Ferris Wheel in the Park

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Tuesday, June 19, 2007 0 comments

HuangPu River at Night 2

At night, along the HuangPu river one looks over at the base of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower base from the Bund.

This image is the second in a series; the first can be viewed in my previous posting: HuangPu River at Night.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Monday, June 18, 2007 1 comments

HuangPu River at Night

The HuangPu River at night: looking at the base of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower on the PuDong side across the HuangPu river from the Bund.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Friday, June 15, 2007 1 comments

Another Photo Challenge

The image below is my submission for one of those themed photo challenges. A themed photo challenge involves coming up with a word and then people go around snapping pics they perceive the word to be about... example, the image below could be used with the theme: crowd.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Thursday, June 14, 2007 0 comments

Souvenirs 2

More souvenirs available at Yu Yuan Gardens here in Shanghai as can be seen in the above image... if this isn't enough variety you can check out some more in my earlier Souvenirs posting.

Some of these head carvings/masks would make for some interesting ornaments in your front doorway... people would get an immediate sense that they were being watched as they entered your place. And they would get a feeling that they were given a royal send-off when they left your place with all the heads gazing.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Thursday, June 14, 2007 0 comments

Tiger in the Midst

At the Shanghai Zoo last year I was able to use my, at the time, new zoom lens to take some close-up photos of the tigers (and other animals). Luckily I had my big zoom lens with me, as it would have been difficult to get such a close range shot of the tiger without actually being so close.

For this image I did the following steps in Photoshop:
- sharpened the image
- applied a levels layer
- applied a curves layer to add contrast
- applied another curves layer to lighten overall image
- transformed with an artistic filter (palette knife)
- and placed a spattered paint look frame over top

For those wanting to use it for their computer desktop wallpaper, I've included a PNG version with the border/frame being transparent:

PNG version,
GIF version

Update: added GIF version

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Tuesday, June 12, 2007 0 comments

Souvenirs

If you happen to be in Yu Yuan Gardens here in Shanghai, you could pick yourself up some interesting souvenirs (see image below):



The giant spider looks particularly interesting, as well as the other smaller bugs/insects.

If you have a penchant for doing some Chinese calligraphy, then you might certainly entertain the possibility for buying one of those over-sized calligraphy brushes to create some scripts with real impact.

Another sight you may happen to come across was already shown in one of my previous posts: Xian Nu Er

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Monday, June 11, 2007 0 comments

Xian Nu Er

Took this photo at Yu Yuan Gardens here in Shanghai (May 2006). I think I should take another trip there some time in the early evening - you can see at the base of the statue there are faucet nozzles for water sprays. I think there might also be some colourful lights on too when the water comes on.

I used a radial blur (zoom) effect to make the radiating light from the statue. As well, I under exposed the window areas in the background... perhaps I over did it as it now seems to be too dark - I did it because there were people in the scene that make it somewhat distracting from the statue.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Sunday, June 10, 2007 0 comments

Mendenhall Glacier

Continuing with another panoramic photo, here's one of the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska. If you have been following my posts, my earlier blog posting titled "Pond reflection" had a photo of a pond in the same area that I took this panoramic snapshot.

If was grey and cloudy most of the day but when I got to the glacier, the sun started to peak out a bit.

You can see in the background the glacier... I really don't know why there's a funky blue colour there - my guess would be that there's some mineral deposit in the ice that causes it to be this colour. If anyone knows the reason why or would like to offer up a suggestion, please post your comments, thanks.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Saturday, June 09, 2007 0 comments

Centre Island Bridge

While I snapped the panoramic lake front view of Toronto's skyline from Centre Island (see my previous post: Toronto Postcard), I also took in other sights on the Island and snapped this one of a bridge. [I think it's rather incredible that we have the capability to build bridges.]



If you get a chance to go to Toronto, I highly recommend a visit to Centre Island. There is a ferry that takes you to and from the Island... I believe the last ferry leaving from the Island on most nights is 11:00pm.

Here are some activity ideas to do on the Island:
- biking; you can bring your own, or you can rent from a rental place there; they have a 4-seater that resembles a carriage
- rollerblading
- picnic
- swimming / tanning / whatever at the beach; there are a couple beaches there
- paddle boats (rentals)
- going for a stroll
- drawing

You can combine several activities too if you plan on spending the entire day there.

The admission price is basically the ferry ride.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Saturday, June 09, 2007 0 comments

Toronto postcard

In May of 2006, I took a series of photos of Toronto's lake front view from Centre Island.

I've "stitched" them together to create a panoramic image... and the result is shown below - looks like a postcard wouldn't you agree?



Note: Click on the image to see the full size view. You're welcomed to use it as your computer's desktop wallpaper.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Friday, June 08, 2007 64 comments

Patchwork

A stone walkway that can be found in the place where I'm currently residing.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Thursday, June 07, 2007 2 comments

Pond reflection

This photo was taken on my 2005 Alaskan cruise. I can't recall the name of the place now - I'll have to look it up again.

The clear, calm water in the pond made for a really amazing natural mirror.

UPDATE: The place where I took this pond reflection was at the Mendenhall Glacier area.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Wednesday, June 06, 2007 1 comments

Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower

From the Shanghai Tour website on the Oriental Peal TV Tower:

Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower was completed on Oct. 1, 1994. It is 468 m high, being the highest in Asia and the third highest in the world, only next the TV towers in Toronto in Canada and Moscow in Russia. It stands opposite to the bund on the west bank.. The architectural modeling of the tower is unique, expressing the flavor of oriental culture. The structure of the tower consists of 11 spheres, different in sizes and arranged at different levels, hanging from the sky down to the green lawns. It expresses the artistic concept of “pearls, big and small, dropping on a jade plate”. The body of the tower is formed of two huge glittering spheres and one small delicate sphere; the sightseeing level in the upper sphere is 45 m in circumference, 263 m high, offering a bird’s-eye view of the city. In the upper sphere at the 267-m level, there is a revolving restaurant, with one revolution every hour, a disco ball, a piano accompanied bar and at the 271-m level there are 20 KTV private rooms. The space cabin is at a level of 350 m, containing a sightseeing terrace, a meeting hall and a coffee room. Hotel in the Air is in the five smaller sphere with 20 guest rooms. The lower sphere contains a space city. There is a science fiction city inside the tower pedestal. The Oriental Pearl TV Tower combines sightseeing, catering, shopping, recreation, accommodation, broadcasting and TV transmission into one body. It has become a symbolic architecture and a favorable spot for tourists in Shanghai.

Here is a silhouetted photo I took of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower last year:



In my recollection of that time, the sky indeed did have a very nice tinge of orange-red as the sun was setting; however, the original photo didn't quite capture that rich colour, but luckily with some Photoshop help I'm able to add back that richness.

And here is the "original" the above image is based off from. Note: I sharpened the image and adjusted the levels of this original - so not so original original:

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Monday, June 04, 2007 0 comments

Making Money Online

I've started to think about how to earn some extra side money from my time surfing the Internet. I've done some research into this area and online advertising and affiliate programs look promising. Although I don't expect these activities to become my primary means of income, I hope that it will at least provide me with some extra spending money - either to save for a rainy day or perhaps to help obtain a better camera for my hobby in photography.

I've signed up with Google's AdSense program. How does this program work? Basically, Google places ads on your website and will pay you per click of an advertiser that gets shown on your web page or per thousands of views of an ad.

You can see my participation with this program in action right on my Journey of the Mind blog. You will notice on the side a label that reads "Ads by Google". These are the ads that are provided from Google that is displayed on my page.

So, now when someone clicks on one of the ads I will get paid. The amount of money varies, and depends on how much the advertiser is willing to pay.

You may track your earnings via Google's AdSense website.

I will now share with you a "secret" to achieving a successful return from Google's AdSense program.

The easier way to make the money from Google's AdSense program is of course via clicks on the advertiser. However, the other method that also is available is by ad views (per thousand). The secret, which is really no secret at all is to make as many webpages on the same topic.

How will that help? Well, for one thing you can place the same Google Ads code into your other websites/pages. For example, I have another site here that uses the same Google Ads code: DigitalElement. Since they all refer to the same source/beneficiary (that is, me in this case), the views are accumulative and getting the 1000 views suddenly becomes within reach.

So, a single page may only contribute a small amount of views but if you have many single pages then together they amount to a larger number views... as you can see, this really is no secret, but it does require some effort.

Comments are always welcomed.

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Saturday, June 02, 2007 0 comments