Deer Creek Lake: Winter

Well, you gotta love Utah for its beautiful landscape. I don't know what I would do over here without the mountains!!! These were taken at the Deer Creek Lake in Utah. It was a beautiful day! Enjoy!!

San Fran to Vegas Continued

Here are some more photos from my San Fran and Vegas Trip!

San Francisco to Las Vegas

So, I had to go to San Fran to take care of some business and took this opportunity to take time to take some photos. After San Fran, I headed down to Las Vegas to meet some family members for Christmas. So in 3 days, I drove 1400 miles, with 800 exposures, and here are some samples from the trip.
For more pictures besides the ones displayed below, please visit http://photo.net/photos/junsong

Golden Gate Bridge from Baker Beach
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The only photo I was able to take on Baker Beach after dark before I got kicked off by the ranger
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Houses are soo beautiful in San Fran!!! I want one!
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Paris, France?? Not, viva Las Vegas!! I think the Eiffel tower looks better in Vegas than in France

Fashion Photography 101

So my friend asked me to take some fashion photos for him for his portfolio so I gave it a go for the first time. Although I lacked some camera equipments to shoot fashion, I thought it went pretty well. All the photos were taken at the Joseph Fielding Smith Building at Brigham Young University. The models are: Courtney, Neil, and Andre. Enjoy!!

Visit http://photo.net/photos/junsong for more fashion photos!

More Passion: Classical Guitar II

Journey to Passion

I started playing the classical guitar when I was 14. The reason why I decided to learn the classical guitar is a long story, but I somehow managed to take lessons for 4 years straight. Once I reached my final years in high school, due to having too much fun, I became lazy with practicing and eventually ended my lessons. Then went off to college and then LDS mission, so for several years I really didn't practice like I should have and lost some skills.

Interesting part of this is that all those years, I never really had the love or the passion for playing the classical guitar. I enjoyed it, but never would have called it my favorite thing to do. I began to realize how much I enjoyed and loved playing the guitar when I went off to England to serve my LDS mission for two years and lost my privilege to play the guitar. Its funny how people don't understand what and how much they have until they lose it. So this is what happened. I begun my journey of passion for classical guitars.

My passion for classical guitar was aroused when I couldn't have the pleasure of plucking a sweet melody of my guitar. Hence, when I returned back, I spent a lot of time and money searching for that perfect guitar for me, and once I did, I finally found my passion.

So why the Passion??
One might ask such question and there really isn't a straight answer. Having the ability to produce a sweet melody with your own fingers such as Carlos Domenicone's Koyunbaba is very gratifying experience. Playing or listening to a classical guitar music uplifts me and makes me want to be a better person (not that many things in the world can). So in summary, classical guitar is like photography for me. It is something that captures beauty that cannot be explained by words.

Check my videos at:

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJYZvdlpcz8
2) http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=503949805&
s=30&hash=e1a8d9306f36465e12491ff89185179a#/video/video.php?v=2394299805

More Passion: Classical Guitar I

So, I just realized that I've titled my blog as Jun's Love & Life, which was meant to portray my love and passion in life, but I've only been posting my passion for Photography. So I've decided to blog about my love for music, specifically classical guitar.

First, what makes someone a guitar player?
Guitar is such a commonly played instrument. Everyone from teenagers who wants to be the next Kurt Cobain, to grownups hoping to woo the girl they are deeply in love with by playing the Delilah song . But there are people who play the guitar out of pure musical appreciation, and I would say that there are two main types of guitarists that fall into this category. One is the Jazz guitar player and second is the Classical guitarist. So in this blog, I'm going to talk about the latter type of guitar.

Second: What is a classical guitar?
Classical guitars are commonly known as nylon string, Spanish, or flamenco guitars. Nylon string is probably the easiest distinguishing characteristics that people can recognize about a classical guitar. The nylon string produces much lower tension and enables to produce much smoother and softer sounds than a steel sting guitar. Also, classical guitars have a slightly smaller body than a regular acoustic guitar and have less frets.

Third: How it classical guitar played?
Classical guitar is played very differently than a ordinary acoustic guitar. Instead of using a finger or a pick to strum and pick, in classical guitar, the 4 fingers of the dominant hand is used to pluck the individual strings. The index, middle and the ring finger are almost always used only for plucking the top 3 strings. Then the thumb is responsible for plucking the last 3 base strings. Also, all the plucking is done through the nail of the fingers, hence, classical guitarist keep a very well kept long nails, which are all individually shaped for the plucking of the string.

Fourth: What kind of music does it play?
Classical music can be very versatile, it can range from traditional classical music, to Spanish flamenco, to jazz and soft pop or rock music.

Here are some of my favorite Classical guitar composers and their music:
1) Recuerdos de Alhambra, by Francisco Tarrega
2) Asturias, by Isaak Albeniz
3) Koyunbaba, by Carlo Domeniconi

So hope that's enough for now and I'll be posting more on my passion for classical guitar on "More Passion: Classical Guitar II"

Love of Photography: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

People say that a picture is worth a thousand words and many reasons can be attributed to it. My love of photography can be explained by this proverb. Photography is a tool that enables us to capture the beauty that is in the eye of a beholder. It enables us to freeze and keep to ourselves the beauty that God has created all around us. Unfortunately, not every beauty that we observe can be capture by photography, but at the same time, photography enables us to capture beauty that our naked eyes cannot observe.

Beauty is what translates a picture into a thousand words. Often times, people ignorantly perceive beauty as only that which we are attracted to, but beauty lies in everything that arouses our emotion. Just like a movie, a play or music can, a picture has the ability to arouse our senses of fear, joy, love, uncertainty, curiosity and more. These emotions are what “a thousand word” is; because emotion is a language that cannot be portrayed simply in few words.

My love of photography is tremendously influenced by this ability to capture that “thousand words” or emotion into a single frame, and share it with others. Having the ability to allow God’s beauty to be seen by others is a highly self-fulfilling experience. I hope through this you have been able to better understand what photography means to me and the beauty that it holds.

Hope you enjoy my photos below and all that's yet to come.

Love,

Jun

More Utah Autumn: Deer Creek Rservior & BYU

click on the image to view larger size :)

Utah's Autumn 2008

Well Utah being a desert, it obviously doesn't have too much green, and since there aren't the Autumn here isn't soo pretty. But there are places that does get pretty nice, such as the Provo Canyon. So I managed to capture some beauty that exists.

Hawaii 27 September - 2 October

So, just came back from Hawaii for my sister's wedding. She got married there and that allowed me to take advantage of our trip for some great photo shoots. Obviously, Hawaii is a beautiful place and had some opportunity to take some beautiful photos.

My Sister in from of the China Man's Hat Island
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A girl cliff jumping at Waimea Beach
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Line of coconut trees in from the the China Man's Hat Island

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UVF Boating with a Billionaire- 6 Aug 2008

So, pretty sweet day. I’m doing an internship with a venture capital fund called University Venture Fund (UVF) and Jim Sorenson (the richest family in the state of Utah) is one of the Board members of our fund. As an office retreat he took us out boating at Echo Lake for the whole day.

Pretty sweet experience, you don’t get many chances to just go chill with a billionaire in your lifetime! Anyway, this was my second time wake boarding and it was fun, we had some good guys and not so good guys at wake boarding, but overall it was a sweet experience.

Jake doing his thing
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Jim Sorenson and Jake in the background
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Brennen doing his thing
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Me, trying to do my think!! LOL
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Us, chilling on the boat