The story of August

Seaglass multies that looked like colorfully dressed people here, flocking towards a majestic castle in the distance! This picture of 'seaglass pilgrimage' was in my mind for weeks before it was finally put into reality. In crowded Hong Kong, it was never easy to find a deserted beach in the middle of summer - unless early in the morning. So I was there before sunrise. When I've finished making the sand castle setting up the seaglass, people just started arriving.

I sprayed the seaglass to make their colors more vivid. Then I lied flat on my stomach, assumed the crab's eye view, which I think is the best angle for capturing seaglass's beauty.

 

But things never went that smoothly! Though it was just morning, the sun was already fiery hot. The seaglass quickly dried up, their colors dulled. I got up, sprayed, went back to my spot on the ground just to discover some seaglass 'people' has been knocked down. I got up, helped the seaglass on their feet, sprayed and back to shooting. My routine for the next half hour was - get up, replace seaglass, spray, lie down, shoot. Finally there were so many people around, amused and wondered what this frentic woman was doing, taking up precious sun-tanning ground. I just had to leave. So I calmly gathered up my seaglass treasures and spray bottle, leaving the sand castle to the delighted kids.

On my way back, I met a crab. It was stunned by my huge presence, and played dead in its track. In slow motion, I knelt down, offered it my best piece of red and clicked away. A few moments later, it gathered up courage and scurried off. It was so sweet of him to pose especially for me!

The story of July

This is my all time favorite photo, I hope it'll be yours too!
Last August, I took a day off from work with the sole purpose of doing some seaglass photography at my favorite beach. I had hoped for a sunny day, but woke up to grey skies. I had second thoughts about doing indoors photography instead, but went out anyway.
When I arrived at the beach, the tide was high and still rising, waves were crashing and clouds were heavy with rain. As the waves started to engulf the wooden planks that I've set my props, I realized they would make a more dynamic background!
Right after this picture was shot, one of the multies started rolling away, but I managed to snatched it back!

The story of June

 

It's easy to understand the message of this photo - contrasting rainbow with a black and white rainy background - 'sadness will be over, there's always better days ahead'. This belief kept me going during some of the worst days of my life.

In the photo, there's four interwoven layers, each representing different moments I've experienced.  A rainbow of seaglass in the top layer,  a melancholic black & white photo in the middle layer, and a black mirror surface with reflections of trees in the bottom layer. The fourth layer - raindrops - interconnected all the other layers.

The B&W photo was taken on the way to visit my mother in the hospital, where I stayed 8 hours everyday for weeks. It was the coldest winter month, the snow and leafless trees made me feel even more lonely and helpless.

She didn't make it.

Months after, I was still overwhelmed with guilt, sadness and tears. I represented these emotions by the black mirror, shady branches and raindrops.

Seaglass. These priceless gems were once broken shards, polished by time and tide. I too will be stronger and better with every hardship I went through.