things to do:

• print photos
• have them laminated
• or either send back home in Negros

i’m so proud of the Filipinos that have helped countless people here in Thailand. last Sunday, few of them were featured in some sort of ‘hall of fame’ at the Philippine embassy. our talented kababayans took time snapping their best shots on the first ever photo exhibition event during the Philippine Independence Day celebration, 15 June 2008.

fyi, this is my entry for wordless Wednesday.

Photo Assignment #3 for June

Wedding flowers garbing the wedding hall dates back to the ancient ages. The fragile softness of a flower is aptly compared with delicate beauty of a woman, which might be the basic reason for including flowers in a union of two hearts before God.

Wedding flowers are not only beautiful in aesthetic value, but are considered as the right tool to convey emotions and appreciation. A part of the important occasions in your life, they enhance your wedding, reception or party, adding charm and aroma to wonderful ceremony.

Certain flowers have special meanings and you might wish to include them in your bouquet, as a tender message to your loved one.

• Anemone
  Meaning: Expectation
  Best For: Bouquets and arrangements

• Baby’s Breath
  Meaning: Innocence
  Best For: Filler in bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres

• Calla Lily
  Meaning: Magnificent beauty
  Best For: Bouquets and arrangements

• Carnation
  Meaning: Pink represents boldness, red symbolizes love, and white indicates talent. Some other colors have negative connotations.
  Best For: Bouquets, boutonnieres, and arrangements

• Chrysanthemum (or mum)
  Meaning: Wealth, abundance, truth
  Best For: Bouquets and arrangements

• Daffodil
  Meaning: Regard
  Best For: Garden settings, in pots

• Daisy
  Meaning: Share your feelings
  Best For: Bouquets

• Delphinium
  Meaning: Swiftness, lightness
  Best For: Arrangements

• Freesia
  Meaning: Innocence
  Best For: Bouquets

• Gardenia
  Meaning: Purity, joy
  Best For: Bouquets and boutonnieres

• Hydrangea
  Meaning: Understanding
  Best For: Bouquets and arrangements

• Iris
  Meaning: A message of faith, wisdom
  Best For: In arrangements or potted

• Lilac
  Meaning: Love’s first emotions
  Best For: Filler in arrangements or as part of bouquets, depending on variety

• Lily
  Meaning: Majesty, truth, honor
  Best For: Bouquets and arrangements

• Lily of the Valley
  Meaning: Happiness
  Best For: Bouquets, in combination with other flowers

• Magnolia
  Meaning: Love of nature
  Best For: Arrangements

• Orchid
  Meaning: Love, beauty
  Best For: Bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres

• Peony
  Meaning: Bashfulness, the American spirit of ambition and determination
  Best For: Arrangements

• Rose
  Meaning: Love, joy, beauty
  Best For: Bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres, and arrangements

• Stephanotis
  Meaning: Marital happiness
  Best For: Bouquets and arrangements

• Stock
  Meaning: Lasting beauty
  Best For: Filler in arrangements

• Sunflower
  Meaning: Short-stemmed sunflowers mean adoration; long-stemmed sunflowers symbolize haughtiness
  Best For: Carrying a single stem down the aisle; potted arrangements

• Sweet Pea
  Meaning: Pleasure
  Best For: Garden setting, in vases

• Tulip
  Meaning: Love, passion
  Best For: Arrangements and bouquets

Beauty is the radiance of Being,
Opening a seam of inner sky.
Now we pause a moment beyond seeing,
Not at the heart of things but quite nearby,
In fields where all our deepest longings lie.
Each of us becomes a thing of beauty
As we are touched by love’s unearthly grace,
Not meaning to transcend our chosen duty,
Demanding nothing more than we embrace,
More lovely than our hands or eyes can trace.
As ordinary days are filled with music,
Rejoicing in the glory of a song,
Kind hearts can dwell in beauty if they choose it,
Unseen by those who anger and do wrong.
So may love bring you beauty all life long.

© Nicholas Gordon

*
Every wedding day, I’m reminded of Fr. Joe Maier’s words that all brides are blooming, being filled with joy and their beauty radiates to everybody.

*
Photo Assignment #2 for June
Theme: Bride
Title: Radiance of Being
Photo Taken: Holy Redeemer Church, Bangkok- 08.06.08

*
Thanks to A. Siroy for organizing our Creative Lens photo club assignments.

During the wedding rehearsal, the groom approached the minister with an unusual offer. I’ll give you $100 if you’ll change the wedding vows. When you get to me and the part where I’m to promise to ‘love, honor and obey and forsake all others,” I want you to just leave that part out.”

He passed the puzzled minister the cash and walked away satisfied.

On the wedding day, when the minister came to the groom’s vows, he looked the young man in the eye and said, “Will you promise to prostrate yourself before her, obey her every command and wish, serve her breakfast in bed every morning of your life and swear eternally before God and your lovely wife that you will not ever even look at another woman, as long as you both shall live?”

The groom gulped, looked around at the guests, and managed to answer, “I shall.” Then he leaned toward the minister and hissed, “I thought we had a deal!”

The minister slipped the $100 into his hand and whispered back, “She made me a much better offer.”

*
I tell you, my hands were shaking when I took this photo. My charm didn’t work well that day. Please bear with the artwork of an amateur paparazzi. =)

If I could spot another wedding, there’s a bigger chance that this photo will disappear.

*
Photo Assignment #1 for June
Theme: Bride and Groom
Title: Let’s Make A Deal
Photo taken: Holy Redeemer Church, Bangkok-08.06.08

*
Thanks to A. Siroy for organizing our Creativelens photo club assignments.

June Theme: Weddings

June 2: Bride and Groom or Man and Woman
(or anything that represents a couple).
June 9: Bride.
June 16: Wedding Paraphernalia.
June 23: Forever.
June 30: Self Portrait - You, in your favorite formal dress.

July Theme: Portraiture

July 7: Portrait of someone you love.
July 14: Portrait of an old person.
July 21: Portrait of a child.
July 28: Self-Portrait - Close up photo of you.

I submit to you that the so-called ‘brain drain’ is another term for recolonising Africa. How can one explain the hypocrisy by the West in hiring away our well-trained doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, and other workers who are much needed by poor African countries? Many of us make the painful decision to migrate to the so-called “greener pastures” in the West because we’re victims of gallons of rhetoric of how “green the other side is”. If only many of us knew better, we would have stayed home in Africa where we are really wanted and needed. Africans, especially those who are convinced that the West will one day suddenly solve all our woes, are own worst enemy.

Kuria Githiora, Kenya/USA
BBC News/World

***

Reading and watching documentaries about migrant workers have made me realize a lot of things. Every third world countries have its own versions of Diasporas. Either by economic, political crisis, etc. All driven with a hope of finding a ‘greener pasture’.

Here in Thailand for instance, almost everyday, a number of Filipinos enters the country as tourists. Others from as far as Mindanao were nicked of 35,000 pesos each or more with a sure shot promise of landing a teaching a job. It is not known to them that they will be left on their own to survive. Often, helpless individuals are seen at the prayer gatherings appealing for their desperate situation.

This entry does not intends to alarm you. Just want to vent out some untold issues of migrant workers with whom I got a chance to meet cheek to cheek. As May is the back to school season. Many are parading to vie for a single position available. (Speaking of 1:30 ratio/more.)

***
Photo Assignment #5 for Freezing Seasons
Title: Greener Pastures
Photo taken: AIT soccerfield
***
Many thanks to A. Siroy for organizing our photo club activity.
Other assignments could be viewed on CREATIVELENS.

]]> http://dviewfinder.com/2008/05/26/greener-pastures/feed/ http://dviewfinder.com/2008/05/19/extraordinary/ http://dviewfinder.com/2008/05/19/extraordinary/#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 04:16:32 +0000 aileen http://dviewfinder.com/?p=127

Here’s a little expression of how making a life means to me.

I found happiness that day with the company of the one I love. A nice conversation with my best buddy over a hot cup of coffee caramel and a sneak peek at some Thai photo mags made the day. It was unusual for us to do it as we both are not coffee lovers. Doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way.

***

This portrait was taken by T during one sunny afternoon here at the compound. Sorry the tripod couldn’t carry out my instruction as I normally take photos on Aperture setting. It needs somebody to press it halfway and more. Did I break the rules? Please advise. Thanks!

***

Photo Assignment #4 for Freezing Seasons
Title: Extraordinary
Photo taken: Hom Krun Coffee Shop -AIT
***
Many thanks to A. Siroy for organizing our photo club activity.
Other assignments could be viewed on CREATIVELENS.

It’s frustrating to read the news recently about the calamity that hit our neighboring country Myanmar. Not with the toll of cyclone victims that escalates every single day but with its country’s ingratiate response to aid and relief operations.

Notice the irony of freedom in comparison to my beloved country, the Philippines. Between people who have always been controlled/forced to keep silent and people who have all the rights to voice out their concerns. Bubble thought– “in excess/too much of anything could be dangerous.” Too much oppression or too much freedom.

So what can I do now? First, pray (for the victims of cyclone and recent earthquake in China and their leaders). Second, donate (in whatever means I can). Lastly, encourage others to do the same.
***
Photo Assignment #3 for Freezing Seasons
Theme: Season of giving
Title: Donate
Photo taken: AIT (relief operation organized by Burmese students)
***
Many thanks to A. Siroy for organizing our photo club activity.
Other assignments could be viewed on CREATIVELENS.

empty cicada nymph shell

What about cicada for freezing seasons? I’ve been tempted to feature this weird looking and high-pitched droning insects that echoes my coughing at night. It is getting the end of the summer season here in Thailand and our well-veined winged friends has finally come out of their shells. They normally have large eyes wide apart on the head. I mistakenly called them crickets before but later I found out that they’re not.

More information can be found in wikipedia, such as-

There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the globe, and many remain unclassified. Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates where they are among the most widely recognized of all insects, mainly due to their large size and remarkable acoustic talents. Cicadas are sometimes colloquially called “locusts”, although they are unrelated to true locusts, which are a kind of grasshopper. They are also known as “jar flies”. Cicadas are related to leafhoppers and spittlebugs.

Cicadas do not bite or sting, are benign to humans, and are not considered a pest. Many people around the world regularly eat cicadas: the female is prized as it is meatier. Cicadas have been (or are still) eaten in Ancient Greece, China, Malaysia, Burma, Latin America and the Congo. Cicadas are employed in the traditional medicines of China.

In Thailand a total of 152 species with 5 additional varieties and one undescribed species from 35 genera have been identified. Records for eight species are reported for the first time in addition to the first specimens of the genus Muda and fifteen new species adding to the diversity of the cicada fauna of Thailand. (The Cicadas of Thailand; Hemiptera:Cicadidae)

In relation to culture - Cicadas are commonly found in mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan. They had religious significance in ancient China, and symbolized reincarnation or immortality, as the Chinese compared the cicada’s periodic molting of its shell with a person’s leaving the physical body behind at the time of death. Bronze vessels as old as 1500 B.C. ornamented with cicadas have been found in Chinese tombs, along with white pottery and jewelry featuring cicada designs. During the Han dynasty (202 B.C. to A.D.) 220, the Chinese carved small cicadas out of precious jade and placed them in the mouths of the dead.

To enumerate some of its medicinal uses, it is used for treatment of fever and associated seizures; skin rashes; and such eye disorders as conjunctivitis, cataracts, and blurred vision. Also effective in relieving itchy rashes and eczema. Its special use is for the treatment of rashes or skin eruptions that occur in the early stages of measles or chicken pox. According to traditional Chinese medicine, the sooner the rashes appear, the shorter and less severe these diseases will be. Cicada is said to prevent or reduce muscle spasms by reducing the tension of the striated muscles.

Question- do people swallow them alive?
Answer- Cicada may be prepared as a decoction, which means that the insect shells are boiled down to a concentrated broth or tea to be taken internally. Other forms of cicada preparations include ground powder and water and alcohol extracts.

***
Photo Assignment #2 for Freezing Seasons
Theme: Insects in season
Title: Cicada
Photo taken: AIT (outside our home)

***
Many thanks to A. Siroy for organizing our photo club activity.
Other assignments could be viewed on CREATIVELENS.

For those of you who are also new to Still-Life Photography, it is basically making picture rather than taking them. To tell you a bit of story, I clipped the background cloth on our clothesline. Then I set up the table and cover it with white cloth. Next I laid out the fruits on top and started trying several shots as I was holding the lampshade on my left hand to position the correct shadow. With the use of a tripod, my right hand was busy focusing the small group of objects and clicking the shutter as soon as I find the right angle. Murag true. LOL. Plus the squatting position that made it more harder to manage. Everytime I loose balance a disaster always follows. Whew! Finally my homework is done.

***
Photo Assignment #1 for Freezing Seasons
Theme: Thai fruits in season
Title: Still-life with Fruits
Photo taken: at home

***
Many thanks to A. Siroy for organizing our photo club activity.
Other assignments could be viewed on CREATIVELENS.