Slowing down

Things have got marginally calmer though I still have work to do for Monday. I've been sitting in a cafe this afternoon doing some work and reading 'Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Braid' by Douglas Hofstatder, a wonderful book on mathematics, logic, information, music and art. Well worth a read if you're interested in the deep workings of logical systems but a fascinating read even if this has never grabbed you before.

I mentioned Nav, my couchsurfer in my previous post. It turns out that Nav is a rather fine photographer and he spent a good length of time on Thursday evening showing me the basics of using Photoshop, which I had never truly appreciated the power of. My own photography, in its limited capacity owes a lot to a friend and designer explaining a few simple rules. Nav explained a more extensive list of factors which go into making a fine photo. I can see that almost all of my photos fail on at least one of the six factors he mentioned (often more), meaning that very few of my photos are quite as good as I'd like. This is surely a matter of practice and with these new guidelines I look forward to seeing what I come up with.

Looking back through some of my photos I noticed this one, which I don't think I've posted before. Unfortunately, the close and blurry foreground detracts from the photo but I am pleased with the look in the child's eyes and the gesture. Yesterday I went for a cruise around the hutongs getting a few more local shots which still need to be seen to.