zhangling❤photography

Another summer has come and gone, too quickly as always! Seems like I just packed away my sweaters and pulled out my sundresses, and now it's already time to switcharoo right back. Still, I'm super grateful for all the adventures I got to squeeze into this short few months chasing sunshine and waterfalls. 1 of 2 of my fave shots 2 of 2  last few rays of sunshine on this family hike When I first started this blog 5 years ago, I had an early post with one of my first ever waterfall shots ( link here ) and where I talk about my struggles in shooting landscape photography. Reflecting back to those beginning days, I do feel like I've made some strides in my landscape photography in these few years. But something was off and I didn't immediately know what it was. I still gave it my all when taking these shots, but I knew it wasn't the same feeling as when I do a portrait or product or food shoot. I mulled it over the entire trip as we ...

Exciting news, everyone! Earlier this week marked the 5 year anniversary of my blog **hooraaay!** It also means I've been in Ottawa for almost just as long, as I moved to the capital a few short months afterwards. I've posted about my activities in Ottawa a couples times in the past but in this special "travel" post, I'll be sharing some newer photos as well as some others that I never got around to posting :) Starting off with some shots I took on a evening stroll by Dow's Lake. yes these are tulips!  Sometimes I genuinely forget how long I've been in Ottawa, notably whenever my Uber driver asks and I'm like, "oh I haven't been here that long, just since -- oh my god it's been like 5 years??" I was talking to my parents a few weeks ago and they asked if I plan on staying in Ottawa forever and if I think it's better than Toronto. And honestly, I get asked this question a lot . Everyone wants me to PICK...

April was a difficult month for both this year and last. Coming out of March being sick, feeling behind and scrambling trying to catch up and make up for lost time...struggling to get back in the groove of things, it just felt like there was never enough time to do it all. Even this blog post, in all its brevity, still didn't manage to make my self-imposed month-end deadline. boat at West Lake (西湖) Meanwhile, last year in 2018, following the events of my last blog post , I had just left my hometown Chongqing and Wuhan and was about to embark on the second half of my China trip. I was really excited because I was about to visit cities that I've never been before and cities in China have so much variability from one to the next, it was almost as if you were visiting a totally different country each time. Of course, nearly right off the bat, I got incredibly sick. So sick in fact, when I went to take a painkiller, I put the bottle of meds I brought with me down on the groun...

Due to unexpected delays, this post is actually more timely now than originally planned. On this date exactly one year ago, I had just finished my visit to my birth city and parental hometowns. The photos from my trip sat on my hard drive for a whole year until I started writing this post. Millennium Lucky Bell (千年吉祥钟) in Yellow Crane Tower Park (黄鹤楼公园) My initial reaction at first review of the photos was the familiar sigh and groan at the sheer volume. I try not to be too trigger-happy when shooting but it's easy to lose track in this digital era. I did a quick scan and filtered out the ones I liked most. However, on my second pass, I felt this sinking feeling in my chest. These were my first couple picks (that I still really like): Historic sites and an ancient village (古镇) But the sinking feeling was this weird sort of delayed shame. There were historic reenactors at one of the historic sites but all the photos I picked were of actual people going about their...