Loquats

This is one of the two posts that had been sitting in my draft box for about a week.  I haven't been able to get into that writing mood.  The pictures, on the other hand, were all ready to be posted and explained on.

Perhaps I had been too busy and a little obsessed with pictures.  I drew the above picture while taking a breather away from my two kids.  They had been rather noisy.  My way of de-stressing: draw something.  So I drew these loquats.  The next few pictures below were taken some time back after I bought this bunch of loquats, just to see how these fruits taste like.

I had never eaten fresh loquats before, but tasted it in a throat soothing cough syrup, rather well-known here, 川贝枇杷膏.  Familiar, isn't it?  I wonder if the special minty taste of this cough syrup comes from loquats or from some other ingredients.  I am curious about the taste of loquats.  And my curiosity deepened when I read about it in a 4 column comics that I love.  The storyboard is simple.  Some loquat fruits hanging heavily from its branch, ripening slowly.  Two sisters walked past, commented with much excited anticipation of how delicious the ripe fruits will be.  The comic strip spoke volumes about the seasonality of these fruits, which flowers in autumn/early winter and bear fruits in late winter/early spring.  I was able to immerse myself in seasonal changes, a luxury not obviously available here where I live.  

I came across these fruits in a supermarket.  Normally, I don't buy food that I am not too familiar with.  I fear I might not like it, or the kids might not like it, and it would be wasted away.  Not adventurous?  Perhaps.  But for these fruits, their irresistibly bright yellow defeated my caution.  I bought them, attracted by their cheerful color and nudged on by my curiosity.  

They didn't taste anything like the 川贝枇杷膏.  Of course not, the cough syrup is a formula.  It has other ingredients to elevate its effectiveness against cough.  The loquat fruit cannot possibly bear any resemblance to a tablespoonful of the cough syrup.  However, the fruit I bought were not sweet.  They were slightly bitter-sour.  They were not minty at all.  In summary, they were rather bland except for the bitter-sourness.  Was there disappointment?  Not exactly.  The fruits, with their bright colors, offered themselves as fantastic prop materials for photo-taking practice.  That was before their final sacrifice as nourishment to my body.  

I had been experimenting with my camera.  It had always been set to Auto or Portrait and I would simply snap away.  Never mind the lighting because I could not quite manipulate it to my benefit.  Never mind the food-styling or composition for I do not have the appropriate crockery to present my food and I know nuts about composition to take nice looking photographs.  Nonsense, those are just excuses.  Yes, I agree.  

I would have disagreed defensively had I not come across a magazine about photography for beginners.  Shutter speed priority and aperture priority, they are Greek to me.  They still are, but I had started using these two functions to improve on my photographs.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it doesn't.  I am still exploring, and it sure is fun to explore with a camera.  

My photographs always come with a dark background.  I did not do it intentionally.  In fact, it resulted from a combination of bright light in the background, inadequate lighting on the object of focus and a flash to complete this dark background look.  Just like these two photos.

But the magazine suggested paying attention to where the light is coming from.  Like the obedient child any parents would die for, I took heed.  I placed a white cardboard between my object of focus and the bright background light.  Next, I kept the lighting on the object of focus switched on.  This means switching on the dining room light which is directly above my dining table.  Then, I put my camera on Shutter Speed Priority, and shoot away on Macro mode.  I was lucky to get it right on my first try.  These are the results, no more dark background.  Let's not be bothered by the faint lines in the background.  One step at a time, easy does it... 

I do have a photo editing software.  But I haven't optimize it at all.  The software is just a toy for me to add text to my photographs or to add some interesting filters if I have the time to spare for editing at all.

I was envious of the innovative ways photographs are presented in some of the blogs I visit.  These pictures, obviously different shots, appeared to me as skillfully stitched together to form a panel of flowing images, horizontally or vertically.  I always stared in awe and wonder at those photos.

On various occasions, I tried to create such images using Photo-stitch and Photo-merge.  ^_^  Yes, I know, go on, laugh, I don't mind.  At least I know that photo-stitch and photo-merge are meant to do some other things and not what I had in mind, which is this.

This is what I had wanted so much to do.  This is what had fascinated me every time I visit those beautiful blogs.  How did I figure this out?  I didn't figure it out.  I googled for it, and youtube taught me how to do it.  Why did I ever take so long to learn this simple operation?  The answer is beyond me, but it is not important.  Now I know how to do it.  ^_^

Loquats, that's an interesting fruit to taste.  You would never know what a fruit could lead you to...