Chasing That Elusive Dream.

Nearly two months later, I'm finally posting again in my little, unloved and unread blog. Trying to enjoy my last summer to the fullest often involves trying to post in the blog as little as possible, because posting in the blog often means I'm bored or studying, the two last states of mind I want to be in during my last summer ever.

I went to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from the middle of June to the middle of July. Given this is supposed to be a photo blog, I think I should post at least one or two of the 3200 pictures I took there. There may or may not be pictures at the end of this post... I'm still trying to decide as I type this out. I will say that the trip was tiring, intense, and a great, great deal of fun. It was a trip I didn't think I would ever or will ever go on again, and it was one of those experiences I will not forget for the rest of my life. From riding bikes across Vietnam, to getting into a taxi gang fight, to waking up at 4am in Angkor Wat, and everything in between, SE Asia was gorgeous and exciting.

So, I want to talk briefly about the subject matter of the title of this post. In the past month or so, I've noticed this really crazy phenomenon. Almost every single one of my girl/friends has seemed to find their perfect dude, or found happiness in their relationships, or something of that sort. When dealing with girl/friends, I'm usually accustomed to balancing out one girl's drama with another girl's happiness, or one girl's totally nauseating happiness with another girl's unwavering bitterness. I've never had to deal with total happiness and content from multiple, or almost every, girl before concerning their relationships and can I just say that as happy as I am for each and every single one of them, as a single guy failing miserably at "the game," it's really, really annoying.

I don't want to sound bitter or catty or anything because it's not their fault. I'm pretty sure it's mine. My inability to be content in a relationship or have enough balls to chase something I think would make me happy is not their fault and probably the focus point of my frustration. And it only gets exacerbated, like salt in the wound, by this recent phenomenon of, well, of happiness.

I keep on telling myself I'm really happy being single because I like the freedom being single affords, but given the latest string of events I think it's because I don't know what being content in a relationship really means anymore. I can't really chase that elusive dream if I don't know what that dream is, I guess, and I'm just too lazy and too scared to find out. It can't be that hard... it seems like all of my girl/friends have found it (even if none of my guy friends have.. hm.)

While I was typing that, I've decided I will post a few of my favorite pictures from each country I went to. This is nearly impossible as I like a LOT of the pictures I took, but oh well, here we go. Just making sure this photo blog doesn't turn completely into an emo blog, or something!

-Riding our motorbikes from Hue to Hoi An. This isn't an especially awesome picture or anything (I didn't even take it, our bike tour guide took it, but he was surprisingly good at taking group photos for us every single time!) but it really reminds me of that epic bike ride and puts a smile on my face every time. This was the start of one of the most amazing roads I've ever driven on ever, a cliff-side winding road overlooking the blue, blue Vietnam ocean. Spectacular.

-The floating market on the Mykong River in South Vietnam. I really love the lighting and coloring of this picture, and the woman overlooking the transferring of the goods. I conjured up a set of new Lightroom presets for my SE Asia pictures and I was going for a bright, lomo-ish look on this one with a little hint of gritty blues in the boat.

-A nice relaxing day at the beach on Phu Quoc island, Vietnam. People often think this is an HDR, complain about how the colors of the sky and water look fake, etc. etc., but it's not. Clearly this picture has been edited to bump up the contrast among other things (I got a cool lighting effect on the back of the seats and stuff, pretty excited about that) but this photo has a LOT LESS post production work done on it than it looks.

-The world-famous Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Now this is an HDR, and I hate overblown HDRs so you'll never see me doing an HDR that just looks crazy. Just really wanted to use to HDR to bring out Angkor Wat especially with the sun rising directly behind it. Gave it some pretty cool coloring in the sky too. I have maybe 10 versions of this iconic picture but in my opinion this is the most ~standard~ and easy to understand.

-Apparently these monkeys had rabies. They were just chillin on the steps outside of Angkor Wat and I really love how the composition of this picture came out, with a little bit of bokeh'd Angkor Wat in the background to give some context to the picture.

-Kuangsi waterfall in Luang Prabang, Laos. It was bright and I have still yet to get myself a filter so I could only afford at 1/3 exposure time. Still, I got the smooth waterfall look I was going for. This waterfall is pretty breathtaking in real life, very very large and powerful. It was tough not getting my camera wet for this shot but with some imaginative shielding I got it done.

-View of the sunset over Luang Prabang, Laos. This is an HDR shot and I wanted to see how a black and white HDR would look, using the HDR solely for lighting. I think it came out pretty well, gives it a very mystical, ye-olde-time look to it.

-One more from the same location, different post processing. The normal HDR for those pining to see how the picture looks with color. Looks pretty good to me.

Two more weeks.

Until next time, zai jian!

-Justin.