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Day 143

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Chinese cultural presentation

Chinese cultural presentation

This lady had really cool skills in a diabolo style instrument. She held two poles with a cord between that had a spinning top on it that made a dining noise. She span it round while spinning herself on the spot in a dance as attached to the top was also a yellow dragon that looked 3 or 4 metres long that flew around her in circles!

Day 134

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The blind receive sight, the lame walk...

The blind receive sight, the lame walk...

Seeing this empty wheelchair made me wonder if this 4th blood moon every six months was a sign after all. I'm always intrigued when I see wheel chairs or disability scooters parked outside of shops too. Did they really need them? Isn't carrying shopping even more difficult than just walking? Incidentally, I saw a man cycling on a racing bike as fast as the cars behind him. Normally nothing to get excited about... Except he had just one leg!! His left leg was just a metal prosthetic way up to his hip so wasn't doing much more than spinning round for show.

Day 130

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super moon

super moon

Last night was a super moon eclipse. I managed to see some of a partial eclipse but missed out on the full thing due to a niggly baby. I personally dislike the term super moon as it makes it sound massive.

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uncropped eclipse at 400mm on Canon 6D

uncropped eclipse at 400mm on Canon 6D

At best it is only 14% bigger which considering the size of the moon to the naked human eye doesn't mean an awful lot at all. Even the BBC was waxing on about how the moon is 2 or 3 times brighter. To a photographer, that just means one stop of light which isn't much in photo terms. The moon is always so much brighter than its surroundings that to get a photo of the moon at night with both the environment and moon well exposed you would need a camera with a massive dynamic range or some creative photoshopping (I suspect most moon photos tend towards the later).

This is a heavily cropped pic of the moon from last night taken with my 400mm lens while the moon was quite high at about 1am. To get great photos of the moon, you would need a 800mm lens or bigger. I got up at 6 this morning to get the moon on the horizon but the biggest issue with the photos I took was that the moon was not a nice circle. Being close to the horizon and probably with the earning morning air, the moon gets squashed into an ugly wobbly egg. So the next time you see a beautiful photo of the moon well exposed, near the horizon surrounded by picturesque scenery, be more than a little suspicious if the photographer claims it is not photoshopped.

super egg moon

super egg moon

Day 126

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Tai Chi cake

Tai Chi cake

On weekends, I spend a lot of time and energy practising Tai Chi and try to coach other practitioners the things I picked up in Japan from my teachers. It was one lady's birthday this weekend and as she is a very special person (I think she is over 85, but not sure of her exact age) she is always happy and smiling and lightens the mood whenever she is around, I decided to make her this cake!

Edit: it turns out she turned 90! I hope I have half of her energy when I am that age. Apart from tai chi, she paints, plays guitar and makes all kinds of art!