I've been learning a little bit about photography from the roomie these days. While I'm a far cry from those shutterbugs who lie down in the middle of the road to get the perfect vantage point, at least I can boast that words like aperture, exposure and shutter speed are no longer foreign to me. I also no longer get laughed at by my father for buying an advanced compact camera and then using nothing but the Auto mode.

But it still seems inadequate. Perhaps there's more for me to learn, perhaps I need a better camera, perhaps technology has not advanced to that stage, but the pictures taken are always a pathetic testament to the sight before my eyes. The sunset today was a glorious affair. The world was bathed in a brilliant hue of gold and orange, and I felt like I was looking at the world from inside a transparent orange juice bottle. Eager to apply my newly acquired knowledge, I brought out my camera and started taking pictures. I tried almost every combination of aperture, shutter speed and exposure from various angles, but not a single picture could capture the glory of the sun as it drew the day to a close. By the time I properly looked up at the sky again, I realised that the sky was turning dark, and I had missed the sunset.

I think I blogged a similar entry before, about fireworks. But it's true. How often do we overlook the beauty that lies before us, only because we had our heads buried in something else? Look up every now and then, and I guarantee you'll be pleasantly surprised that there is some good left in this world. But if you're anything like me, look up too much, and you find that you've only solved one trajectory question the whole day.