða from the Elder Edda; the giant Þrymr had stolen Mjölner, Thor's hammer, and demanded Freyja as his bride for its return. Instead, the gods dressed Thor as a bride and sent him. When the giants note Thor's unladylike eyes, eating, and drinking, Loki explains them as Freyja not having slept, or eaten, or drunk, out of longing for the wedding.
From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!
The tale has been interpreted as a puberty ritual, stemming from a prehistorical origin (sometimes an origin stemming from a previous matriarchal era).[25] The girl, leaving home, enters a liminal state and by going through the acts of the tale, is transformed into an adult woman by the act of coming out of the wolf's belly
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So the first shot I had set up for today was a self portrait with the sunset in the background. But then the flash stand I brought with me broke, and I couldn't replace my equipment before my light was gone. Now that I'm here editing this photo, my pen tablet decides to stop working. I hate it when everything breaks.
Strobist:
1 sb600 camera right, 1/4 power, 1/2 CTO into 43'' white shoot-thru umbrella
I know this isn't the greatest edit in the world. Not sure if I'll keep it up either, but it's a start.
I've decided to start taking self portraits of myself every so often and turning it into a Photo Diary type of thing. I need to work on my conceptual work, so I figured this was a good way to do so.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZimwts-myI
Matsumoto Castle and its reflection, complete with a pair of swans in its moat.
This is one of my personal portfolios for model/portraiture.
Please don't upload this photo elsewhere for any use without my permission.
Low Key portraiture at Neumatt Studio.
Model: Rani
A novel based on Trevanian's 'Shibumi'.
www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/24753960965/in/photoli...
Satori is a historical novel by Don Winslow about the love of a man and a woman who practise the oldest professions of the world. The novel is a prequel to Trevanian's novel Shibumiand features the same protagonist, assassin Nicholaï Hel.
Plot: Nicholaï Hel and the French woman Solange Picard are brought together by somebody who designs missions for an American secret service. Nicholaï Hel is the only man who can possibly carry out a certain covert operation in Beijing. When Solange Picard has prepared him, he must leave her for his mission. Once he is gone, Solange gets routed. Thanks to the training she provided he can carry out the assassination and also afterwards leave China.
The American secret service needs to seek him out for they have to fear he turns against them. Again they depend on Solange Picard because his evident love for her makes her the only possible and all the more irresistible bait. Against all odds they become a couple until her death tears them apart.
Classification: Satori, published in 2011, takes place in the 1950s, two decades before the 1970s action of real-world predecessor Shibumi.
Unlike in Shibumi Nicholaï Hel is not presented as a man who has already established himself within the world of espionage. Instead he is a just a prisoner who acts out of necessity when he gets an unexpected chance to achieve amnesty. He does indeed carry out the requested suicide mission but it comes to that only after the target Voroshenin has boasted about having abused Nicholaï's mother and after Voroshenin, a notorious sadist, has tried to have Nicholaï tortured to death. For the novel's second half (chapters 87-164) Nicholaï acts as an independent arms dealer while he tries to restore his lost heritage which he wants to share with his love Solange Picard. No part of the whole novel does even imply Nicholaï Hel would possibly become entangled in the business of espionage again. So in spite the fact that secret services play a role in Satori, it is no spy novel.
Structure: The storyline consists of three parts. Don Winslow tells the story in chronological order. The two chapters with biographical flashbacks are hardly more than embellishments or at best literary rhetoric.
One
Japan:
Nicholaï Hel is released from prison. He is given a new identity as a French arms dealer and plastic surgery. Solange makes him "Michel Guibert" and is the first person who sees his new face. After she has even taught him to make love like a Frenchman he must go on a suicide mission. She reckons she has therefore lost him like she already lost her first love during World War II. (Chapter 1-16)
Part Two
China:
Nicholaï Hel uses his bogus identity successfully to approach and finally kill his target, the Soviet commissioner Yuri Voroshenin. But he is shot in the process and betrayed by somebody within the American secret service. When Wu Zhong, a former Bajiquaninstructor of the KMT is about to crush him, the monk Xue Win can scarcely save him at last minute. (Chapter 17-86)
Part Three
Vietnam:
General Liu wants him to deliver arms to the Viet Minh as “Michel Guibert”. Longing to meet Solange again Nicholaï complies and eventually reaches Saigon, which is coined by French control. When he arrives, Solange is already there. Nicholaï's rival is an emperor but still can't stop himself from reaching out for her. The SDECE strongly advises Nicholaï to leave Saigon while the Unione Corse already makes attempts on his life and even assigns the killer known as "the Cobra". Finally he is once more completely in Solange's hands. (Chapter 87-164)
Characters:
Nicholaï Hel
Nicholaï is a man seeking for Satori which means freedom and peace of mind. When Solange dies she has given him Satori. The reason is implicit since the song "Me and Bobby McGee" already defined freedom as nothing left to lose.
Solange Picard
Solange has lost her first love because he was murdered by Nazis. She had her first sex at all with his murderer because she had to pretend to be a whore in order to get close enough to him to cut his throat. Finally she gets obsessed with a contemporary French film: Casque d'or. As she tells Nicholaï and as his friend de Lhandes later can observe (chapter 149) she cries each time again when Marie (Simone Signoret) must watch her lover dying.
Her other trauma is disclosed in chapter 140: Neither her beauty nor her experience seem to be enough for her lovers to find her intriguing forever. She feels they always eventually “start to find fault” and correct her grammar before they finally begin to get interested in other women. Only Nicholaï, he who came to her to receive corrections, is different.
Haverford
Nicholaï's handler Haverford, a war hero and man of honour, is fluent in three foreign languages (French, Japanese, Vietnamese). He had the idea to release Nicholaï. His plans are doublecrossed by traitors within the secret service.
de Lhandes
The Belgian private detective de Lhandes suffers with a genetic disorder comparable to the famous French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Nicholaï makes him his friend by inviting him into a brothel.
Film adaptation
In July 2012 it was reported on the occasion of an interview with Don Winslow that "Warner Brothers picked up his Go-master/hit-man novel Satori as a vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio."[1] The same month Don Winslow was also quoted having said he had produced "another screenplay with Shane Salerno called Satori with Leonardo DiCaprio."[2][3] Soon after, Deadline.com reported Warner Brothers were "eyeing a 2013 start for Winslow’s spy thriller Satori to star Leonardo DiCaprio as assassin Nicholai Hel."
Satori (悟り?) (Chinese: 悟; pinyin: wù; Korean: 오 o; Vietnamese: ngộ) is a Japanese Buddhist term for awakening, "comprehension; understanding".[web 1] It is derived from the Japanese verb satoru.
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, satori refers to the experience of kenshō,[2] "seeing into one's true nature". Ken means "seeing," shō means "nature" or "essence."
Satori and kenshō are commonly translated as enlightenment, a word that is also used to translate bodhi, prajna and buddhahood.
D.T. Suzuki: ".... looking into one's nature or the opening of satori";[3] "This acquiring of a new point of view in our dealings with life and the world is popularly called by Japanese Zen students 'satori' (wu in Chinese). It is really another name for Enlightenment ("Annuttara-samyak-sambodhi")".[4][note 1]
Satori and kenshō?
Japanese character for satori
Satori is often used interchangeably with kenshō.[2] Kenshō refers to the perception of the Buddha-Nature or emptiness. According to some authors, kenshō is a brief glimpse, while satori is considered to be a deeper spiritual experience.[citation needed]
Distinct from this first insight, daigo-tettei is used to refer to a "deep" or lasting realization of the nature of existence.
Importance of satori
According to D. T. Suzuki,
Satori is the raison d'être of Zen, without which Zen is no Zen. Therefore every contrivance, disciplinary and doctrinal, is directed towards satori.
This view is typical of Rinzai, which emphasizes satori. The Sōtō school rejects this emphasis, and instead emphasizes "silent illumination" through the practice of zazen.
Attaining satori
Satori is considered a "first step" or embarkation toward Buddhahood:
Ch'an expressions refer to enlightenment as "seeing your self-nature". But even this is not enough. After seeing your self-nature, you need to deepen your experience even further and bring it into maturation. You should have enlightenment experience again and again and support them with continuous practice. Even though Ch'an says that at the time of enlightenment, your outlook is the same as of the Buddha, you are not yet a full Buddha.
The student's mind must be prepared by rigorous study, with the use of koans, and the practice of meditation to concentrate the mind, under the guidance of a teacher. Koans are short anecdotes of verbal exchanges between teachers and students, typically of the Song dynasty, dealing with Buddhist teachings. The Rinzai-school utilizes classic collections of koans such as the Gateless Gate. The Gateless Gate was assembled by the early 13th-century Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (無門慧開).
Wumen struggled for six years with koan "Zhaozhou’s dog", assigned to him by Yuelin Shiguan (月林師觀; Japanese: Gatsurin Shikan) (1143–1217), before attaining kenshō. After his understanding had been confirmed by Yuelin, Wumen wrote the following enlightenment poem:
A thunderclap under the clear blue sky
All beings on earth open their eyes;
Everything under heaven bows together;
Mount Sumeru leaps up and dances.
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CommenAlison Flood
Sunday 24 April 2011 00.05 BSTFirst published on Sunday 24 April 2011 00.05 BST
Nicolaï Hel's only previous appearance was in the bestselling 1979 novel Shibumi, written by "Trevanian", the pseudonym of American academic Rodney William Whitaker. Western by birth but Japanese by upbringing and inclination, the green-eyed, Go-playing Hel – a master of the secret martial art of hoda korosu, or naked/kill – provided a joyfully preposterous take on the thriller genre and captured jaded imaginations around the world.
Whitaker was constantly pestered to return to the world of Hel, but said in a 1998 interview that "after the definitive exercise of the [super-spy] genre that was Shibumi, there was no point in me writing further in this genre… or anyone else, for that matter". But after he died in 2005, his heirs approached Don Winslow, author of slick, spare crime novels including the acclaimed The Power of the Dog, to write a prequel. And so Nicholaï Hel, artful lover and assassin, hero of a million teenage boys in the 80s, is back.
Winslow has written "to the 'corners' of the story that [Trevanian] had left in place", so where in Shibumi a mature, Zen-like Hel had retired from being the world's highest paid assassin, Satori takes the action back to 1951, before he learned to kill for profit. It picks up his story just after his release from three years in solitary confinement for killing his mentor (he used this time to learn Basque and to hone his "proximity sense"). The Americans want Hel freed because, thanks to his linguistic skills and ability to kill using everyday objects, he is possibly the only man able to assassinate the Soviet commissioner to China, the evil Voroshenin.
Moving from the heart of communist China to the jungles of Vietnam, from Russian torture chambers to the treacherous tightrope that is life in Saigon, Winslow, a Shibumi fan since his teens (he even learned Go, he reveals in an author's note), has clearly had immense fun diving into the world of Hel. He provides him with a love interest, the beautiful French Solange. He piles on the Go metaphors and ramps up the villainy and double-crossing to produce a sprawling, effervescent, page-turning account of how the assassin was made.
Yes, he might fail to nail the tongue-in-cheek pomposity of the original. Where Trevanian refused to reveal the details of naked/kill in case they "contribute to the harm done to (and by) the uninitiated", Winslow has Hel variously attacking baddies with teacups and copies of Paris Match. Where Trevanian decided to "keep certain advanced sexual techniques in partial shadow, as they might be dangerous, and would certainly be painful, to the neophyte", Winslow has Hel going at it with Solange. But he makes a fine fist of things nonetheless, and Satori("the Zen Buddhist concept of a sudden awakening, a realisation of life as it really is") will be both devoured by Hel fans and enjoyed by those unversed in his ways. With a new edition of Shibumi in the offing, and the door clearly left open for sequels, Hel is probably going to gather a whole new host of fans.
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bad camrea.
no tripod.
ripped fishnet stockings.
extentions.
four inch heals.
the end.
CLIENT/MODEL: Zhai
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My lovely friend Stephanie, now my professional model depicts how you feel when you're inside on a sunny day.
Strobist info: Nikon SB900 1/1 bouncing in a 43" convertible umbrella about 3ft in front and 2ft higher than model, tilted slightly downward.
Oh, I want to be back in the Gorge! I've been looking at a lot of beautiful fall photos. I bet this bride is especially dashing this time of year.
Longing...
My first real try at off camera flash.
One SB-800 bounced of the wall/ceiling diagonally commanded by pop-up flash on D200.
Highest position in Explore! 447 on Saturday, July 7, 2007
The bus ride from Shenzhen to Enping was long, like watching a freight train chug by, except it doesn't. We had to have been on that bus for seven hours, sometimes napping, and at times, staring out our windows, looking at a world standing still. Traffic was not only a nightmare, but also a mystery, for as many instances in which we could plainly see another egregiously bad vehicular accident, that which has become commonplace, ubiquitous in Chinese travel culture, there were other inexplicable stops in movement, when all of a sudden, as though finishing a swift countdown, our speed dropped so precipitously as to let out a collective lurch, if not in body, then definitely in mind. Calvin, thankfully, in his perspicacity, in his wide-angled, unique view of things, saw beyond the myriad vehicles which lay unmoving as if rocks on a dry riverbed; view the periphery, he bade us, and when we looked to the edges of the road, indeed we witnessed the most peculiar instigator of traffic congestion in the world - men en masse pissing on the side of the road! Men taking leaks creates a domino effect; that one sees another enjoying the relief of an unburdened, easy bladder, so seductive a yoke, that the only retort to the entreaty of this blissful state is to join in with abandon, and impunity. And so soon as the last few shakes are made, back into the cars do these men go, and a few hasty minutes later, traffic flows again!
Mike wanted to stop at a village, so we exchanged an increasingly crowded highway for a narrow, cement road, on which we ventured into the dense verdure. Having reached an impasse in the road soon thereafter, and not knowing how to advance further, to actually enter the village proper, we saw two lovely young ladies saddling a moped, motoring towards us. They then suddenly broke, and turned off our path and onto a dirt one which squeezed through two homes as though a mouse through its diminutive hole - that was our key. We greeted them as the girls turned their heads, offering us inquisitive, yet gentle looks. They would be our guides into town.
Blue showed me around her neighborhood. Together we walked along bumpy corridors and peered through open windows, beyond flitting cobwebs, to lay eyes on rooms where nowadays only impenetrable shadows repose. She and I examined the perfunctory red banners which framed each door in the village, and subsequently hit it off when I began inquiring into the nature of those two swarthy demons who hung menacingly before the closed doors, their gazes insidiously wild, drunk with rage, perhaps. Indeed later, in the quietude of a sunset raining down on us, while standing by ourselves in front of the village hall, I finally shared my faith with her, and in return she declared the lack of her own - her cousin and older sister, however, do know Jesus, she said, which verily warmed my heart, if not hers.
We left the village with much rapidity, but not before I blessed and encouraged Blue's cousin, in whose arms a smiling babe lay, and received joyfully a delectable departing gift: mysterious, "Blue Cookies" (the official Chinese name is 艾糍), whose mottled, homely complexion would disgust if not for the sweetness (an amalgam of sugar, peanuts and herbs) buried inside, a treasure which would be discovered again and again on our tour.
The food around Enping epitomizes, I believe, Guangdong cuisine: inexpensive and egregiously non-spicy. For what they lack in price and incendiary acidity, however, these dishes more than compensate with copious amounts of oil, salt and sugar, mixed together for a tantalizing effect on the taste buds. Our group was fortunate enough to have frequented several Guangdong-style dai pai dongs whose victuals both nourished our bodies and replenished our wallets - it's amazing to consider how $250RMB can feed 15 ravenous, cantankerous-when-hungry Christian bikers. In fact, the feasting grew exponentially more enjoyable as journey progressed, as our two primary orderers began to refine their culinary acuity, accurately predicting what would invigorate and excite our collective palate; it helped, too, that our utensils were pretty clean for Chinese standards!
Our first evening, we secured accommodations in a building that was not so much a hotel, or even a motel, as a grey, dry concrete edifice in which hardwood beds were arrayed neatly in each room; the spartan conditions dismayed some, including myself, at first. However, thankfulness trumped peevishness, and the realization that, in the middle of nowhere, we had mosquito nets to ward off the inexorable squad of mozzies, and one bathroom with boiling water for a very, very scalding shower was more than enough to placate everyone, especially after a hard day of riding. Besides, austerity succors the soul. We even managed to sleep pretty soundly without mattresses. In my somnolent state, I only remember shifting desperately maybe six, or seven times. It was a good night, and a bargain at only 15RMB per person!
On the second day our group dared to test itself on an unknown avenue. Consequently, we were spared the sonorous alarms of gigantic, indomitable trucks and instead subjected ourselves to the vicissitudes of off-road biking, whose soundtrack, undoubtedly for the day, was provided by an orchestra of buzzing cicadas, accompanied, at times, by the rumbling tympani of motorbikes. Oh, the countryside was lush, beautiful verdure all around - a feast for the romantic soul. Yet, for one of my companions, the environment was anything but endearing, for her adeptness at handling the desultory trail, she surely felt, was more chaotic than controlled. She persevered, nonetheless, pushing through her disconsolation to conquer the race marked out for her; such tenacity that only the Father could supply; and that left me thoroughly impressed.
At lunchtime, the evangelization effort began in earnest. It started innocently enough, as I asked a group of girls about the secondary school down the dusty road from our restaurant. Then, on cue, the Spirit, whose pacing can only be described as frenetic, whose rhythm is beyond my comprehension, overwhelmed and took over. Leanne and I brought those three girls to Christ; while Tim was assiduously preaching by our side to a band of boys who had gathered to look on; and behind us, ah Cheung had cajoled five boys to form a circle, hand in hand, for prayer. Many people came to know Jesus that hour. There was undoubtedly some serious fire falling down on us!
We made a pit stop at the Tam clan village. It was another bucolic community, replete with idling boys, young and old, and those two duplicitous demons standing watch from steady doors, which, it appeared, held together together the ramshackle walls beside them. An electricity meter evinced the reality of life in the village, of a living community that flows flittingly in and out of the houses as though cats leaping over canals; because I for one couldn't see how hundreds of people somehow resided inside those homes when I couldn't spot a single one during my brief tour of the grounds. In the open, by our bikes, there were conspicuous signs of life, however. I was standing in the sun, letting its warm rays melt on my skin, when a young man, not even twenty, approached and asked me about our intents and purposes on what was once such a dull afternoon. His curiosity got the better of me, and together we broached a conversation in faith. Simon joined us, and although he whom I named Henry, told us in his obstinacy that he depends on himself alone, I feel as though a small seed of faith was still planted within him. May it bloom at the appointed time when he most needs it.
At last, inside the unlit store where we shared our gleaming hopes and fantastic dreams, Simon and I noticed, to our surprise and delight, two blackboards on which the shopkeeper had written the alphabet, for English as well as for Putonghua (Pinyin). Besides the letters, numbers too had been painstakingly etched into the board, each meticulous stroke perfectly formed. So they ironically were learning that which continues to elude their more economically mobile brethren in Hong Kong, despite their most humble upbringing. I encouraged Henry to pursue this knowledge, since, as the cliche most rightly states, English - and Putonghua, these days - opens up a world of opportunity.
China, it seems to me, is one interminable housing start being carried on the shoulders of giants. Behemoths, really, an armada of green and blue dump trucks, on whose backs are the physical manifestation of the hopes and dreams of billions - timber; stone; and coal - were an inescapable part of our three-day trek. They blew passed us, literally, horns afire; and if you stared into the eyes of the drivers high above on those mechanized elephants, you would see the glee with which they pounded both the road and the eardrums of those unwitting peons foolish enough to be nearby. China - and China Mobile, whose stores we uncovered even in the most remote suburb, might I add! - still has much growth left, and the transportation and infrastructure industries, I'm sure, shall assiduously work to keep it that way. My recommendation: keep investing in China.
Visiting the hot springs had been on our agenda since the inception of the trip. We eventually had our chance the second evening, when we raced down a wending hill to our hotel - a real hotel. Our excitement reverberated in the air, crackling with laughter and shouting. Choosing to swim first and foremost, we left dinner to wait and hurried across the street. The resort was packed with other like-minded people, dressed in swimming costumes that should have left more to the imagination; the temperature of the pool water varied, from tepid in one enclosure to skin-searing in another; and for one marvelous hour, we swam and frolicked like little children again, delighting in some wet fun, a suitable reward for one more arduous day spent on the dusty, dry land.
We capped the end of a successful day with a bang. The girls, oddly enough, were furtive pyromaniacs in our midst, longing in secret to raid the fireworks shop at the base of the hotel. So after our meal, they raced into the cool evening air and we could only endeavor to follow them in their explosive folly. Inside the store, all sorts of bombastic devices were on display, from the unwieldy, block of (Chicago) bull to the sleek spears adorning the wall whose warheads, no doubt, could just so easily take out a few eyes as mercilessly rip the pitch black from the wall of night sky. The ladies suffered to leave no type of firework untouched by the flame, quickly purchasing an arsenal of rainbow-inducing rockets and slim sparklers to make any pyrotechnic maven proud. Outside we went. At length, the bombs burst in the air, and laughter abound so much as we watched the brilliance of Chinese engineering on display. With the girls' scintillating stock depleted, we finally collected ourselves, and headed upstairs for one more day of wonderment.
There was one last village to visit before we reached our final destination of Enping city. As we sped into the shanty community, we knew something was amiss because unlike our other entrances into villages, during which residents would emerge in droves to glimpse us, it seemed as though these villagers preferred the comfort of their own veiled homes to the company of a few, ebullient strangers. It was an ominous setting in which we found ourselves, one characterized by inhabitants rather mistrustful than gregarious, and affable. Nonetheless, we dispersed to share kindness and mercy. To that end, I approached a young lady, a mere 25-years old, who had her three-month old boy on her shoulder and her three-year old son - who was without pants, might I add, preferring to wave them in the air like a terrible towel - by her side. We spoke briefly about her hopes and dreams, which, she says, rest in the well-being of her sons; and then Leanne and I blessed her. That was the end of our village experience in China.
To be around people who sharpen you as iron sharpens iron, that verily is a joy. The villagers were simple, warm and welcoming; my teammates were jocular, presumptuous and faithful; and I, in the midst of this confluence, this mosaic of personalities, philosophies, hopes and dreams, could only seek to love, especially in one of my more pensive moments. The trip tested my patience and tolerance, my ability to accept others for who they are - each a flawed creature like myself. Ultimately, so much as we seek the men of peace everywhere we go, we individually must become men of peace too. A true disciple of Jesus runs that race, and appreciates His grace, which shall always be enough in this life.
Don't give up and endure, your destination might be closer than you think. Every time I view this photo I have a strong urge to travel again, feel the warm wind blowing, view lovely scenery and not be bound by city life and stress :)
Long distances in a motor vehicle can become uncomfortable but it does not compare to the aching feet many citizens in this country has each day walking to work or their loved ones.
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The next chapter in my portfolio is an extensive collection of sepia monotone photos taken throughout South Africa, the continuation of taking photographs anywhere and everywhere I find the opportunity to do so.