Category: Inspiration

What is inspiring to you about the future?

This week we took photos of food that we’ve been enjoying. Here are some of my favorite meals and snacks from this spring:

Normally college campuses are bustling with people in the spring who are soaking up the warmer weather. Current students are running around campus for class and prospective high schoolers are visiting and attending admitted student events. However this year, universities all across the country have been sending students home, and those that don’t leave stay quarantined in their dorms. All campuses are desolate.

Music is part of the soul, so this week I let it inspire the photography for my blog post. This photo was taken at a concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre and was one of the best value concerts that I have ever been to because the venue was so close by and we had bought our tickets months in advance. I went in with Photoshop to edit the sunset a bit and to add grain and color so the photo would look like it had been shot on film. Music is such an integral part of my life so I am extremely excited that I am able to share it visually on the blog.

For this week’s photo challenge, we took photos of what reminded us of work. I decided to take this prompt literally and took a photo of me in the shirt that I wear to work which has our the City of Mountain View’s logo on it. Since I work as am aquatics staff member, I wanted to do a clipping mask of another photo of the pool water that I took and overlay it with a blending mode filter so that the white lettering and logo on my shirt would be filled with pool water. However, I was unable to add that to this photo because Photoshop did not cooperate with me as I had wished.

During the football game, it began raining which didn’t at all dampen the mood. Even though it was raining pretty hard, the rain didn’t show up in any of my photos so I decided to go in with Photoshop to recreate the rain effect. I created a new layer and added a noise filter, which I then changed its blend mode to screen. I also added a motion blur filter so the rain wouldn’t look like little dots but more like rain falling down.

This Thanksgiving, I have reflected that I am grateful for so much. Friends, family, and the opportunities that I’ve been given solely because of the area that I have grown up in. However, I’d like to express my gratitude for nature in this post because I feel that Earth does not get enough credit for all that it provides for us humans. No matter what we do, nature is always there for us. It never fails us, no matter how many times we fail it. I appreciate the beautiful sunsets of California and the versatility of the planet which we live on. We can drive just one hour and get to the beach. An hour south and we can reach dormant volcanos. A few hours to the east brings us to the icy mountains which we can ski, snowboard, and sled on. I am grateful that I can always count on nature to calm my nerves and take a break. Thank you Earth!

I am inspired by those who gave up their lives protecting our nation in World War II and all other wars in which our involvement was necessary and sought out by other countries. Those who have served in times of crisis who are still here as veterans should be thanked and recognized more for their service. I took this photo at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno during Memorial Day.

Shoutout to APUSH and AP Gov for inspiring this post.

One of my worst habits is staying up really late until the sun comes up, or the opposite, falling asleep while doing homework. When this happens, I end up leaving the lights on the entire night (since I’m the night owl of the family) and I forget to put in my night contacts so I wake up the next morning in a horrible, blurry mood. It is a habit I am working to fix so I am not contributing so much to light pollution and wasting so much energy.