“The Urban Triplets” is our shot of the month for January 2010. I (Pye) shot this image while in Canton, China shooting a Chinese wedding back in 2008. As many of you know, I speak Cantonese/Mandarin, so I was able to turn my work trip into a vacation as well.

I stayed for about a month and each and every night I went on a run to help me burn off the countless calories I was cramming down my face each and every day. If you all are familiar with areas like China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan you know that the food is simply amazing, cheap and amazing! So, every night I would run up and down the stairs of our 26 floor apartment building to compensate for my gluttony.

Most nights, I would reach the roof and peer off the railing only to see the gloomy haze filled sky blanketing everything past half a mile to a mile in distance. However, one night during my stay I was so impressed by the “relatively” clear skies, that I made the 20 flight run back down to our room to grab my camera and tripod as well as the 20 flight run back up to the roof.

I spent about two hours that night shooting from various roof tops in the vicinity. This shot is an HDR shot of what I called “The Triplets” which were three massive apartment buildings built just behind one of the largest streets cutting through downtown Canton. The mixture of tungsten lighting from the street and remaining daylight could only be captured with three bracketed exposures that were later combined into an HDR shot.

I have many more shots from this trip, so stay tuned. We will share more.

Click here to download the 1920 x 1200 resolution image (3MB file size)

I hope you enjoyed this article, if so, please share the love and feel free to comment and add additional insight below!

By Pye of Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers

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There are many voices in my life. Some of these voices come from people in my life, however, I find that the majority of voices in my life come from either something inanimate or from within myself. One of the stronger voices in my life, whom I call “Jimbo,” is the internal voice that is constantly demanding that I be more efficient and productive with my time. He is the voice that makes me drive at odd hours of the day just to avoid the hell that we Los Angeleans call “traffic.” He insists that I work deep into the night, and wake up early just to get a few extra hours of work in each day. Not to mention that he is the reason I am currently in Palos Verdes at 7:30pm.

After finishing up a client meeting in Palos Verdes at around 5pm one summer evening, Jimbo convinced me that I could get a couple extra hours of work in while traffic died down. Agreeing with that sentiment, I found a nice little spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Palos Verdes Drive, pulled out my laptop and started hammering away at the keyboard. 7:30pm Rolled around and Jimbo politely let me know that most of the traffic would be gone by now, so it was time to head home. Besides, he added, you can be much more productive at home in front of your desktop.

So, I tucked away my laptop, turned on my GPS and began leisurely driving my way back home. While weaving and winding my way South on Palos Verdes Drive, another voice which took the form of a robotic European female, (yes, I chose the European female accent on my TomTom because it is slightly more pleasing to listen to) my GPS whom I call Holly, requested that I “turn left onto South Western Avenue.” However, unlike my typical lemming-like obedience to Jimbo and Holly, today I decided to defy both of their confident and borderline overbearing guidance and make a U-turn.

You see, while driving I saw something that Jimbo and Holly couldn’t. I saw this amazing cloud formation gathering over the horizon. Being that sunset was only about thirty minutes away, I thought that it might be an appropriate time to stop to enjoy a sunset. Shortly after realizing my “error” Holly began furiously spouting commands, “turn right, make a u-turn, stop idiot!” Ok, maybe the last one was a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously, Holly is not a polite person and I would say she is borderline domineering. It would be nice to hear a please, or thank you from her on occasion. Holly’s final sentence, “make a u-turn whe…” was cut short as I proudly turned her off.

One voice down and one to go. As I was driving back up Palos Verdes Drive, Jimbo began his rational plea for why I should be on my way home. Jimbo started his argument by reminding me just how much work I had sitting on my plate and that it was irresponsible of me to not be taking care of it. His argument was quickly refuted though as I realized there was nothing that couldn’t wait an hour or even a day. His second argument was a bit more wily, “If you want to relax, why not go play some games, or catch a movie? Sunsets happen every day, they are nothing special.” His argument seemed rational, but then how often am I up on the cliffs of Palos Verdes just before what I think is going to be an amazing sunset? In my mind I turned Jimbo off in the same manner as his infernal robotic European female companion and then thought to myself, why not go one step further and turn off my phone as well.

The car was silent, my mind was silent and I had disappeared from the world. As I pulled into a little park just off of Palos Verdes Drive, I grabbed my camera and tripod and walked out to the cliff line. I setup my camera, and over the next 20 minutes witnessed one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen.The clouds swirled and took control of the sky, but left an unobstructed window of space on the horizon for the sun to put on his show. In silence, I observed this awe-inspiring event as I took a personal inventory of myself, my life and my spiritual beliefs.

It was at this time that I thought to myself, this last 20 minutes was one of the most poignant moments in my life and it almost never happened. Voices in our life give us guidance, assistance and help us stay motivated and productive. However, if left unchecked these voices can strangle the pleasure out of our lives. We are constantly living in the future thinking about what needs to be done, how we achieve our goals, where we want to be in 5 years, and how great life will be once we get there. You could say that this is normal since we are humans and as humans dreaming is in our nature. However, are we dreaming so much that we have forgotten and completely overlooked the beauty, enjoyment and blessings of the present?

Enjoy the image, you can  click here to download the full 1920×1200 sized wallpaper.

Written by,

Pye Jirsa of Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers. Also, authors of Lin and Jirsa Blog

On a recent business trip to China, I was staying in the small factory town of LiaoBu near DongGuan in the Canton province. At the time I was working with a manufacturer designing several different photography related products. For a solid 5 hours I was couped up in a small conference room trying to create some sort of physical manifestation of the concept I had in my mind. With little luck, I began feeling a bit restless. So, like any photographer, I decided to take up my trusty 5D and go for a little walk despite the less than favorable weather.

Only a week prior to Chinese New Year, the typical crowded bustling streets of LiaoBu were starving for pedestrians as most of the towns inhabitants had already gone home for the holidays. However, to put it in proper perspective I should state that “starving” in terms of LiaoBu is much like the typical business day in Downtown Los Angeles in terms of the amount of pedestrians going about their business. After walking for about ten minutes, I came across a small street fair with several vendors. While some were peddling merchandise, others had setup amusement park-like games.

However, in the middle of it all, was Buddhist Monk sitting on a tattered blanket with all sorts of Buddhist trinkets, figurines and jewelry. The ubrupt shift from being “of the world” to “of the spiritual” was only enhanced as vendors surrounding the monk sold everything from black-market books and magazines to bootleg DVDs and software. I stopped to glance at what the monk was selling and within seconds, a crowd of locals had surrounded the empty monk’s display trying to ascertain what exactly had caught this “foreigner’s” interest.

While I stood there, I realized that more likely than not, this was not in fact a real Buddhist Monk. But, rather a “Professional Buddhist Monk” who made his living dressing and posing as a monk and selling his Buddhist merchandise. After briefly reveling at just how many ways there are to make a living, I quickly dismissed the thought and bought into his authentic display. I then told the man that I would be willing to purchase a bracelet if he would be willing to bless it. After all, good luck is good luck, even when it’s purchased ;)

Enjoy the image, you can click here to download the full 1920×1200 sized wallpaper.

Written by,

Pye Jirsa of Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers. Also, authors of Lin and Jirsa Blog