Trip to Tuguegarao

As I plod along with language study day after day, it can often seem like there's not much to write home about. Typically, either nothing noteworthy happens... or everything happens all at once, and then I have no time for writing about it! 

I had thought that uploading some pictures from time to time would be a good, less time-consuming alternative... but then my camera died. :-( 

Well, finally, after about nine camera-less months, I bought a new camera - so now it's time to revive this poor, neglected blog of mine!

I spent most of this past week up in Tuguegarao (Northern Luzon), accompanied, of course, by my new camera, so here are a few pictures from my trip...

My missionary friends in Tuguegarao took me around to all their favourite places

This Aussie girl sure enjoyed the open spaces!

We spent one morning at a beautiful river (kind of) nearby. This was our swimming spot.

After driving to the river, we took this boat to our swimming spot.

The water turned different shades of blue or green in different places. It was incredibly clear.

I found the blue sections particularly fascinating. (If anyone knows why the water is this colour, I'd love to hear an explanation!)

There were lots of cool roots along the river banks.

My Favourite Things: Photography

I absolutely love good photographs. I don’t have anything against artwork and do appreciate certain styles of painting (although my sister tells me I have boring tastes in art), but I’m not sure that I could ever spare the wall space for such things. I always have too many photos to hang and not enough wall to hang them on.

I have loved taking photos ever since I was old enough to use a camera. If I remember rightly, my first camera cost me $3, which was about the same as what one roll of film cost back then. Amazingly, it actually worked! I have recently been asked by several different people to take pictures for them, so I guess my love of photography must be pretty obvious.

To me, photography is a form of art – and it’s one form of art that I can actually succeed at because it doesn’t require me to create beauty, but rather to recognize it and capture it. Of course, a good photo does often start with being in the right place at the right time. It’s a whole lot easier to take a beautiful picture when you have beautiful subject matter!

Exactly a year ago today, a friend and I got to visit Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge (Oregon). My verdict: a classic case of “right place and right time”! :-) It was absolutely beautiful. I wish we could have stayed and camped there or something. And made all the other people go away. Haha. This my favourite of the pictures I took that day:

It’s probably also part of my (rather large and not clearly defined) collection of all-time favourites, although it unfortunately lacks the sharp focus and crystal clarity that a better camera would have been able to achieve.

Perhaps one day I will be able to buy a digital SLR camera. It’s certainly on my wishlist. There are times when I don’t even bother trying to capture the shots I can see in front of me because I know I will just end up frustrated by the limitations of my camera. 

But I shan’t complain. My current camera takes great pictures for a point-and-shoot, and it’s far superior to my previous one which I lost while riding down a mountain on the roof of a car. Lol. I was rather sad to lose all the pictures on it, but it gave me a legitimate reason to buy a better camera. And at least it was a good story! :-)