Home

Once or twice a year, I return "home" to join my family. What's a home? According to the Wikipedia, a home is "a place of residence or refuge...in which an individual or family can rest and store personal property" but may also refer to the "geographical area, whether...a suburb, town, city or country..in which a person grew up or feels they belong" or a "native habitat" of a wild animal. However, sometimes, there may be no physical location but is " a mental state or emotional refuge or comfort":  home is where the heart is. But there are cultures in which people may lack any permanent homes e.g. nomadic people. Usually, the sense of home " attenuates as one moves away from that point, but it does not do so
in a fixed or regular way." Home for some people is a place which triggers self-reflection: thoughts
about who one is or used to be or who one might become.

I do not consider myself a wild animal. I certainly have a place where I normally live. But it's in Hong Kong, where I grew up and feel I belong. My family live elsewhere: in a suburban town in America. To the extent that I move constantly between Hong Kong and America, I must be a "nomad". Do I do self-reflection? All the time! But not necessarily at "home". I can do so at my office, in a  restaurant, in the underground, a bus, a minibus, a taxi , a ferry, a plane or even whilst walking in the streets. Where do I get emotional refuge or comfort? Everywhere and nowhere! So where is home? It's so difficult for me to say. But I'll try. As in so many other cases, it'll probably make life much easier if I were to do so through some photographs.

To me, at least whilst my head and my heart are still fired by my recently contracted "fever" for photography, "home" may well be a place where I can play around with the  effects of light and shade on my digital camera without having to budge more than eight feet.

Whilst I was thus in my provisional American "home" and totally to my surprise, I got a fantastic opportunity to  witness the play of light upon the wall of my sitting room right before my very eyes as the sun rose every morning. The light in this case came through the window and the door to the verandah of my small apartment and depending upon the time of day, from slightly different angles.

The totally unrpedictable light would seem to have a will all its own. It would stream in and stage various light shows upon the wall next to my breakfast table and on the light colored floor carpet! As the sun rose higher or the light flickered through first the constantly changing shapes and thickness of the clouds, then the crevices between the tree leaves a little distance from our house and then through the tiny slits between the horizontal blades of the venetian blinds over the windows and finally the shapes of various objects inside my house in the  path of light between the windows and/or the verandah door and my breakfast table.   The shapes would then be blown up or distorted depending on the relevant angle at which the light streamed through the various intervening objects and the distance between the objects obstructing its passage and the make shift "screen" formed by the wall next to my breakfast table and some other walls in the sitting room.

Every morning, I couldn't wait for the show to begin, with my cheap digital camera resting on my breakfast table, permanently switched "on", to abide my chance to "capture" moments of such transient "miracles" of light before they vanished forever with the ticking of the seconds. But it was really fun.

Some of the patterns forming on the wall next to my breakfast table.

The shapes falling on the wall next to the my bedroom entrance from the light filtering  through and perhaps refracted or disfracted by the tiny crystals or air bubbles within the glass pane of the verandah door

The almost "magical" effect of the play of light upon the wall next to my breakfast table as it flickered through the tree leaves and then as refracted through the glass pane of the verandah door. They were constantly shifting from second to second. It was a real delight to watch the fascinating wave-like lines of light as if they were the aurora borealis around the earth's polar regions except that they were not tinted green and blue like as the polar lights. I could look at them forever.

The various patterns formed on the carpet from the play of light as it passed through the venetian blinds and then got obstructed by the curved back of a chair close to the window or the underside of our breakfast table.

The shadows formed on the carpet as light streamed through the the slit of verandah door and the edge of the curtain..

Another pattern formed by the light passing through the verandah door.

Isn't photography fun IF one is ready for it???!!!