Two Little Bears in Acrylics

One of my Two Little Bears series.
I like to use watercolors for an easy sketch, but for a change, I used Acrylics on this one.

The door behind two teddy bears is a door to the restaurant I saw in France. The flowers were beautifully curved in wood, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I cannot recall the name of the town. It might have been Collioure.

By the way, greeting cards with this picture are available here :-)

Two Teddy Bears Created A Blog

"Afternoon Stroll"

Just a note to let you know that my two little Teddy Bears decided to have their own blog...
You can have a look at the blog "Two Little Bears" by clicking here.

Teddy Bears' Asparagus Hunting

"Asparagus Hunting"

One afternoon, I decided to take my teddy bears out for photographing. I couldn't get inspired most of the way, then I came across this olive grove where so many different kind of wildflowers were flowering. First I took their photos against an old olive tree, but it wasn't interesting at all. So I gathered some wild asparagus growing nearby, and let Teddy to carry them.

Processing the photo on my computer later, I wondered whether I should have let Pencil (the little red teddy bear) to hold one end of asparagus and Teddy (the brown bigger bear) to hold the other end... It might have been better.

Well, it's a bit too late now.

TrekLens New Widget!

See more photos: Teddy and Pencil on TrekLens

The photo sharing site "TrekLens" - I suppose, TrekEarth and TrekNature as well - created a really nice slideshow widget. The above is the one. These photos are posted on my "Theme" on http://www.treklens.com/. Anybody who is a member of this site can use this widget, so if you are a photographer or enjoy photography, why not to try this feature? I think this is fantastic way to share photos.

P.S. - I found that sometimes this widget get stuck...
If you can't see anything above, go to http://www.treklens.com/slideshow.php?thid=1695 and take a look ;-)

One Last Look

"One Last Look"

At St. Julian, Malta

On the last day of our holiday in Malta, I decided to go out by myself to spend some time taking photos around the bay.

Warm afternoon sun, colorful boats and buildings, the place was so cheerful and vibrant.

This was my first visit to Malta, but while I was walking around its back streets and docksides, somewhat I started feeling nostalgic about this place. Hence, this photo was taken.

It was originally in color, but I decided to turn it into B&W to enhance the feeling of nostalgia.

Do you still use your film cameras?

"A Long Way Home"
This photo was taken in a small town of Desvres in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.
This railway wasn't in use (I think...), so these bears (and me) were pretty safe.

I wonder how many people still use film cameras rather than digital ones these days. I still have my SLR - Pentax MZ-3 - in my camera box, but I rarely use it now. I would never get rid of it - there are too many memories attached to it - but in reality, would I ever use it as much as I used to? Sadly, I don't think so...

You folks, what happened to your film cameras? Have you still got it? Do you still use it?

Me, Travel and Teddy Bears

"Somewhere Beyond The Sea"
At the beach of Ault, France. At the time I took this photo, we were in very unstable situation. We had left Japan, gone to England and then Spain, left both places with crushed dreams, ended up in France while we were feeling so unsure about our future...

I started taking these Teddy Bear photos in Autumn, 2002.

About the time we decided to leave Japan, I suddenly realized that even though I had taken so many photographs over the years, there weren't many "personal" ones. What I mean is that there were so many photos of scenery, flowers, animals, etc. which could be somebody else's, but there weren't many noticeably "me" kind of photos...

As I always loved Teddy Bears and enjoyed making them, quite naturally I was drawn to take photos of these lovely cuddly toys. First, it was any Teddy Bears, but eventually, it settled down with these two bears in the above photo. I started taking these bears everywhere looking for some photo opportunities.

My travel photos used to be just photos of famous places and pretty sceneries, but since I started taking photos of those places with these Teddy Bears, somehow they became more personal and, to some extent, emotional. So far, these bears traveled to many countries including France, UK, Spain, Middle East, Mediterranean islands and etc., and from a desert to a mountain top.

Am I going to continue taking their photos? Definitely. Am I going to take them to every country I would visit in the future? Certainly. Though these little bears created a little problem. Now they became so important for me that I cannot pack them in my suitcase anymore. What would happen if the suitcase get lost? Now I have to carry cameras and Teddy Bears in my carry-on bag.....